Welcome to our regular Popcorn Q&A 🍿, a convo time with People & Company and friends.
In this thread, we’re welcoming our new “Get Together” podcast correspondent and founder of Commonplays, Maggie Zhang. Ask her about:
The year she spent traveling to 25 countries and documenting the stories most important to her—community, play, and places—on her blog called Commonplays.
Her recent residency with Montreal-based design studio Daily tous les jours, which builds public art installations (like musical swings and giant singalongs) to bring people together.
Maggie and the P&C team will be responding here live at 9:30 am PT / 12:30 pm ET. We invite you to start populating questions and to also share your POV with answers!
🍿Tell us what you think, please!
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Since I had been researching public spaces and community for Commonplays, I spent 3 months with Daily tous les jours as a "researcher-in-residence." It was awesome learning about their projects and design approach. Mainly, I helped them research places and ideas for new art installations. We also released a report on the future of gathering:
While I’m naturally drawn to communities related to creativity and shared storytelling (like Real Food Real Stories or The Moth), I also love how this podcast gives me the opportunity to discover new communities. I appreciate how People & Company is committed to amplifying underrepresented voices, so that’s definitely an area I want to focus more on.
Christchurch, New Zealand! To me, the city is all about resilience. It survived a devastating earthquake, and most recently, the mosque shooting. I remember walking through the central square and witnessing the broken cathedral. It was completely caved out, like a mouth that lost all its teeth, and filled with pigeons—apparently the acidity of their waste over the years caused more damage to the wood than the earthquake itself.
But there were also so many uplifting scenes in the city, all created by the community: street art that reminded citizens of their identity and strength, a ruined fine-dining restaurant that was converted into a food truck to continue serving its customers, a playground that crowdsourced ideas from children to design the ultimate gathering space (https://www.commonplays.com/playground/).
Specifically, a community that really inspired me there was Gap Filler. It’s an organization of volunteers who use creativity to fill in the gaps left by the earthquake. Residents pitch in to create projects in otherwise vacant sites: bike-powered theaters, history-inspired golf putts, and dance platforms in parking lots. I loved their sense of fun and commitment to rebuilding their city—it felt like the community had an unbreakable spirit, full of resourcefulness, and they came together to rebuild and encourage people to create a sense of home again.
I love anything that brings people together. Communities are awesome because they show you that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...and they just make people happier and healthier 🙂 It’s so important to feel a sense of shared connection and identity, and to have a place where you can build meaningful relationships. I also love how communities can fuel creativity and innovation, kind of like Austin Kleon's concept of "scenius."
Play, in general, is a great way to encourage experimentation and engagement. It lowers the intimidation barrier for learning about something new or getting to know people. We had a Design for Play studio at IDEO dedicated to encouraging creativity and imagination across our projects, which taught me a lot about its value.
I also think a lot about how places shape you, especially because I spent some defining years of my life living with host families abroad. I talk about this on Commonplays—how oftentimes, places are considered backdrops to our lives, setting the scene for our other priorities like work, relationships, and health. But I think that places make a deep impact on us, and it's totally underrated. It's like how winemakers think about terroir: how a region’s climate, soil, and topography will impact the quality of grapes. In the same way, the places where we grow our roots, the places we inhabit for periods of time, really shape our identities.
1) Reflect your people: If people see a reflection of themselves in a space, they’ll feel more welcome. A great example is JR’s “Inside Out” project, where he takes photos of residents of a community and pastes them large-scale on public spaces.
2) Reflect your culture: You can include design elements in your space that reflect what makes your community special. For example, K-pop is huge in Korea, so they carved out singing platforms in public spaces for all the street performers. https://www.commonplays.com/seoul-busking-zones/
3) Make things fun: If you want to prompt people to act a certain way in a space, you don’t necessarily need to do so with strict rules or caution tape. Another example from Korea - they wanted people to leave room for pregnant women on subways, and instead of using intense signs or colors, they simply left a stuffed animal on the seats to save their spot.
4) Crowdsource ideas from your community: This is related to Get Together’s philosophy of building with people. Again, the playground I mentioned in New Zealand is a great example. https://www.commonplays.com/playground/
Building off that - what sort of cues can we use in community meet ups to encourage human interactions that bridge the gap between different groups of people?
I learned so much from my creative residency with Daily tous les jours! They’re an interactive art studio that designs installations for public spaces, so I’ll be referencing some things I learned from them :) Some design considerations for community meet-ups:
1) Design for multiple levels of engagement - Consider how people of all ages, races, genders, could use a space, as well as different roles people might play while they are there (from participant to witness). This might mean you have language translations, special seating for the elderly or children, etc.
