"Onboard all community members w/ friendly self-disclosure rituals" - Erik Torenberg

Introducing new members to the broader community is as important as hosting a kickoff event for new members to get to know each other. The larger the community the more alien things are for the new members at the start. That's true with any group setup. The first time you entered a school you just joined, your first day at a new job - butterflies were always there in your stomach. Do everything you can to make the new members of your community feel at home.

Here are a couple of tips to help them get comfortable from Day-0 and also for the community to get to know new members.

1. Create an #introductions channel and get new members to post introductions. Here's a format you can use:

• Name, Location (Twitter link, LinkedIn profile link)About me
• What can I help with
• What I need help on
• Here's a fun thing about me

2. Create a ritual to introduce new members on your community space.

• For smaller communities, this could be a post on the general Slack or Discord or Circle channel tagging the members
• For larger communities, this could be a member directory that has a 'New to community' filter
• Reminded members of the community to welcome new members in the introduction channel
• Use profile to display a relevant tag against their member profile. For example, you can use Slack status to set custom tags/icons. The On Deck community uses this as a way for you to show which cohort you belong to.

🛠 Resources:

Dish - helps you create a member directory within your community

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