The inspiration your Slack group needs 💯 Carly Ayres, Founder of "100s Under 100”
Episode at a glance:
GUEST: Carly Ayres
COMMUNITY: 100s Under 100
HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh
Show Notes
If you’re on the internet or if you’re working in design today, you may have heard of Carly Ayres (@carlyayres). She’s full of personality, sharp ideas, and has an alluring rebellious vibe.
Carly’s designs are not of the polished, precious, or minimalist ilk we’ve become accustomed to. Her work is interactive, it’s dynamic, and it’s sincere. If you want proof, visit her website CarlyAyres.com. It is a Google Doc.
Photo courtesy of Carly Ayres.
Almost five years ago, Carly started a community in Slack called “100s Under 100,” a play on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list and other similar awards. The Slack group brings together a vetted collection of designers, everyone from senior creative leads at big companies like Dropbox to high school students looking for feedback on their college applications.
“Hundos” feel they are on the same team, sharing resources, insights, and feedback in what can otherwise be an isolating profession. (Full disclosure: Kevin Huynh, my partner in People & Company, is a “Hundo.”)
We wanted to ask Carly about this special Slack group because we get questions about community “watering holes” all the time. People want to know what platform they should use to bring their people together online. Or what they can do to actually make a digital space engaging. Carly has figured all of this out and more.
While you’re listening to Carly, keep an ear out for some of our favorite insights:
Carly didn’t start cold. She launched the Slack group in stages.
Carly didn’t just dump a ton of strangers into a new space all at once. She balanced her first invites to the group, mixing both folks who already knew one another with newbies. By doing so she made the conversations both interesting and welcoming for the first people who signed up.
Carly does regular purges of inactive members.
The instinct we often observe in community leaders is to hold on for dear life to anyone who seems like they’re a community member. But Carly welcomes the process of saying goodbye to folks who aren’t participating. That keeps the community vibrant. (It also demonstrates Carly’s confidence in her community!)
Carly set an intention to diversify, then she worked with her members to realize it.
New people can only be added to the group through a nomination process, which gives existing members responsibility and agency in bringing in new types of people. (See Carly’s Community Guidelines below.)
Screenshots from the 100s Under 100 Community Guidelines.
The Hundos set and sustain expectations through a Code of Conduct.
Code of Conducts both tell members what to expect up front, and keep them accountable to those expectations overtime so the magic of the group’s discourse is preserved. As a leader, Carly knew that having a clear and structured artifact to point members to helps make those expectations incontrovertible.
Carly has clear instincts about passing leadership to others.
Carly has always known she can’t do everything her community will need. She started putting other members into leadership roles as admins early on. In our interview, Carly shares how her instinct to share leadership has evolved to the point where she feels she should let others take over her role in the group. That changing of the guard will ensure the “Hundos” community continues to evolve and meet members’ needs.
Carly Ayres hosting an in-person event for “100s Under 100,” the Slack group she started five years ago.
Get Together is produced by the team at People & Company.
We published a book and worked with organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider as strategy partners, bringing confidence to how they’re building communities.
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