2) Leave space for people to define the space - You don’t have to fill in all the blanks. Instead, you can encourage people to leave their own mark (for example: Candy Chang’s “Before I Die” walls, where people can publicly share their wishes and desires).
3) Incorporate universally appealing elements - Although people from a wide range of backgrounds may come to your space, you can create common ground based on the things that humans generally love, like dancing, playing, and singing.
4) Create an open invitation - If you want people to come together, make sure that your invite is as easy to understand as possible. For example, for Daily tous les jours' “Musical Swings” project, they used music and friendly colors as a cue for people to naturally try out the swings. You don’t need to crack a secret code to understand what you’re supposed to do in the space, or whether you’re welcome there.
5) Be intentional about numbers - Sometimes, you want to create an intimate setting (like Real Food Real Stories’ storytelling gatherings), where more people is not necessarily better. Other times, you want to encourage as many people to participate in the space as possible, because it makes them feel more comfortable. For example, Daily tous les jours had a project called “Giant Singalong,” where they placed microphones in public for people to sing together. They understood they would need many people to sing in order for others to feel comfortable joining.
6) Create opportunities to interact - If you want to encourage conversation, you could have signs that share background information about a space, which will provoke curiosity. If you want to make newcomers feel welcome, you can give them something to do when they enter a space. For example, In Get Together's episode about “The Dinner Party,” Lennon and Carla talked about intentionally creating tasks for people to do when they arrive at the party (like chopping tomatoes or setting up the table) so they can keep their hands busy and feel less nervous.
7) Pay attention to dynamics - There are so many subtle cues that change the way people interact. I once had a conversation with Jane Fulton Suri at IDEO, where she told me about seating formations: if you seat people across from each other, they naturally feel more competitive, whereas if you seat people next to each other, they could feel more cooperative. If someone sits higher or lower than another person, it could communicate superiority or inferiority. If you’re bringing people together, think about how you want them to be interacting and relating, and how your physical space enables or disables this. I once visited a cultural cafe in Morocco, where there were mostly long tables. This meant you had to sit with people you didn’t know, which encouraged more social interactions. https://www.commonplays.com/cafeclock/
My time at IDEO showed me what a thriving creative community can look like. A few things they did really well:
1) Studio-wide “Hivemind” - You can send an email brainstorm to everyone across the global studios to ask for inspiring examples, stories, or connections that can help you think about your project. There’s a general culture of helping, so people tend to send you thoughtful, insightful responses, and it's really cool to be able to crowdsource so much information in such a short period of time.
2) A sense of shared ownership - There was a feeling that you could do anything you wanted to the studio space, regardless of what your role was. It felt like the space was always evolving—seemingly overnight, people would create Polaroid walls or a paint-by-number mural or a floating tent without needing to formally ask for permission.
3) Kraftwerks - We had a weekly ritual called Kraftwerks, where we’d invite people to come in to speak or ask internal designers to share about their projects. It was a great way to share knowledge, create opportunities for conversation, and to let everyone know what’s going on throughout the studio.
4) Transparent rooms - Most of the rooms at IDEO were transparent, with glass walls, so it felt like there were no off-limit or secret meetings. Sometimes it can make you feel like you’re in a fishbowl, but it really helped to create a culture of openness.
5) Intentional moments of gathering - We didn't have constant food available, but oftentimes James (our studio chef) would just randomly bake cookies or tater tots and send out a studio-wide email. This always brought people together to share a moment of delight in their day :)
On that note for Maggie - Anything you learned from your interview with Real Food Real Stories on how we can translate their ideas of “hosting” to the digital space?
There are so many online conferences, workshops, etc happening right now! Just like how Pei-Ru from Real Food Real Stories described the value of hosting for her in-person storytelling gatherings, I found that hosting has been so valuable for these digital meet-ups.
For example, when a new attendee arrives, having a host to greet them and prompt them to share where they’re from or what they’re excited about in the public chat makes a big difference. It’s like creating virtual nametags.
I also like how some digital events have moderators whose goals are to recap talking points in the chat. That way, those who are just entering the room can easily get caught up with what’s been happening, and those leaving can have a “goodie bag” of learnings so they don’t feel intense pressure to take notes.
It’s also helpful to share resources in advance. We just had Princeton Reunions online, and it was cool how they had Zoom backgrounds that everyone could use, so that you feel like you’re in the same space even though you’re dialing in from all over the world.
