When you’re doing something new - or gathering in a new way with the people you know best - the invitation is an act of ramp creation. And the lever of that moment is the invitation. The moment of discovery is the moment the guest discovers a specific, promised future happening and has to decide whether or not to attend. Sure, she could just send an invitation with the date, time and place, but would anyone show up? She understood her role as host didn’t begin at the moment her guests arrived, but rather from the very first moment of discovery. Robin had a problem many of us share: she wanted to gather people in a way they weren’t used to and needed to bring them along. Robin understood that every gathering is a temporary social contract, and an invitation is the opening salvo. Her new neighbors responded in turn: "30 years," "46 years," "in my next life I’d like to be a cabaret singer," "I’d most like to visit Poland (my people!)," "I once delivered a baby…not ours!" Then two days before the gathering, Robin sent a playful reminder email that included a YouTube clip from "Cheers." A week later, the kids delivered invitations (printed at VistaPrint) asking guests for 1) an RSVP 2) their email address 3) the number of years they lived on their block and 4) three fun facts about them. She sent her six and nine-year-old girls as emissaries via scooter to hang to-go coffee cups with "save the coffee date" notes on neighbors' doors. This wasn’t, it turned out, a block that "hung out." How might she change that?Īfter consulting with her next-door neighbors, who’d lived on the block for 30+ years, she decided to host a "Bagels & Brew" breakfast at her house to provide a space for them to casually mingle. But she soon realized that very few of her neighbors actually knew one another.
When Robin and her partner moved their family to a new neighborhood outside of Chicago, she had visions of cook-offs and block parties and an open-door policy. How scooters, coffee cups, and an unusual RSVP request shifted the culture of a neighborhood.
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