I’ve never really written publicly about “community.”

It’s not because I don’t think it’s important. It’s because I think it’s all-important. Almost too important to address directly.

I believe community has to emerge. Like creativity, it can’t be directly created – only cultivated.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of watching a community emerge around Forte Labs and the Praxis blog. I’ve been continuously astonished to see such an interesting, smart, accomplished group of people gather around the ideas I’ve explored in my writing and teaching.

Without all the people willing to engage with me, based on nothing but shared interests and curiosity, none of this would be possible. Every time I interact with you, online or in person, it sparks new ideas and renews my motivation to keep going. Every time I see the incredible ways you are putting to use what you’ve learned here, I am deeply moved and given fresh hope for the future.

Now I want to make this community a little more official, so that all of you have the same opportunity to connect with each other. Until now, Forte Labs has been mostly one-to-many, with me sending broadcasts and receiving replies. But if the new way of working that we are pioneering is to stand a chance of making it out into the real world, we’ll need many-to-many connections.

We’ve done small experiments on various platforms, but I’ve settled on two that I think are the most accessible and promising: the Forte Labs Slack and Building a Second Brain Official Facebook Group.

The Slack workspace is like a series of semi-private workshops. We have channels on dozens of topics, all created by people wanting to discuss a topic or idea. It has grown slowly over the past few years, to the point that every thread I encounter already has several answers that are more thoughtful and thorough than anything I would have come up with. You can join using the link above, and join whichever channels interest you.

The Official Facebook Group is just getting started, but I think has the potential to be our most public and accessible discussion forum. I’m currently posting one note per day there, to give you a sense of the diversity of content you can save in your digital notes. That’s the main show for now, but I am hoping it will soon be a vibrant place for people to share their Second Brain victories and challenges alike, for others to borrow or give feedback on.

I’m not interested in building the biggest online community on productivity – only the best one. I will always optimize for quality over quantity.

Please send me any suggestions or ideas you have for how I can help you talk, share, and collaborate more effectively. . I’m trying to be as hands-off as possible, so that whatever emerges is organic and sustainable. But I’m all ears for how I can kickstart that process.

Thank you for being here. You are the reason I do what I do.

Update August 2022

We’re making some big, bold changes and that includes shutting down the Forte Labs Slack workspace, effective August 31st, 2022.

This workspace has been in place for several years but we haven’t done a good job at moderating it and encouraging engagement. While some channels are active sporadically, most aren’t in use. So, in the spirit of consolidating our efforts and reducing the number of channels you have to pay attention to, we’ve decided that it’s for the best to shut the workspace down.

Now, we’re focusing our efforts on building community in two places to provide the best value for you:

  • Our free Facebook group with 12.5k members: This community has become more and more active lately with members posting daily, answering each others questions, giving advice, and sharing their Second Brain setups. Now, we understand that Facebook isn’t everyone’s preferred platform and that some of you might actively avoid it. However, this is the platform that makes the most sense for us at this moment to build a free community.
  • Our Circle community as part of our new paid Membership: We’re doubling down on Circle as the one platform for our Membership. This is where members can interact with the community, get their questions answered, and watch replays of the live sessions.

 

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