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Community Spotlight — Host of the Week, Anna Skelsey in LA
Happppy Friday! If your day is starting with anything short of fantastic vibes, I’m gonna start this week’s Host Dispatch with a word from Anna Skelsey, this week’s Host of the Week from LA, followed by the updates. Look at that smiling face, and then look at what at she wrote in less than 5 minutes about what she thinks when she thinks TWS.
Dispatch No. 2 // August 8, 2015
TL;DR for the week
Meta-tations. Thanks to your feedback from last week’s Host Dispatch, (a) we now have a Host Dispatch tumblr, (b) these will start becoming a bit more grassroots, (c) we’ll start making ways to contribute clearer and most actionable.
More control and communication for your tea times! We replaced automatic reminder emails, added optional phone numbers so you can text attendees, and added a Notes section for each tea time.
Tomorrow, conversations with Dream Teams will start rolling. Join one here — bit.ly/dispatch-2-teams. Help improve, well, everything about the experience of being a host.
Anna Kelsey (LA) inspires hearts around the world in about 14.2 seconds. She’s the host of the week.
Just on the tumblr
Infrequently asked questions. If you’ve been curious about something and have no idea who to ask / when to ask / how to ask / where to ask, go to the comments section here and we’ll start a conversation in a common forum.
Last Week This Week with Tea With Strangers. In case you missed last week’s update.
Meta-tations
Overall, you guys seem to like the Host Dispatch, BUT you’re not trying to read a book. From what y’all shared, you want…
more updates on what’s going on across the host community
clearer and actionable ways to contribute
bite-sized chunk updates, less essays
stories from TWS that’ll make what’s happening more palpable.
So the Host Dispatch will now be a weekly consolidation of updates on this tumblr
To answer your questions before you ask them:
Every relevant URL was taken. I am not creative enough to make up this work of genius. Blame/praise tumblr’s robots.
The tumblr will be updated frequently. The Dispatch will be emailed once a week.
Each post has a comment space. It can serve as place to discuss specific updates.
City fams and hosts will be able to contribute here, so updates can be more decentralized.
(shout out to Chicago — Nessa, Jeremy, Carl, Tori, Madison, Kate — New York — Sophia, Nou, Willie, Yohan, Shumi — SF — Dana, Michael L, Gregory, Peter, David, Vibs, Jonathan K, Dillon, Kenny, Jason, John, Pei-Ru — DC — Sherlene, Helen, Lauren, Ashley — Princeton — Yoni, Nihar — London — Maya — Boston — Bowen, Devin — and LA — Alex, Jasmine — for your incredible feedback)
You sound sexier than robots, so we got rid of automated reminder emails. And we added phone numbers and tea time notes.
Last week, we shared that we had customizable reminder emails. Cool idea. In theory.
We now send you, the host, a reminder 2 days before your tea time so you can send your own reminders and confirm everyone’s still in. Why? If I’m putting up a tea time for next week, I don’t know if I have questions to send the group, if there are 2 or 17 people on the waitlist, or if my attendees should be looking for me in a flannel or a crop top (probably a crop top…), so I can’t really include the most pertinent details. In short, what you send in a reminder email isn’t necessarily stuff you’re thinking about when you set up your tea time.
Oh, and...
You and your attendees can optionally add phone numbers to exchange pre-tea time. After tea time, they won’t be accessible (unless you save them). Use this responsibly.
You can add Notes to your tea time. Why? Remember when Facebook had that random box your profile picture that they gave all users but never explained wtf it was there for? Think of this the same way. Except you have one for each tea time. And only people who sign up for your tea time can see it. Use it however you see fit.
Join the Dream Team and help make TWS better for yourself and everyone else.
Here’s the form.
This weekend, I’ll be reaching out to everyone who signed up for a team and we’re gonna start rolling on conversations about how we can better bring on hosts, inspire a stronger sense of host community, make TWS better serve everyone in the fam, and on the whole, bring the dream of this organization to reality.
