If I were designing inkhaven, I’d make cohorts
I’m on day 25 of Inkhaven, a residency where you write 30 blog posts in 30 days or get kicked out. It sounds like they may run it again, and I’m sharing a proposal for how to make the experience better.
First, I’m going to make up that metrics for Inkhaven being successful, let’s say they are:
Amount of learning about writing
Quality of work coming out
Quality of connections
Number of high-trust friends made
Participant satisfaction
Social observations I’ve had at Inkhaven:
1. It took me a while to feel belonging
In my first critique, one person told me that he didn’t understand why I wrote what I wrote, and it didn’t seem worth his time. Another said he loved it and wouldn’t change a thing. The feedback I got was tremendously dependent on who I was talking to. The person who didn’t see the point of my work was writing to prevent AI doom, and my purpose had more to do with cultivating intimacy.
I wondered, do I belong here? Is everyone else writing about math? But over time I found people that appreciated what I did. I started reading more of people’s work, and finding more people were similar to me than I’d initially thought.
Eventually, I found people that I clicked with. These connections usually happened late at night and 1-1 for me. But I feel sad that it took me until the end of the program sometimes to meet people I resonate with.
Last night I talked with Harri for the first time. He offered me beautiful feedback, and his writing style is similar to mine, but I didn’t make this connection until now. And I likely missed other.
2. Closer ties are nourishing
Early in the program, I would feel wiped out after I posted. I stayed in bed not wanting to get out. I wondered if others were feeling something like this too. A week or so in, the group looked zombie-fied.
Overtime, I realized that when I felt more connected with the people around me, it felt nourishing. It made the process feel good. One person telling me they appreciated me, or got something out of my writing meant more to me than any likes on Substack. All I needed was a little love.
This last week, I got a desk in a room called “glass house”. It feels warm, with a consistent group working here. I have more ambient belonging than I’ve felt at any other time.
3. I didn’t get to know as many people as I’d hoped to:
At a sunset beach gathering for Inkhaven two days ago, I decided to be socially proactive. I reached out my hand to someone that I didn’t know yet from the program, “I recognize you, but I don’t know your name, I’m Joanna.” He said, “Oh, have you heard of inkhaven?” I pulled out my badge to show him I’m a resident, “yes, I have!”
He wondered if me having kids made it harder to meet people. Maybe, I said, but sometimes I just pretend to be too cool for school, when I’m actually just shy. He said he could relate to that. He didn’t feel like he knew that many people either.
Proposal: make cohorts
40 people is too many to create close ties easily. Instead, I propose dividing up the group into smaller groups based on genre of writing. Then participants would have two identities: Inkhaven resident, and smaller group participant.
I tried something like this at Constellation:
Years ago, when I started a tech job, I always felt a special bond with the people I did my intro meetings with on the first day.
Based on this, I tried making cohorts at Constellation, an AI research center, when people joined a research program. They were entering a community that had big status differences. Being on a team with people in the same situation with them created a sense of psychological safety.
We organized meetings with their group to get oriented, and a few special events. I also arranged offices so they would be closer to each other and next to the meal area. And the quality of the vibe at lunches got so much better!
By vibe, I mean the sense of psychological safety. Are people slightly scared? Are they hunched over, arms tight? Or are people open, relaxed, playful? Is conversation flowing? The culture felt much better when we tried making cohorts.
As I write this, I’m imagining some readers feeling skeptical. How can you know something based on vibes? I want you to know, skeptical reader I take seriously checking my vibe-reads with science. I can check measurable things, like: how long are people talking for, what’s the volume, or how many people choose to come to meals. Less good than the big-ass numbers we measured in big-tech when playing “make numbers go up”, but good.
What “cohorts” could like at Inkhaven:
Create five groups based on genre type, like: History, personal writing, AI writing, AI writing 2, etc.
Meet with your group for the first night for dinner. Learn names. Meet your shared coach.
Each group gets a desk area that’s your home base (and you can work from any common space)
Encourage people to keep up with their group’s blogs. Run critiques together.
Optional: create group names. Do group vs group competitions. Etc.
Dividing based on genre seems like a reasonable proxy for “people who get your work.” But even if those groups were random, I think there would still be benefits. Remembering eight people’s names is easy to do. Keeping up with eight people’s posts is easy to do. Having repeated contact with a group makes it easier to create bonds.
Continue to do large-group stuff too. Pollinate with the larger hive, and then cultivate safety with the smaller.
Improve desk areas
For this to work, you may need more desks areas. Glass house is also obviously 5x better than every other desk area. Can the other desk areas be improved? Remove curtains, add plants, warm lights, rug, and a couch. Create a place that feels psychologically safe enough for someone to take a nap, which is what someone is doing on the couch near me in glass house.
Downside:
Certainly, you would lose some stuff with this. Maybe people feel more constrained to stay in their genre (you can tell them they are free to not). Maybe there’s less overall mixing? I actually doubt it.
I don’t predict a major reduction in mixing. I would bet that with more psychological safety, people take more social risks. But, even if there was, I think it would be worth the trade-off.
Upside:
I think all of the fake metrics I made up at the beginning would go up.