I think a virtual host can do a great job of warming everyone up. For our P&C ice cream social, I remember you (Katie!) hosted a scavenger hunt on Zoom, where we all had to run through our houses and find items that reflected us. It was a fun way to create common ground and get to know each other more.
But I also want to add that although hosting is such an awesome thing, it’s not always necessary—sometimes, it’s better to leave a space (digital or physical) less managed, so that there’s room for more organic interaction and discovery.
LiJia Gong was talking on the Giving Circle episode how Radfund has a partner they host dance parties with. They have digital dance nights and LiJia plugs in "hype" people that call out dancers and spotlight them for their moves!
I am glad you liked that Zoom! Some pals and I have been experimenting with intertwining the digital with IRL elements (like running around you house haha!) It is fun to learn how we can use peoples own, home environments to enhance the digital experience.
Interviewing Catt Small about her community Game Developers of Color was a highlight for me. https://gettogether.fm/episodes/gdoc The decisions her team has made to make their events radically inclusive have stuck with me. From paying speakers—even as a small volunteer organization—to making sure livestreamed talks are captioned. GDoC set a standard for me around thoughtfulness and inclusivity.
Can you tell me more about your residency with Daily tous les jours? What did it involve/what did you do/what'd you learn?
Since I had been researching public spaces and community for Commonplays, I spent 3 months with Daily tous les jours as a "researcher-in-residence." It was awesome learning about their projects and design approach. Mainly, I helped them research places and ideas for new art installations. We also released a report on the future of gathering:
https://www.dailytouslesjours.com/en/work/living-room-reflections-on-getting-together
Maggie, what types of communities, stories, or leaders are you hoping to find and profile in the future with the Get Together podcast? Why those?
While I’m naturally drawn to communities related to creativity and shared storytelling (like Real Food Real Stories or The Moth), I also love how this podcast gives me the opportunity to discover new communities. I appreciate how People & Company is committed to amplifying underrepresented voices, so that’s definitely an area I want to focus more on.
Maggie! Welcome. We are so happy to have you as a correspondent :)
My question for you is: What of the many communities you visited on your trip moved you the most emotionally and why?
Christchurch, New Zealand! To me, the city is all about resilience. It survived a devastating earthquake, and most recently, the mosque shooting. I remember walking through the central square and witnessing the broken cathedral. It was completely caved out, like a mouth that lost all its teeth, and filled with pigeons—apparently the acidity of their waste over the years caused more damage to the wood than the earthquake itself.
But there were also so many uplifting scenes in the city, all created by the community: street art that reminded citizens of their identity and strength, a ruined fine-dining restaurant that was converted into a food truck to continue serving its customers, a playground that crowdsourced ideas from children to design the ultimate gathering space (https://www.commonplays.com/playground/).
Specifically, a community that really inspired me there was Gap Filler. It’s an organization of volunteers who use creativity to fill in the gaps left by the earthquake. Residents pitch in to create projects in otherwise vacant sites: bike-powered theaters, history-inspired golf putts, and dance platforms in parking lots. I loved their sense of fun and commitment to rebuilding their city—it felt like the community had an unbreakable spirit, full of resourcefulness, and they came together to rebuild and encourage people to create a sense of home again.
👋🏻Welcome, we are happy you are here!
To get started in the chat: Tell us where you are tuning in from today and share the community work that is on your mind.
Sunset Park, Brooklyn!!!
Atlanta! :)
WOAH! ATL!
Here in Atlanta too!
I'm in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn!
Popping in with another question for you Maggie - Why do you gravitate towards stories about community, play, and places?
I love anything that brings people together. Communities are awesome because they show you that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...and they just make people happier and healthier 🙂 It’s so important to feel a sense of shared connection and identity, and to have a place where you can build meaningful relationships. I also love how communities can fuel creativity and innovation, kind of like Austin Kleon's concept of "scenius."
https://austinkleon.com/2017/05/12/scenius/
Play, in general, is a great way to encourage experimentation and engagement. It lowers the intimidation barrier for learning about something new or getting to know people. We had a Design for Play studio at IDEO dedicated to encouraging creativity and imagination across our projects, which taught me a lot about its value.
I also think a lot about how places shape you, especially because I spent some defining years of my life living with host families abroad. I talk about this on Commonplays—how oftentimes, places are considered backdrops to our lives, setting the scene for our other priorities like work, relationships, and health. But I think that places make a deep impact on us, and it's totally underrated. It's like how winemakers think about terroir: how a region’s climate, soil, and topography will impact the quality of grapes. In the same way, the places where we grow our roots, the places we inhabit for periods of time, really shape our identities.
