I resonate strongly with this, to the extent that I worry most of the main EA ‘community-building’ events don’t actually do anything to build community. I can count on the fingers of 0 hands the number of meaningful lasting relationships I’ve subsequently developed with anyone I met at an EAG(x), after having been to maybe 10 over the course of 8ish years.
That’s not to say there’s not value in the shorter term relationships that emerge from them—but by comparison I still think fondly of everyone I met at a single low-cost EA weekend retreat over a decade ago.
Quick pimp for the EA Gather Town here—most of what goes on there is coworking, but regularly coworking in an informal environment can and frequently has led to meaningful friendships :)
Yeah, I totally get that and feel similar—I think being in a community is very different to trying to artificially engineer one (e.g. you have to be in a community to build it)
Oh cool, I’ve used the Gather Town a little and have been building a smaller discord coworking community for some EA Uni Societies which seems like it might be serving a similar goal :)
I resonate strongly with this, to the extent that I worry most of the main EA ‘community-building’ events don’t actually do anything to build community. I can count on the fingers of 0 hands the number of meaningful lasting relationships I’ve subsequently developed with anyone I met at an EAG(x), after having been to maybe 10 over the course of 8ish years.
That’s not to say there’s not value in the shorter term relationships that emerge from them—but by comparison I still think fondly of everyone I met at a single low-cost EA weekend retreat over a decade ago.
Quick pimp for the EA Gather Town here—most of what goes on there is coworking, but regularly coworking in an informal environment can and frequently has led to meaningful friendships :)
Yeah, I totally get that and feel similar—I think being in a community is very different to trying to artificially engineer one (e.g. you have to be in a community to build it)
Oh cool, I’ve used the Gather Town a little and have been building a smaller discord coworking community for some EA Uni Societies which seems like it might be serving a similar goal :)