Rorshokitos
A simple way to create community.
Bringing people together may seem easy, but it’s not so easy at the start. And can be expensive.
You can organize a party, conference, networking event, or meeting. But parties favor people who already know each other, conferences divide people into speakers and audiences, and networking events are transactional. Meetings can be boring, hierarchical, and dominated by a few people.
And none of these is particularly good at creating a community, particularly of people who don’t already know one another and who have different levels of commitment and expertise.
We wanted to try a way specifically to gather strangers to become a community. Something structured but not hierarchical, where people meet as equals, have interesting conversations, and actually get to know each other.
Not another event where a few people talk and everybody else listens. And not something where you need to be particularly outgoing, well-connected, or important in order to participate.
That’s why we created Rorshokitos.
A Rorshokito is a fun, structured gathering for any number of people, usually around a shared interest, place, or community. It takes a few hours and anybody can organize one.
Beforehand, participants answer four questions, suggest discussion topics, and anonymously indicate which other people they’d most like to meet and what they’d like to discuss.
Our software uses this information to organize a series of small-group conversations, usually four people at a time.
At the gathering itself there will be three, four or more small group discussions, each with new people.
There are no speakers, audiences, or experts in charge. Everyone participates as equals.
Afterwards, there’s an opportunity to socialize, exchange contacts, and continue the conversations online.
The idea is pretty simple: bring curious people together, give them a little structure, some interesting questions that they themselves have proposed, and enough time to get to know one another.
Then see what happens.
That’s how communities begin.