How to Ask Better Community Questions: It’s as Easy as ABCD with Cormac Russell – SASM 127

Cormac Russell and Joel Zaslofsky Combined Picture

You're about to Learn ...

  • Why our unexpressed gifts can do tremendous harm.
  • How an institutionalized five-year-old changed Cormac’s life direction.
  • Why community makes a better verb than a noun.
  • How to get past the sense that someone’s either trying to sell you something or sell you out.
  • The two words that simply summarize Asset-Based Community Development.
  • How to have conversations that respect the past and present, but aren’t held captive by either.
  • When to show up as a host or guest in someone’s life.
  • How to ask better questions about and within your communities.
  • Why consumer culture is actually an anti-culture.
  • Why emphasizing discoverables is better than focusing on deliverables.
  • How Asset-Based Community Driven Efforts may be the next evolution of ABCD.

Resources and Items Mentioned in This Episode

Timestamps and Topics

  • [03:17] How I think about community and my sense of belonging
  • [12:41] Cormac’s seeds of awesomeness
  • [19:23] How being an orphan informs Cormac’s ABCD work
  • [24:23] How Cormac’s background in psychology and “community care” led him to ABCD
  • [29:31] The essence of ABCD
  • [33:30] Community as a verb, not a noun
  • [39:38] The tension between trust and privacy
  • [52:02] The limits of ABCD and discoverables over deliverables

Awesome Ways to Subscribe to the Show

Smart and Simple Matters: Creating Community, Simplicity, and Good Vibes
Smart and Simple Matters: Creating Community, Simplicity, and Good Vibes
Joel Zaslofsky: Community Animator, Connector, Multipotentialite, and Spreadsheet Guy

Joel Zaslofsky – your community-animating, convention-challenging show host – wanders through time-tested and quirky strategies on a variety of topics. In general, we’ll explore the slower side of life: think mindfulness, real connections, and meaningful conversations. No new episodes since 2019, but it’s still going strong with chats on meditation (hi, Andy Puddicombe), belonging (hey, Cormac Russell), and even death (yep, with Humaira Hamid) … among many other things.

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