The difference between activities held to instigate a rural vs urban innovation community in the Philippines lies not on the type of activity, but in its nature and intention.
A simple example is the coffee meetup. It’s intention is to get individuals together to network with like-minded folk, or to discuss ideas around a common topic. This might work in an urban setting as the nature of such an event involves individuals being comfortable and forward enough to speak with strangers. The incentive and drive to engage in conversation or debate with others is also a strong enough reason for participation in such an activity.
But in an rural or suburban setting in the Philippines? Locals are usually more timid and often only engage in debate with their closest circles. The drive to engage in such an activity regularly is also low; too many similar faces at each gathering over time, and the “outcome” of the meetup isn’t clear (highly dependent upon the quality of debate or conversation).
“Drive” is usually one of those cultural battles every community builder has to face. For better or worse, residents have better things to do in rural or suburban areas (not much of a hustle culture in these areas 🏄♀️) and so showing up regularly to upskilling or networking activities has to bring clear value to them.
We believe that always having a topic, led or facilitated by a resource speaker, is a clear way to communicate why people should show up at events (not because there is free food!).
At our events in Bohol, we often steer away from networking events and focus on learning, skill-building, and even story-telling types of activities. But the topic and who leads these talks/conversations are always defined as we announce the event. This reduces the barrier to entry for first-timers and it’s easy to understand what participants can “get out of” the activity, especially if it is the first time they are getting involved.
Because we believe in having a “driver” or resource speaker to lead the learning activity, sustainability always comes into question. “What if we run out of speakers?” is the constant concern for communities who follow this model.
We’ve found that tapping into local professionals, not just those involved in the technology or startup sectors, are the key to sustaining such activities.
Not everyone might be startup founders, but business is business no matter what shape or form it takes. If the locality has many small restaurants, celebrate them by inviting their owners to share their entrepreneurial story, or even to talk about hard skills like scaling an organization or how to manage multiple offices/branches. If the locality has many famous tourist spots, invite those in the tourism sector to share their experiences, maybe problems they encounter and how they are currently solving them, or even to tell stories about their advocacy in preserving local culture.
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Innovation doesn’t come from just seeing the world through your own perspective, but by exposing yourself to different experiences, ideas, and people. Those in the technology sector can find compelling problems to solve by being introduced to other industries.
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Borrowing from Open Space principles, we believe that community events are more sustainable if its participants are willing and eager to participate. At the beginning of our activation efforts, we would have events with just 5 people attending and that was okay.
We got to dive deeper into the topic, entertain specific questions from participants, and some loved the experience enough to be regular volunteers today.
Having a few committed participants always trumps a hundred uninterested and disengaged group.
Remember: regularly having a low participant count and/or engagement at events isn’t the participants’ fault. It is on the community builder to re-frame or adjust the opportunity they are presenting to their target audience.
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This belief also means that we believe in discouraging partnerships with organizations that “require” a “delegation” to attend our events.
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