If you want to help with this, put your name down here. And if you wrote your name for something last week, I got your name down already.
(Last week, we had sign ups for distinct teams, but it wasn’t very clear what the difference between each team was. So we’ll change to have one general sign up right now and break into groups from there.)
Infrequently Asked Questions
I’ve gotten questions from...a lot of you about lots of different things — hosting technique, getting closer to other hosts, TWS’s direction, the big picture, the origins of TWS, learnings across the host community, the point of community events, etc..
There are probably questions that aren’t being asked because they just don’t know where to send them. So...send them here. And see the questions that are being answered here.
I can’t say I have answers to every one of them, but the conversations need to start somewhere, and it’s better to have them in a forum that allows all the hosts to know what’s going on.
If you missed last week’s Dispatch or decided it was way too long, here’s a quickie:
The Host Dispatch started. See last week’s here.
Your profiles and dashboard on the website are much sexier than before
When you have tech issues or concerns, email [email protected] to hit Mehul, Nick and me directly
There’s a bunch of new site updates coming. We asked you which were the most important to you so we could prioritize better. This is the form for that.
You can join a team to help stay looped and contribute to thinking around how we recruit, vet, onboard, and engage our host community. You can sign up to stay looped and see how you can contribute here.
Dispatch No. 1 // July 29, 2015
TL;DR for this email
Almost all the links in this email are going to one place — http://bit.ly/dispatch-1. Every time I ask you a question or for feedback, it's going there. Just so you don't end up opening the same link over and over in new tabs.
The site has lots of improvements. Better city pages, tea times look sexy, easier attendee/attendance mgmt, customizable reminder emails.
More improvements coming! Tell us what you want, so we’ll move faster and prioritize better.
Benny, Alex, Sophia, David, Natalie and a few others helped made it clearer that we need to focus on inspiring better host recruitment, onboarding and community engagement. To do this, we could use input, ideas, excitement from hosts all over. If you want to get your hand in (in a big or a small way), drop your name here — http://bit.ly/dispatch-1. By putting your name down, the only thing you're committing to is a follow up email.
Have you met Gregory Hosono? Because he’s awesome (and the host of the week!)
1. We've been making incremental improvements to the website every week.
Anyone in an active city can join for tea times.
Your host profile is freshened up.
You can now bold, italicize, and link things in your host profiles.
Tea times look kinda snazzy.
Everything on your Host Dashboard is cleaner.
You can customize the first reminder email! If you don’t, they’re sent via "Robots at Tea With Strangers," instead of you.
(I have no idea if these pictures came out the way they were supposed to...but if they didn't, look at the website! It's kinda sexy.)
Mehul, Nick and myriad generous contributors across the country made these possible. They are unbelievably amazing, and I can’t speak highly enough of what they’ve made possible for TWS. You guys should know that when you have concerns, thoughts, feedback, etc. about the site, you can reach Mehul, Nick and myself at [email protected]. One of us will be sure to handle things the best we can.
We now maintain a regular schedule where we push website updates every Monday night, and we’ll make it clear what changed in each Host Dispatch. (Also, if you happen to be a Rails dev or just want to get involved with design, dev, tech stuff with us, email me and let's make magic. We could use more hands on deck!)
2. What are site improvements that are most important to you?
These are a handful of features we’re working on, but if you vote for what you want most, we’ll work to tackle the most important stuff first. Here’s where you can vote.
Customizing reminder emails. Getting rid of the 1400 extra emails every attendee gets before tea time by giving you the ability to customize what reminder emails say and when they’re sent + peace of mind knowing when these emails are sent.
Attaching notes to tea times. If you send emails about what you look like, deep questions you want your attendees to ponder before arriving, or what your favorite seating arrangement is at tea time, you’d now be able to just include a note with your tea time that the attendee could see on their Dashboard.
