Heard from 2 friends who shun social media:
Who's in danger of being lost, who's being left in the past?
It struck a nerve on Facebook...
I feel connected with both of these people when we do meet up.
As a member of the advisory board, I was happy to introduce Melek Pulatkonak's Turkish Women's International Network to the audience at the TEDGlobal simulcast hosted by TURKCELL headquarters in Istanbul. Melek and I met in Oxford while attending TEDGlobal 2010!
In these images, TED curator Chris Anderson opens the dark side session -- with cybercrime journalist Misha Glenny.
With attendees including TurkishWIN members including creative director Muzaffer Tan and foreign professional women in Istanbul Karen Van Drie and Catherine Bayar.
We had our cocktail hour between 3rd and 4th session of TEDGlobal simulcast from the UK, in which business economist, development professional and policy adviser Anja Koenig makes a point.
Along with Tara Agacayak, I run a private mastermind group on LinkedIn (it's a subgroup of my Creative Entrepreneurs & Social Media group). Once a week someone steps into the center and asks for feedback and suggestions on their next steps. A week of discussion ensues. Here's my prompt about what I'm thinking of doing.
Hey all! Besides the in-progress shift at expat+HAREM (which includes among many other changes, making the content evergreen and getting off the feed the beast with original content every week treadmill), with Miss Tara I am working on creating a spin-off community.
Globalniche.net. GN will be a private and paid membership site for the same global citizen/multiculti/expat audience, but focused on solutions rather than simply discussion and entertainment. Adding practice to the theory.
In many ways Globalniche.net will reflect what we’ve seen at ThirdTribe.com this past year: bulletin boards for discussion of numerous topics, regular hosted seminars, audio and video interviews with experts and fellow seekers, custom-created educational material and special offers from solutions providers, and a support community to enact the things being discussed. It will be an actionable space, and since it will be shielded from public view, it will also have an intimacy we can’t experience on the open web.
Everyone in this mastermind group (along with some other solid members of our current eH and creative entrepreneur community) will be invited to join as founding members. When we’re ready to launch a monthly membership option will open more widely.
When we get started (date not set but within 6 months) we’ll be asking the below kind of questions to our founding members. It would be great if you could get the ball rolling, tell us what would make this a VERY valuable community for you, as well as throw out your own questions about the plan, or what we might also want to ask our founding members.
What is your biggest pain in finding your place in the world outside of your culture and comfort zone, and operating to your true potential both professionally and personally?
What is your biggest pain embracing all the worlds you love to belong to?
What drew you to e+H (and kept you coming back)?
What improvements to e+H’s brand and offerings would you like to see in a membership community at globalniche.net?
What tutorials, resources and educational material would you want from GN? What do you want to learn how to do? What do you need support for?
What kind of people would you want us to interview and make accessible to the community (by name if you know them)?
++++
Here are some of my responses to the feedback I received (I'm not sharing the direct feedback since the group is private). Five people participated (thanks to Catherine Bayar, Catherine Yigit, Sezin Koehler, Jessica Lutz, and Tara Agacayak!) and contributed 34 comments:
Thanks all, keep it coming! Characteristically, I have so many other deadlines this week I am practically missing my own party.
Thanks for the broader view of who might be of interest to hear from. Yes, futurists. In particular, may be able to address the tensions of living ahead of our time...because that certainly encapsulates a lot of the issues we face. It's coming for many others too, but we happen to be dealing with it all now. Agree, Global Niche is a widening of the Expat Harem window, and I'm looking forward to transitioning to it, as well as bringing in new people for whom expat+HAREM may have seemed too 'niche'. Glad that the questions feel deep to you, and thanks so much for plumbing them. The deeper we can go here, the better we can start off the block. It's heartwarming to be able to trace where we came into each other's lives -- and so far back, too. Want to hear the revolutions the link has caused in your life, because it's a natural path to where we are taking this -- together.
Ooh yes I like the idea of being able to discuss whatever topics of the day that people are interested in (like art and culture and world affairs)....that would be possible in the bulletin board area where anyone could start a thread of their choice. Definitely on my list of interviewees are Amna Ahmad and Justine Musk!
You guys are really giving me some good direction here, about bringing my own worlds together. Being that bridge to make sense of how different communities and the leaders in them are informing who we are, and what our issues are. In particular, you're giving me some very clear ideas about how GN.net can synthesize all the best elements of what we know to be happening out there (rather than cover the same ground other expat or travel sites do and in the same way...because frankly, if those other sites were speaking completely to what I/we need, we wouldn't even be talking about this right now.) <- Exciting, challenging!
