PART V

CULTIVATE YOUR IDENTITY

If you really have your own identity you'll keep on doing what
you think is really right for you, and you'll also understand the
next step you want to take.

- Helmut Lang
Chapter 5: Cultivate Your Identity

The little things that your team members do to express their shared identity will bring them
together even as the community grows. If members see their involvement in your community as
an important part of who they are, they may want to project their pride to the world. Pride is a
captivating energy. So be a steward of the visuals, rituals and language that your people will use
to shape their collective identity.

Example:
Fans Of Portland thorns, an American professional women's soccer team based in Portland,
Oregon call themselves ‘Riveters’. They are easy to spot in their red gear. In each game they
stand in the north end section of Providence Park. The riveters coordinated chants can be heard
blocks away from the stadium. Additionally, they raise banners, drum, waive flags and blow red
smoke in the air. The aim of these actions/practices is to show their passion for the women’s
soccer team.

The Riverter’s sincere passion comes through in everything they create. Their commitment to
crafting creative, thoughtful expressions of a shared identity strengthens the bonds between
fans, which keeps people coming back to games. It also draws in new supporters. If a member
sees their involvement in our community as important of who they are, they may want to project
their pride into the world. Pride is a captivating energy. So be a steward of the visuals, and
language that your people will use to shape their collective identity.

The steps to cultivating the identity of your team/community

1) Give people badges

Badges act as a token of appreciation and acknowledgement. While the little things/
team practices bring the team together, badges act as a powerful sign of individual
importance and a symbol of being part of the same team. Badges should have some
uniformity across the board like all 7 Cups badges should have something in common
however they can differ on team level like group support badges may differ from
sub-community badges.

Example:
Ralpha is a sleek, premium cycling clothing company based in London. Worldwide, over 13500
Ralpha superfans pay dues every year to join the formal Ralpha Cycling Club(RCC). RCC
members go on rides and share free coffees in Ralpha stores. They all rok RCC gear. These
badges allow the members to differentiate themselves from the crowd as a certain kind of
cyclist. Ralpha customises even the smallest aspect of club gear by city. From bicycle stem
caps personalized with member IDs to elaborate welcome packages, the organization shows
attention to detail, making badges that are both unique and unified. These localized details
create a community within a community. An RCC member says that ‘RCC global is one thing,
but when you see the RCC badge of your city on a rider across the globe, its near mandatory to
strike up a conversation’.

The badges allow members to identify and bond with each other. As your own group grows, you
may want to consider localizing certain badges to help foster recognition and intimacy between
individuals.

Allow new badges to emerge and don’t be afraid to experiment with different concepts of what a
badge can be. Celebrate the self-expression of your members and encourage them to make
their own badges. Whether those badges are physical or digital, the tools for customization are
more accessible than ever. Authentic, shared ownership of the group’s identity only fuels a
community fire.

2) Codify signature rituals

‘When you practice a ritual that others have practiced before you or that others
are practicing at the same time as you, the actions make you feel connected to
them. It takes you out of yourself and makes you part of a larger whole.’

A ritual specific to your team will allow new team members to connect with the existing team and
promote a stronger bond between the team members. It will help your community/team stick
together as it evolves.

Example:
Cleveland Cavaliers, an American professional basketball team, have created a signature ritual
in the form of a signature handshake. Each of the basketball team’s 15 players developed a
unique, elaborately choreographed handshake to perform with one another. Cav’s guard
sparked the tradition, he said there is a story behind each handshake, each one
compliments/nods to the player’s personal style on the court, their unique sidelines, or
something they used to do back home.

Set an intention and develop rituals with your group’s key moments in mind. You don’t have to
create a new ritual from scratch, observe the idiosyncratics that people are already repeating
and go from there. Questions to ask yourself:

● How do we make people feel connected and energized when we get together?
● Can we help reflect on what we have accomplished at the end of the day?
 3) Develop a shared language

Another way people bond over their shared identity is by creating language unique to
their community. The idea is to not to create an entire language of your own but to use
some words unique to your team/community. Vocabulary that can be used to identify
your team/community.You can start with coming up with a demonym (A demonym is a
word used to describe someone from a certain place. For example, people from
California call themselves Californians. Communities have demonyms too.