Yessss - Austin Kleon!!
The way you talk about places shaping you makes me think of Ingrid Fetell Lee's work - https://aestheticsofjoy.com/
On play - Do you think there is one way people can simply add a little more play to their life?
Yes!! Ingrid is from IDEO, too :) Major inspiration.
I'd say to just have a mindset of discovery! Try new things, be spontaneous, fail a lot so you can learn a lot, find ways to get into "flow."
I love the comparison with "terroir"! Beaautiful
What design advice would you give to a community leader who is setting up space to bring people together?
Some learnings from my travels with Commonplays:
1) Reflect your people: If people see a reflection of themselves in a space, they’ll feel more welcome. A great example is JR’s “Inside Out” project, where he takes photos of residents of a community and pastes them large-scale on public spaces.
2) Reflect your culture: You can include design elements in your space that reflect what makes your community special. For example, K-pop is huge in Korea, so they carved out singing platforms in public spaces for all the street performers. https://www.commonplays.com/seoul-busking-zones/
3) Make things fun: If you want to prompt people to act a certain way in a space, you don’t necessarily need to do so with strict rules or caution tape. Another example from Korea - they wanted people to leave room for pregnant women on subways, and instead of using intense signs or colors, they simply left a stuffed animal on the seats to save their spot.
https://www.commonplays.com/women-korea/
4) Crowdsource ideas from your community: This is related to Get Together’s philosophy of building with people. Again, the playground I mentioned in New Zealand is a great example. https://www.commonplays.com/playground/
Building off that - what sort of cues can we use in community meet ups to encourage human interactions that bridge the gap between different groups of people?
I learned so much from my creative residency with Daily tous les jours! They’re an interactive art studio that designs installations for public spaces, so I’ll be referencing some things I learned from them :) Some design considerations for community meet-ups:
1) Design for multiple levels of engagement - Consider how people of all ages, races, genders, could use a space, as well as different roles people might play while they are there (from participant to witness). This might mean you have language translations, special seating for the elderly or children, etc.
2) Leave space for people to define the space - You don’t have to fill in all the blanks. Instead, you can encourage people to leave their own mark (for example: Candy Chang’s “Before I Die” walls, where people can publicly share their wishes and desires).
3) Incorporate universally appealing elements - Although people from a wide range of backgrounds may come to your space, you can create common ground based on the things that humans generally love, like dancing, playing, and singing.
4) Create an open invitation - If you want people to come together, make sure that your invite is as easy to understand as possible. For example, for Daily tous les jours' “Musical Swings” project, they used music and friendly colors as a cue for people to naturally try out the swings. You don’t need to crack a secret code to understand what you’re supposed to do in the space, or whether you’re welcome there.
5) Be intentional about numbers - Sometimes, you want to create an intimate setting (like Real Food Real Stories’ storytelling gatherings), where more people is not necessarily better. Other times, you want to encourage as many people to participate in the space as possible, because it makes them feel more comfortable. For example, Daily tous les jours had a project called “Giant Singalong,” where they placed microphones in public for people to sing together. They understood they would need many people to sing in order for others to feel comfortable joining.
6) Create opportunities to interact - If you want to encourage conversation, you could have signs that share background information about a space, which will provoke curiosity. If you want to make newcomers feel welcome, you can give them something to do when they enter a space. For example, In Get Together's episode about “The Dinner Party,” Lennon and Carla talked about intentionally creating tasks for people to do when they arrive at the party (like chopping tomatoes or setting up the table) so they can keep their hands busy and feel less nervous.
7) Pay attention to dynamics - There are so many subtle cues that change the way people interact. I once had a conversation with Jane Fulton Suri at IDEO, where she told me about seating formations: if you seat people across from each other, they naturally feel more competitive, whereas if you seat people next to each other, they could feel more cooperative. If someone sits higher or lower than another person, it could communicate superiority or inferiority. If you’re bringing people together, think about how you want them to be interacting and relating, and how your physical space enables or disables this. I once visited a cultural cafe in Morocco, where there were mostly long tables. This meant you had to sit with people you didn’t know, which encouraged more social interactions. https://www.commonplays.com/cafeclock/
Question for you Maggie - How did IDEO shape the way you think about communities?