Saving locations and sharing them across hosts in a city. Where should I host? Is it open? What’s the vibe like? Has anyone else hosted there? Nevermind. “Location to be emailed to attendees.” Sound familiar? Saving locations, sorting by neighborhood, allowing host reviews, and sharing it all across hosts in the same city could make life easier. Never guess again!
Sharing attendee phone numbers and photos with hosts. It’s easier for people to cancel on people that don the mask of a computer and generic messages. Optional photos and phone numbers from attendees to text and recognize them simplify reaching attendees in a way that feels more real.
Growing your own communities — enabling you to refer, vet, and bring new hosts into the fam. New hosts have always been brought on super manually and with my hands in the process. This improvement lets you share feedback on potential hosts with each other and decide who becomes a host yourselves.
Getting feedback from attendees. Ideally, we all want to learn how to get better at listening, asking questions, creating a space that allows people to be themselves and share honestly, and overall, just have a better time. By asking attendees the right questions about their tea times, we not only take steps in this direction and guide our growth as hosts, but make it clearer to the attendees that we’re deliberate about creating something that matters to them.
If any of these vibe with you, say so. If none of them do, say so. If you have something else in mind, say so. Whatever you say, say it here.
3. We’re making teams to spruce up how we recruit, onboard, and create community amongst new hosts.
There are so, so many people that want to be hosts, and everyone so far has been brought on in different ways. Some have been better than others, but on the whole, it’s hard to really learn what has worked and what hasn’t. This could get way better, way more consistent, way more creative, and way more fun. Way. More. Everything.
Benny (NYC), Alex (LA), Sophia (NYC), David (SF), Natalie (Seattle) and a handful of other hosts noticed this, and they came up with the idea of making teams to learn and brainstorm ways to improve things. You’ve all found out about TWS, been onboarded, and had varied experiences growing with the organization. If you have thoughts on what worked and what didn’t or if you have thoughts on what should be different, you can help, and we can make this a lot better.
If you want to be a part of the conversation and get a follow-up email with clear next-steps on how you can help out as well, put your name down here under the area you’re interested in contributing to.
4. Community Spotlight — Host of the Week, Gregory Hosono
Greg Hosono. He's not even 20, is easily one of the kindest, most growth-minded people I've ever met. In the last 3.5 months, he's hosted 16 tea times, is constantly learning more about himself and how he cares for others in the process. He reflected a bit on his time as a host:
I thought I had good reasons for hosting back when I started hosting. I wanted to meet people and hear their stories. I wanted to give people the opportunity to talk about things they may not otherwise talk about. I never thought that I would host because I wanted to listen. Why I host became crystalline after receiving a letter out of the blue from a friend going through a personal crisis. I happened to be hosting TWS that evening.
Read the rest here, and shoot him some high fives by email if you wanna share some thoughts: [email protected].
5. What do you think of this?
Whoa, you're at the bottom. Amazing.
Real talk, what did you think? I want this to be useful for you, and I would hate if this was a pain in the ass to read. Was there something missing? Did you not really care about some of it? Do you like it by email? What would you change? Just reply to this email or share thoughts on this Google form.
I am really appreciative of each of you,
Ankit
Huh Dispatch?
It's been quiet around here, and I’m regularly getting questions about what’s going on with TWS — whether it’s the site, tea times, hosting practice, where we’re going, or how to get more involved. So I’m introducing the Host Dispatch — a weekly update on our growth, learnings, challenges we’re facing, and amazing things happening with TWS.
At the end of the day, the goal is to make being a host with TWS not only fun, but rewarding, impactful, comfortable, and something to be proud of. The Host Dispatch alone won’t do that, but it’s a step that will hopefully create a more fluid line of comm btwn the you and TWS because being in the dark sucks.
What you can expect: to get this every week, to be listened to, for each Host Dispatch after this to be shorter, for the content in these to be changing a bit while trying to figure out what works for everyone here.
What I’m hoping for from you: responsiveness. There are specific things here I’m looking for you to drop input, but I would also love general thoughts on what’s missing, what you want to hear about.