Example:
Just when Nicki Minaj was new to the music industry, she came up with a demonym for her
biggest fans: Barbz or barbies. As her career grew, so did the barbz community. As noted in the
New Yorker, Minaj has become one of the most celebrated rappers of her generation and all
along she stayed in touch with her fans by retweeting their tweets, messaging them, joking
around with them and surveying them with their desires and preferences. By identifying
themselves as barbz, it is easier for the star’s fan base to spot each other online, the main place
where they gather.

➔ What will your community members call themselves?

Review

Not every cyclist wants to look like an RCC member. Not every casual star trek fan is prepared
to learn klingon. But for some members, badges, rituals, and language are compelling ways to
communicate their community affiliated identity. When combined with your push to attract new
folks, these signature expressions of identity will help the people who jibe with the culture of
your community stick together, forming stronger bonds between members. Those bonds lay the
groundwork for even more ambitious ways of working together down the line.

Passionate members will likely want to project their community identity to the world. These
signature expressions encourage stronger bonds between members. To cultivate them, answer
the following questions.

Key questions to ask yourself:

● What badges are we promoting?

The badges which members use to telegraph their affiliation with your community will
vary.

● What rituals/practices are we elevating?

Repeat actions like the Cav’s signature handshakes, give groups distinct shape. Develop
rituals with your group’s key moments in mind.
 ● What language does our community use?
People share identity through words too. Nicki Minaj super fans use their community
demonyms, Barbz to identify themselves, making it easy for members to spot one
another online.

7 Cups Application

Broadly, this chapter highlights the core importance of badges, rituals and language. We do a
pretty good job with badges and language, but have more work to do with rituals. As outlined
above in Chapter 2 - let’s break each part of what we do at 7 Cups down and add in badges,
rituals, and language to further strengthen each component. Chapter 2 is about doing projects
WITH and this chapter is about reinforcing those bonds/relationships through badges, rituals
and language.

Community
Give people badges - Across the site you see the presence of many badges, we have some
commitment/aim foused badges like the Listener Oath while we also have badges like PB that
shows a listener’s dedication and commitment towards the 7 Cups mission. But more
importantly badges like peer support of group mod create a sense of community among these
community listeners. If you are a peer supporter who sees another peer support, you have that
one thing in common, something to discuss, something to bond on. Moreover, people tend to be
more passionate about the badges they helped create! Teens decided to name the teen mentor
badge, Teen Star. The badge represented their identity better than the ‘Teen Mentor’ badge
would have.

Codify Signature Rituals - A ritual is a broad term, one of the strongest examples of a ritual in
7 Cups are the weekly/daily check-ins across sub-communities and forums. These check-ins
allow our members to get support while providing a consistent platform for community building.
Additionally, the member/listener oath set expectation connecting the existing and new
members by uniting them with the same purpose. Additionally, the 3 key things thread is a good
example of a ritual being developed, members and listeners participate on a daily basis and
overtime it forms a connection and some heartwarming moments in the thread that brings the
community together.

Develop a shared language - While 7 Cups doesn’t have a new language like Klingon (star
trek) but we do have some words that are unique to our vocabulary. 7Cups users are known as
7 Cuppers/Cupsers, every year they have a cupsiversary! These simple words have the power
to evoke deeper emotions.

Sub-Community
In sub-communities, we have different roles like Forum Supporter, Forum Mentor, Community
Mentor, Community Mentor Leader etc. Each of the roles has its own dedicated badge and also
shows in the Leadership Board representing the team of a sub-community. It helps the
community to identify who they are and what they do.

