Agree with Sami’s comment below. Virtual events are certainly a good way to get people from more isolated parts of the region engaged, but if 90% of the attendees already know each other from in-person events, that may be even more isolating. I suspect this is fairly easy to mitigate though if the organiser is conscientious about it.
It might be worth connecting them with other virtual communities too. Besides us, there are lots of virtual groups popping up (Giving What We Can, EA for Christians, EA for Jews, the EA Hispanic group, EA Consulting, Effective Animal Advocacy, etc.) which might be good for getting people engaged if your group doesn’t run virtual events very often. (FWIW they are also very welcome to get involved with EA Anywhere—we have some members in metro areas of local groups but who are just too far away to come to most in-person events.)
I think a lot of this will also be case-by-case depending on where the person is in their EA involvement, and a lot of those rules won’t be that much different from engaging someone who’s not in an isolated area. It’s mostly a matter of making sure the usual pathways through “the funnel” are accessible to them, even if they aren’t able to attend in-person events.
Agree with Sami’s comment below. Virtual events are certainly a good way to get people from more isolated parts of the region engaged, but if 90% of the attendees already know each other from in-person events, that may be even more isolating. I suspect this is fairly easy to mitigate though if the organiser is conscientious about it.
It might be worth connecting them with other virtual communities too. Besides us, there are lots of virtual groups popping up (Giving What We Can, EA for Christians, EA for Jews, the EA Hispanic group, EA Consulting, Effective Animal Advocacy, etc.) which might be good for getting people engaged if your group doesn’t run virtual events very often. (FWIW they are also very welcome to get involved with EA Anywhere—we have some members in metro areas of local groups but who are just too far away to come to most in-person events.)
I think a lot of this will also be case-by-case depending on where the person is in their EA involvement, and a lot of those rules won’t be that much different from engaging someone who’s not in an isolated area. It’s mostly a matter of making sure the usual pathways through “the funnel” are accessible to them, even if they aren’t able to attend in-person events.