# Community Experience Canvas — All Contexts *Workshop 1 — The Experience Is the Community · Open Community Leadership (OCL)* The eight stages are the same for every community. What changes is where the "door" is, who does the greeting, and what a contribution looks like. Find your context. If you lead more than one kind of community, fill in more than one column — and pay attention to where your strong column and your weak column don't match. That mismatch is usually your biggest opportunity. - **In person** — meetups, conferences, user groups, events - **Repo** — projects, maintainer work, async contribution - **Online** — sprints, calls, Discord/Slack, virtual events --- **Community name:** ______________________ **Rolet:** ______________________ **Date:** __________ --- ## 1. Arrival *How do people discover you exist? What do they feel before they show up?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | How do people hear about the meetup? What do they see before they walk in? | How do people find the project? What does the README say in the first five seconds? | How do people find the sprint or call? Do they know what they're walking into? | --- ## 2. Welcome *How does a newcomer learn they're in the right place — and that someone noticed they arrived?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | Who greets people at the door? How does a first-timer know where to sit? | What does a newcomer see automatically when they first open an issue or PR? *(the instant acknowledgement)* — and who replies to them personally, how fast? *(the human follow-through)* | Are people named as they join? Is there a pinned "new here? start here" message? Is anyone assigned to make sure newcomers aren't stranded? | > **Repo note:** an auto-welcome (a bot, a `first-interaction` action) is the doormat, not the host. It guarantees nobody arrives to silence — but if no human follows up, it teaches people they were greeted by a robot and then forgotten. Automate the acknowledgement. Keep the response human. --- ## 3. Participation *What can someone do besides watch? What's the smallest useful thing they can contribute?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | What can a newcomer do at their first meetup besides listen? Is there a low-stakes way in? | What's the smallest useful contribution — a typo fix, a docs edit, a `good first issue`? Does that label have real issues behind it? | Can a newcomer do something in their first session, or do they just lurk? | --- ## 4. Connection *How do people meet each other? Where do relationships actually form?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | Where do people talk who aren't already friends? Is there time that isn't the talk? | Do contributors ever interact with each other, or only with you? Is there anywhere that isn't a pull request? | Where do relationships form outside the formal session? Is there a backchannel, a social moment? | --- ## 5. Recognition *How do people know their effort mattered? And who notices the person who comes back a second time?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | How are volunteers and speakers thanked? Does a regular feel seen, or taken for granted? | When lots of people arrive at once, who notices? What happens to someone on their *second* contribution — is there anything waiting for them? | Are contributions acknowledged in the moment? Does a returning participant get recognised as a returner? | > **The second-timer gap:** most maintainers optimise the first contribution and have nothing waiting for the second. The first time is when someone tests the water. The second time is when they're deciding whether to stay. Design for the second-timer and you design for retention. Let contributor behaviour pull your effort: instant acknowledgement for everyone, a human reply for anyone who engages, real investment in the people who come back. --- ## 6. Growth *How does someone take on more? How do people learn to lead here?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | How does an attendee become a volunteer, then an organiser? Is there a path, or does it depend on knowing you? | How does a one-time contributor become a regular, then a maintainer? Who hands over responsibility? | How does a sprint participant become a navigator or mentor for the next cohort? | --- ## 7. Safety *What happens when something goes wrong? How do people raise concerns?* | In person | Repo | Online | |-----------|------|-------------| | Is there a code of conduct people actually know about? What happens when someone's uncomfortable? | What happens when a contribution is wrong or a discussion gets heated? Is disagreement repaired or left to fester? | Who's holding the room on a call? What happens if someone's talked over or dismissed? | --- ## 8. Return *Why would someone come back? What makes this worth returning to?* | In person | Repo | Online live | |-----------|------|-------------| | Why does someone come to the *next* meetup, not just this one? What pulls them back? | Why does a contributor open a second PR? Is there a reason to return, or was it a one-off? | Why does someone join the next sprint? What carries between sessions? | --- ## After mapping Look across your filled-in stages. Two questions: 1. **Where's the gap?** Which stage is weakest — where are you losing people? 2. **Who solved it?** If you're in a mixed room: find someone whose community works nothing like yours. What's one thing they do well that you could borrow? The maintainer's weak Welcome might be the meetup organiser's strongest stage. The meetup's weak Return might be something a project solved years ago. The person who fixed your problem is often sitting three tables over. --- ## One change to test - **Current experience:** - **Desired experience:** - **First practical action:** - **Who needs to be involved:** - **How we'll know it improved:** --- *CC BY 4.0 — Open Community Leadership (OCL). Free to use, adapt, and share with attribution.*