Similarly when we host events to celebrate an occasion, we collaborate and organize different
activities. And to honor the participation, the shared language during these events we give
badges to our participants. It brings everyone together and gives a sense of belonging to the
community. (We learn more about celebration in detail in Chapter 9)

Groups
The same applies to Group Support. In Group Support Rooms, there are different badges
shows for both members and listeners. For members, we can see badges like Newbie for new
users, Friendly Face, Supportive Smile, Wise One reflecting their developed identity in the room.
While for listeners, we can see badges like Room Supporter, Mod, different support team
badges, support team leader reflecting their roles and identity in the rooms.

Badges, rituals, shared languages reflect diversified members with a unified purpose. Everyone
feels as an important part of the community with their unique identities. It encourages and
empower them to make better group efforts to accomplish community purpose in an effective
way.

Checklist

❏ What are 2-6 badges that might help me further recognize my people?
❏ Member badges
❏ __________________________________________________
❏ __________________________________________________
❏ __________________________________________________
❏ Listener badges
❏ __________________________________________________
❏ __________________________________________________
❏ __________________________________________________
❏ Do you have one key ritual for members? (e.g., daily check in)
❏ Specify ritual:_____________________________________________
❏ Do you have one key ritual for listeners? (e.g., daily check in)
❏ Specify ritual:_____________________________________________
❏ Do you have a name for your crew? (Depression Team, DSC - Depression
Support Crew
❏ Name:__________________________________________________
 PART VI

PAY ATTENTION TO WHO KEEPS SHOWING UP

"You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their

efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in
their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins." –
Jim Stovall
Chapter 6: Pay Attention to Who Keeps
Showing Up

“A community is a living organism. It’s either declining or improving. There is no steady state in
the community.”

As you keep making efforts to grow community, one question arises, “How do you know if your
work as community leader continues to resonate with community purpose?”

To ensure you are moving on the right path, it is important to track certain metrics, collecting
right information and asking questions so you can have accurate information if your community
is declining or improving. And, the best place to start to get such information is from the one
who regularly shows up.

The metric that matters!

A focus on knowing who keeps showing up and tracking user retention rate. The book insists
that a community thrives on people who keep showing up aka (not one time users). This makes
sense as the sub-communities that do well are the ones who have a lot of repeat members.

How to keep track of your community?

Explore retention in 3 steps:
1. Collect Participation Data. Know your members and how they participate in the
community activities. When you measure the community actions, you are able to do
better follow up, finding causes of deviations and improvement plans.
2. Gather Info about regulars. Keep the info of the engaged users. What do they enjoy
doing more? Starting with basic info like demographics, preferences could allow you to
know your member activities better.
3. Seek insights about why they participate and what they want more of. Listen to
your member needs and know what they prefer or not prefer. Why do they like one
activity and not another? It helps you tailor your community around their needs and
provide a better experience to them.

You might find working with data monotonous and see them as soulless numbers. But, they are
not just numbers; they depict human behavior, needs and motivations. A balanced combination
of it will allow you to figure out the needs and make efforts in building ever changing
communities.

Look for hand raisers!

When you have data, the next step is to find those who are regularly participating or raising
hands. Because they are the passionate ones who are going to help you keep your community
aligned with the purpose.

These hand raisers can be your next group of leaders of your community. If you empower or
encourage them, they will be the one who will help you in building and improving the community.

Sample questions for community member research

These questions can be tailored for doing a survey for a specific project or subcommunity. Allows a
community leader to understand what exactly project offering and what could be done to make it
better.
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself (your experience, struggles, challenges)
2. How did you hear about this community?
3. Why did you want to be part of it?
4. What community activities do you participate in?
5. What do you get out of participation?
6. What do you enjoy most? Why?
7. What is frustrating? Why?
8. Are you interested in participating more in the community? What would you like to do?
9. If you could have a magic wand and summon any tool or resource for community
members like yourself, what would you ask for?
10. What other questions should we have asked? Anything else you’d like to share?
When you know who all are the engaged people in your community, you could reach out and
encourage them to step up and help you in building community.

