The CGC Watercooler (Experimental New Feature)
For our next wild experiment, we opened a 24/7 always-on video chat room in Conscious Growth Club yesterday morning. I’ve been wanting to try something like this for a long time, so our members could pop in, connect, and talk to each other live whenever they want – and without my having to host any calls. I’m calling it the CGC Watercooler just as a placeholder name, but we’re discussing other names like the CGC Lounge, CGC Campfire, or for Harry Potter fans… the Room of Requirement.
I love that whenever I want now, I can pop in and chat live with any members that are hanging around our virtual watercooler. Maybe sometimes it will be empty, and sometimes there will be 5-10 people in there having an interesting conversation.
I let everyone know this is experimental for now, and it seems to be going well so far. I hung out with a few of our members when we first opened it and chatted with them for more than an hour.
This is a nice bridge between our regular video coaching calls and our discussion forums. It makes it easier for our members to connect socially and get to know each other. And it’s great for people who want more of that human connection – more energy flow and less friction for people who’d rather chat live than type messages to each other.
It’s going to be fun to explore what we can do with this in the weeks ahead. I can see some of our digital nomad members live-sharing parts of their travel adventures, for instance.
Rachelle and I are planning to head to Disneyland for a few days next week – we could use some R&R after the awesome 10-day creative challenge that finished on Wednesday – so we might pop into the video lounge now and then from the park to say hi and chat with anyone who’s there. I just upgraded my cell plan to 10x as much data as I had before, so now I can be a shameless data slut. 🙂
This might sound like a stretch, but down the road I expect we’ll be able to have an always-on 3D virtual meeting space that members can hang out in whenever they want, like with 3D headsets. It’s just a matter of time before the technology matures. Tech-wise it’s probably possible to have this today, but the adoption isn’t there yet. It’s really cool to consider all the tech we’ll be able to leverage in the years ahead to make CGC even better and to empower our members to connect in interesting ways.
This new video chat lounge also nails a real need that some of our members have, which is feeling like they’re the only people they know who are into personal growth. And many don’t like Facebook much… especially its many distractions. So I love that we’re able to provide an independent, ad-free space that’s all about the connection and conversation. If anyone feels lonely or down, they’ll always have a place to go that’s filled with encouraging people to bring them back up again.
Another thing we’re doing is putting together a map of where our members are located around the world (optional participation for those who want to do so). This way when people travel, they can see if there are other members in the vicinity and arrange meetups if they want. People have already been doing this even before we had the map, so this should make it easier. Visually it looks like a big map with lots of pins in it. I have to say it’s really inspiring to look at that map and see all these pins wrapping around the planet.
In case you’re wondering, we’re aiming to do the full launch of CGC in March 2018, so that’s when the first official year will begin. This means that there are still about 3 months of Early Access time left, which is free bonus time for anyone who joins now. The Early Access period started in late April 2017, so anyone who was smart enough to join back then is getting a great deal. Some members have made huge strides forwards in their lives already, mostly just by leveraging the forums, so it’s exciting to think about the gains people will be able to make as we keep improving CGC month after month.
In January I’ll record and publish a video course on Goal Setting and Achieving in CGC, and in February I’ll create one on Taking Action.
I especially love that our members are taking the initiative and leading their own experiments and accountability challenges. There’s a passive income group doing weekly calls to build their own passive income streams and support each other as they go. And this month there’s a group doing a 30-day exercise challenge. It’s really fun seeing so much growth-oriented activity… almost like a Disneyland of its own for people who love to immerse themselves in personal growth.
If it sounds like I’m excited for 2018, yup… I definitely am! 🙂