Another approach to making community building a more attractive career path—is to find people who are intrinsically very passionate about community building. I have a specific friend in mind who set up and managed our “group house” for years, it’s the biggest one I know of in Israel. Perhaps you’d like to interview him. (I got him to apply to the EA Israel community building position, he was rejected, I don’t know why though, and I think it’s unfortunate)
Career capital problem
If I’d hear that one of my friends is going to be a community builder for 10 years, I would worry what they’d work at after that.
I’d expect that EA is one of the orgs that would pay the most in the world to community builders (EA really thinks it’s important + EA has money). So if even EA doesn’t pay “well” (however the person defines it), this is discouraging.
Community building as an exercise in founding a startup
I am guessing (not that I know) that community building involves a lot of “talking to users and understanding their needs” --> “getting product market fit” --> “scaling”
I think it wouldn’t be crazy to let potential founders do this for sometime, practice these skills that nobody learns from books (even though all the books mention them), and aim for these potential founders to talk to enough EAs to learn about real pain points and as a result open some “startup” that will solve the pain point.
As a real example from EA Israel: Developers keep asking us what they should work at, and we don’t have good answers. So I opened something like a local tech job board (this is overly simplified but you get the idea). I think this is much healthier than sitting at home and trying to come up with an idea
Exiting to have more impact?
Most people left because they thought they were better suited to do something else allowing them to have even more impact
This sounds like a too-nice story to me, I’d suspect that they weren’t being honest with you. This is just a speculation of course.
Providing mentorship / support (by someone senior)
I would assume that like most jobs, weekly 1-on-1s would be good? (I don’t actually know)
Peer support
I am surprised your findings didn’t contain anything about “friends”. But there are hints that community builders, the people who are trying to help us feel together, feel alone. :(
I’d totally do EA Community Building for EA Community Building!
I mean—the community builders have got to have the best most amazing meetups!
Organized each time by a different community builder maybe? Managed by a meta community builder? I don’t know, but this alone seems to me like it could be so crazy fun that everyone would want to join and nobody will want to leave.
Ok this seems like a good place to end my Meta Meta Community Building comment, I hope something here was useful!
Wow—thank you for the many great comments! Will shoot you a PM. Quick thoughts:
I agree—I think we should target passaionate people and I think this should be something that CEA and CB-orgs consider when recruiting people. To some extent though, I think it is important to also proactively make people more passionate about it!
Career capital problem If I’d hear that one of my friends is going to be a community builder for 10 years, I would worry what they’d work at after that.
I’d expect that EA is one of the orgs that would pay the most in the world to community builders (EA really thinks it’s important + EA has money). So if even EA doesn’t pay “well” (however the person defines it), this is discouraging.
I don’t agree with it being a problem that someone would be a community builder long term. But I think it could be becuase I have a different definition of community builder. I think it is a broad term that could include things like the Global Priorities Project, CEA and ambitious local groups with multiple employees.
I very much agree that community building can be a good excerise in founding a startup! Thank you for the case.
I do think the people I talked to were honest with thinking their new job being more important. I also think many (thought not all) were correct. I also want to stress some people did not mention this.
I agreee weekly 1-on-1s would be good, but that they should be optional.
Many people did mention peer support as one of the best parts of the job. I am sorry if this post gave another impression!
Haha—I love it “EA Community Building for EA Community Building”. There is obvious metameta issued here but I do think it would be valueable. And to some extent this is what CEA is doing.
Thank again! Please hit me up if you would like to talk more about this!
My thoughts
Target people passionate about it?
Another approach to making community building a more attractive career path—is to find people who are intrinsically very passionate about community building. I have a specific friend in mind who set up and managed our “group house” for years, it’s the biggest one I know of in Israel. Perhaps you’d like to interview him. (I got him to apply to the EA Israel community building position, he was rejected, I don’t know why though, and I think it’s unfortunate)
Career capital problem
If I’d hear that one of my friends is going to be a community builder for 10 years, I would worry what they’d work at after that.
I’d expect that EA is one of the orgs that would pay the most in the world to community builders (EA really thinks it’s important + EA has money). So if even EA doesn’t pay “well” (however the person defines it), this is discouraging.
Community building as an exercise in founding a startup
I am guessing (not that I know) that community building involves a lot of “talking to users and understanding their needs” --> “getting product market fit” --> “scaling”
I think it wouldn’t be crazy to let potential founders do this for sometime, practice these skills that nobody learns from books (even though all the books mention them), and aim for these potential founders to talk to enough EAs to learn about real pain points and as a result open some “startup” that will solve the pain point.
As a real example from EA Israel: Developers keep asking us what they should work at, and we don’t have good answers. So I opened something like a local tech job board (this is overly simplified but you get the idea). I think this is much healthier than sitting at home and trying to come up with an idea
Exiting to have more impact?
This sounds like a too-nice story to me, I’d suspect that they weren’t being honest with you. This is just a speculation of course.
Providing mentorship / support (by someone senior)
I would assume that like most jobs, weekly 1-on-1s would be good? (I don’t actually know)
Peer support
I am surprised your findings didn’t contain anything about “friends”. But there are hints that community builders, the people who are trying to help us feel together, feel alone. :(
I’d totally do EA Community Building for EA Community Building!
I mean—the community builders have got to have the best most amazing meetups!
Organized each time by a different community builder maybe? Managed by a meta community builder? I don’t know, but this alone seems to me like it could be so crazy fun that everyone would want to join and nobody will want to leave.
Ok this seems like a good place to end my Meta Meta Community Building comment, I hope something here was useful!
Wow—thank you for the many great comments! Will shoot you a PM. Quick thoughts:
I agree—I think we should target passaionate people and I think this should be something that CEA and CB-orgs consider when recruiting people. To some extent though, I think it is important to also proactively make people more passionate about it!
Career capital problem
If I’d hear that one of my friends is going to be a community builder for 10 years, I would worry what they’d work at after that.
I’d expect that EA is one of the orgs that would pay the most in the world to community builders (EA really thinks it’s important + EA has money). So if even EA doesn’t pay “well” (however the person defines it), this is discouraging.
I don’t agree with it being a problem that someone would be a community builder long term. But I think it could be becuase I have a different definition of community builder. I think it is a broad term that could include things like the Global Priorities Project, CEA and ambitious local groups with multiple employees.
I very much agree that community building can be a good excerise in founding a startup! Thank you for the case.
I do think the people I talked to were honest with thinking their new job being more important. I also think many (thought not all) were correct. I also want to stress some people did not mention this.
I agreee weekly 1-on-1s would be good, but that they should be optional.
Many people did mention peer support as one of the best parts of the job. I am sorry if this post gave another impression!
Haha—I love it “EA Community Building for EA Community Building”. There is obvious metameta issued here but I do think it would be valueable. And to some extent this is what CEA is doing.
Thank again! Please hit me up if you would like to talk more about this!