Episode 78: Building Communities with Rachelle Houde

52 Weeks of Me

Rachelle Houde is a strategist and storyteller who spent more than 20 years in communication and marketing. Following her departure from advertising agencies, she has been freelancing as a strategic consultant with a focus on community building. Growing up in a military family who relocated every three years, she had to learn and relearn how to adapt to a new culture every single time. Part of her personal growth was utilizing personal computers at home in order to connect with virtual communities around the world. She is currently writing a business book on leveraging the power of community management strategy in order to improve corporate culture in a hybrid world.
Highlights:

• Community-Building is bringing people together who have common needs, desires, and interests
• Freelancing - offered liberty in the projects she took on, but it lacked the intellectual conversation she needed
• Online Platforms - of all the platforms she explored, there was none that matched her interests and values, hence she found the need to establish her own
• Healthy communities - are built on certain sets of core values, and core values help each member learn better and get better; it is based on growth rather than scarcity; it helps members to thrive, not just survive
• Toxic community - where retribution and scarcity thrive
• Intellectual generosity - the more you share, the more you will receive; however, be careful of giving unsolicited advice

Being isolated is detrimental to our general well-being. But being part of a community (a tribe) provides us with food, shelter, defense, and security. Being around another human being creates interactions between the synapses of our brains.
If you would like to know more about the role of community and how you can participate in community building in the different aspects of life, as well as understand how it can improve the quality of your own life and that of your organization, Rachelle is a resource person to go to.
She is multipresent on different social media platforms.
Look for Rachelle Houde Simard or Rachelle, La Sociable.
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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.
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