Thanks for your words about the newsletter, and the type of people and ventures mentioned in it. The newsletter can be a bridge between expat+HAREM and the GlobalNiche, and be a way to transition those who are interested into GN. I'm also thinking about upgrading the newsletter to be more graphic...will need some tutoring please. Yes to the real-world meetings as often as possible (Tara and I've been making plans for a recurring Istanbul gathering) and I think we could also use a freaking major retreat on a regular basis.
This is really great feedback, thank you!
$$$ >> ONE LAST QUESTION << $$$
if you have any thoughts on it: price range. What would membership in this private community be worth to you?
Could be a range of prices...from the most basic offerings we talked about to more intensive and developed services.
Like Third Tribe -- the early adopters pay very little, and were part of the growth of the community. Now, they've just capped the community at a much higher rate and when they reopen, it will be still higher. All the while they've improved their offerings and built a year's worth of equity that new members can tap into from the very first day. So, can you share some comparable prices for memberships you have paid for, or know about?
Yes, the target market is a widening of the demographics attracted by eH material. Expanding to everyone who finds themselves geographically disadvantaged (could be and American in Kansas), culturally fragmented, etc. The idea is that this notion of a global niche may have come from our own need to find solutions but it can be applied to many other life situations too that may not seem so extreme in their disconnection.
Third Tribe is an example of an educational support community. It happens to be for online marketing. That does intersect with part of our interests at eh/GN but I don't mean that GN = internet marketing community. The model is instructive. As for cost, they opened the community at $27/month. I found that easy to sign on for, even though I'd never been part of a paid online community before. I think one of the reasons is that they had done a good job of letting me know what I'd be getting, and how I needed it.
I agree it would be great to have a resource area of best links on different useful topics...and self-help/self-improvement experts too. The counseling leads: There's a newish website of counselors globally (ExpatExpert.com was passing it around), as well as whole organizations for online counseling. Things have really changed, and it would be good to be on top of what's available.
Today we wrap up...thanks again to everyone for your fantastic comments and food for thought. (And excitement at the prospect of GN.net!)
FYI, we've got a Global Niche Facebook page as of today, and are collecting interested parties over there -- so head on over and like up. Thanks again for a terrific week of masterminding. You are all wonderful.
Change is in the air. This month we're redefining things we thought we knew. Where we begin and end. If democracy means we have to live with choices we wouldn't chose. The new social order of virtuality mixed with what many insist is "real life". And if we're signed up for life with a local -- no relocation services, no cost of living allowances -- are we even expats at all?
We're also taking a look at a clever new voice in the blogosphere and a weekend event in Holland meant to create breakthrough action in the lives of its international participants.
+++++ AT expat+HAREM
Global businesswoman Rebecca Self wonders if her mobile career changes the pleasure of travel, or is it a fuller expression of her traveler nature?
In our second expat+HAREM interview, online psychotherapist and Internet media theorist Dr. Leon Tan challenges us with today's "digital diasporas" and the role of mixed reality -- a continuum of virtual to actual life experiences -- in a globalized life.
A Third Culture Kid had a free-floating perception of herself, but now planted in one spot she's drawing personal borders. Meanwhile after 10-years abroad, a Brit realizes some expats are more equal than others. (Count us as expat type #2.)
Plus, a biculturalist (and 'Turklish' speaker) struggles to make sense of an emerging landscape: Tea Parties in her Missouri neighborhood, and turbans in Istanbul parks...
+++++ AROUND THE WORLD & AROUND THE WEB
In these sketchy, xenophobic times, our favorite new-smart-fresh blog by ex-expat/repat/neopat ML Awanohara starts giving awards to Americans unafraid of 'the other'.
We're charmed by the concept of Seen the Elephant, defined as a desire to seek out amazing sights in far corners of the world, a jaded expression of "been there, done that", and the famous Indian legend of six blind men feeling up a pachyderm.
And if you're a social entrepreneur or intrapreneur in Amsterdam mid-month, expat+HAREM poster Rebecca Self's European Summit for Global Transformation is *the* place to gather for "a weekend to change the world."
+++++ YOUR THOUGHTS
Commenters about last month's burqa piece at National Review include: Zaharr Hayatti, who "detests the idea of a government which insists either TO veil or NOT to veil. This, I would pray, would/could be the woman's choice."
Arriving in Turkey 13 years ago, the ban on head scarves in government institutions seemed "rather primitive" to Kirsten Karahan, "reflecting prejudices against tradition, religion, economic class and gender." Now, the visual arts educator in Ankara says: "I have come to see that the practice contributes so heavily toward the general subjugation of women that it really must be kept out of public life. I don't have research to cite, but I do have personal observations and experiences."
And Catherine Bayar: "Cultures change from the inside, not by having change imposed upon them. It's not just the men who are the imposers of tradition cloaked in piety within the family."
As a global citizen, what are you in the midst of redefining?