Example- We regularly do it in subcommunities. When we find someone who is proactive and

engaged in forums. We reach out to them and encourage them to apply for forum supporter
roles. And, forum supporters to forum mentor roles.

Second example, Group support, we proactively look for the discussion leaders who are active
in the community and encourage them to apply for support team leader roles for their support
team to lead and build it.

What to do after a misstep

You collected information, pinpointed future leaders and made decisions that help the
community grow. But, your listening is crucial during tough times. At some point, you might
make a decision that is not well received. So, paying close attention to your community helps
you better understand the thoughts, emotions and detect any misstep and react appropriately.

When things do not go right, as a community leader,

1. Take ownership quickly. Decisions are never perfect. And, sometimes these decisions
may bring adverse consequences. When you take responsibility for your actions, you
earn trust and respect from your people and keep people stuck to you even when things
are not going right.
2. Be transparent. Transparency in your communication and actions help you to have trust
and respect from the community. Also it allows them to come forward and share their
suggestions to help you to make things better.
3. Go deep with key community members.Connect with long term members and new
leaders and share what is going on and what we are experiencing. It helps you to
communicate clearly and they represent and share your thoughts in the community to
spread the word what is going on in the community.

It helps trust building in the community and community feels the community leader is on his toes
to make things work. It encourages community members to come forward and share their
thoughts and suggestions to help.

Example - With the recent changes in Group Support, Forums and Community, users coming
forward and sharing their thoughts and suggestions to problem-solve.

These steps help you to figure out who all cares for the community. Reaching out to them to get
help encourages them to step up and make efforts as a team to build a better product and
provide better experience to oneself and everyone.
Review

By having right data about the community, you will be able to figure out how the overall
community is progressing as well as allow you to figure out who all are your passionate users.
They could provide you accurate information as well as can be your future leaders to help you
build the community. To find it, figure out-
1. Who all are regular participants and who all are returning to participate.
2. Who are passionate and regularly raise hands to share their thoughts. Pinpoint your
most engaged users and ask -
a. If there is a group of ultra engaged members
b. What do you mean by ultra engaged?
c. Why are they engaged and what are their aspirations
3. Do you have a communication plan in case there is a misstep due to a decision.
Because it helps you keep connected and have a healthy relationship with the
community.

7 Cups Application

Community
We regularly ask the community to share their feedback related to the community and how their
experiences are. These surveys allow us to have information like - who all are active
participants and keeping an eye on the happening of the community. Their demographics like if
the participant is a listener or a member or if they are an adult user or a teen user. What are
their preferences and views? Tracking right data gives you the right view of your community.

Sub-Community
When we find a user is active in the subcommunity, we reach out to them and provide them
information about the roles they can try. Like Forum Supporter. And, when we find an active
forum supporter in the community, we encourage them to apply for forum mentor. When you
know who are passionate, you help them to become a leader. More hands on the deck to build
community.

Groups
To ensure safety and moderation, we closed many group support rooms. But this decision didn’t
receive much support and received criticism. We took ownership of our actions, shared our
reasons for the actions and heard community voices to make improvement plans. Open
communication and transparency goes a long way.

Checklist
❏ Create a spreadsheet to document the number of people who show up (Link
here):
__________________________________________________________
❏ Who are the repeat users who keep showing up to your activities?
__________________________________________________________
❏ Why are they showing up? (If you don’t know, ask and then list it here):
__________________________________________________________
❏ What do they want more of? (Gather this information and list it here):
__________________________________________________________
❏ Now that you have collected data, what do they want less of? What
activities/events/etc are you currently running, not seeing participation, or
turnout?
__________________________________________________________
❏ Remember to pinpoint and retain your hand-raisers. Are you listening to their
feedback? What are they saying?
__________________________________________________________
❏ If activity is declining, do your research and make a survey, either on your own or
with your hand-raisers. What is the survey about?
__________________________________________________________
❏ Define your communication plan in the event of a misstep:
__________________________________________________________