My time at IDEO showed me what a thriving creative community can look like. A few things they did really well:
1) Studio-wide “Hivemind” - You can send an email brainstorm to everyone across the global studios to ask for inspiring examples, stories, or connections that can help you think about your project. There’s a general culture of helping, so people tend to send you thoughtful, insightful responses, and it's really cool to be able to crowdsource so much information in such a short period of time.
2) A sense of shared ownership - There was a feeling that you could do anything you wanted to the studio space, regardless of what your role was. It felt like the space was always evolving—seemingly overnight, people would create Polaroid walls or a paint-by-number mural or a floating tent without needing to formally ask for permission.
3) Kraftwerks - We had a weekly ritual called Kraftwerks, where we’d invite people to come in to speak or ask internal designers to share about their projects. It was a great way to share knowledge, create opportunities for conversation, and to let everyone know what’s going on throughout the studio.
4) Transparent rooms - Most of the rooms at IDEO were transparent, with glass walls, so it felt like there were no off-limit or secret meetings. Sometimes it can make you feel like you’re in a fishbowl, but it really helped to create a culture of openness.
5) Intentional moments of gathering - We didn't have constant food available, but oftentimes James (our studio chef) would just randomly bake cookies or tater tots and send out a studio-wide email. This always brought people together to share a moment of delight in their day :)
Have you given thought to how we can use ideas like these in a post-Covid environment? (That's a big question for right now, I realize!)
When I was at Daily tous les jours, we released a report about how we can best gather in a post-COVID environment :) Check it out!
https://www.dailytouslesjours.com/en/work/living-room-reflections-on-getting-together
On that note for Maggie - Anything you learned from your interview with Real Food Real Stories on how we can translate their ideas of “hosting” to the digital space?
There are so many online conferences, workshops, etc happening right now! Just like how Pei-Ru from Real Food Real Stories described the value of hosting for her in-person storytelling gatherings, I found that hosting has been so valuable for these digital meet-ups.
For example, when a new attendee arrives, having a host to greet them and prompt them to share where they’re from or what they’re excited about in the public chat makes a big difference. It’s like creating virtual nametags.
I also like how some digital events have moderators whose goals are to recap talking points in the chat. That way, those who are just entering the room can easily get caught up with what’s been happening, and those leaving can have a “goodie bag” of learnings so they don’t feel intense pressure to take notes.
It’s also helpful to share resources in advance. We just had Princeton Reunions online, and it was cool how they had Zoom backgrounds that everyone could use, so that you feel like you’re in the same space even though you’re dialing in from all over the world.
I think a virtual host can do a great job of warming everyone up. For our P&C ice cream social, I remember you (Katie!) hosted a scavenger hunt on Zoom, where we all had to run through our houses and find items that reflected us. It was a fun way to create common ground and get to know each other more.
But I also want to add that although hosting is such an awesome thing, it’s not always necessary—sometimes, it’s better to leave a space (digital or physical) less managed, so that there’s room for more organic interaction and discovery.
"Goodie bag of learnings." I love it.
LiJia Gong was talking on the Giving Circle episode how Radfund has a partner they host dance parties with. They have digital dance nights and LiJia plugs in "hype" people that call out dancers and spotlight them for their moves!
I am glad you liked that Zoom! Some pals and I have been experimenting with intertwining the digital with IRL elements (like running around you house haha!) It is fun to learn how we can use peoples own, home environments to enhance the digital experience.
The "Hivemind" and Kraftwerks sound really powerful - a way to see into the different corners of people's minds.
And...I wish my work from home co-workers made me cookies in the middle of the day! Maybe one day?
❓QUESTION OF THE DAY
As Maggie and others pop in to answer your specific questions, we have a question for you all.
What stories have you found most informative and inspiring as a community builder?
Interviewing Catt Small about her community Game Developers of Color was a highlight for me. https://gettogether.fm/episodes/gdoc The decisions her team has made to make their events radically inclusive have stuck with me. From paying speakers—even as a small volunteer organization—to making sure livestreamed talks are captioned. GDoC set a standard for me around thoughtfulness and inclusivity.
I learned so much about online communities from two people: Lola Omolola of FIN and Carly Ayres of Hundreds Under 100
https://research.people-and.com/how-lola-omolola-started-female-in-nigeria-fin-a-private-facebook-group-with-1-7-million-members-efcb5969b457?source=collection_home---4------8-----------------------
https://research.people-and.com/carly-ayres-started-100s-under-100-a-slack-community-for-designers-that-we-all-can-learn-from-500d22305bf