I am an embryologist and want to make a young professionals club for other young embryologist. I have an idea but I have no business experience or know even how to execute. I know it will be something small so I am not sure if this place is the right place to ask but it seems that there’s a lot of knowledge here. I would like to have a better framework of how communities work and a plan on running it. Any tips help really.
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Hello @akolatronika, and welcome to Rosieland!
So, one thing I’ve been working on is a community framework, I’m pulling together a book/course and this post kicked me into action to put together a very brief overview together.
(I realise it’s a bit of a brain dump, but I hope you find it helpful and I would love feedback if it makes any sense. I’m also happy to answer any questions.) 
I call it Continuous Community.
And whilst there are 6 steps here, they often end up overlapping, or they are all continuously happening.
What does this actually mean for you?
First, understand that community doesn’t really look like community at the beginning, it starts with things like research, conversations, and relationship building.
Right now you are stuck with where to start, this is very common! I’d recommend you think about Community Discovery (research). Of course I’m not an expert embryologist, but you may consider doing:
- listing out what publications exist
- who are the experts known in the space?
- who talks about it, both from a professional perspective and those the people you serve?
- where can you find these people? where do they hang out? (facebook groups, for example)
- what events are happening in your space?
- what courses or qualifications exists?
- what social channels are used?
The idea is to create a surround system (a way for you to keep up to date with who is saying/doing what).
This surround system can then help you start with conversations. What people around you in your ecosystem say or do will inspire you to take action in your community.
I always recommend people start with a newsletter (which most people don’t associate with community building) and then use that to point people to places where community stuff is happening. It means you own the email data to begin with and if you do use a community tool that limits access to certain data, then you always have the email list to fall back on to.
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Hi @akolatronika,
That sounds brilliant.
My wife is the Lab Manager at The Evewell in London, UK. She has over 20 years experience as an embryologist and is a genetics specialist.
Following @rosiesherry’s model, she’d be a great candidate/expert to connect with and follow as part of your Community Discovery phase.
She’s active on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmatheembryologist/
I know she follows a lot of the embryology community across the globe. She’s also just got back from ESHRE so perhaps that’s a good way to find more folks as part of your Community Discovery phase.
Good luck with your community explorations.
EDIT: I’ve messaged Emma about your ambitions and she’s said that’s amazing and that she would be happy to help you out. 
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wow thank you so much I will definitely be connecting with her. Thank you so much this is awesome help.
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thank you I will work on this and finding others to have conversations with who are outside of my lab since right now I struggle in thinking I am in a silo of ideas that are relevant only to my lab and I want this to be a community for all young embryologists
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