Nature In Community Planning/ Future of Nature In

Structure of Community Content: 

• Monthly Talks 
  • Featuring guests and charging a viewing fee
  • Panel discussions and one to one podcast style
• Weekly Community Discussions – on Clubhouse 
  • The week after the talk, the discussion will be based upon the content of the talk, in almost a book club style format, allowing the talk to be unpacked and applying the ideas to personal circumstances
• Content Uploads 2/3 times a week
  • Provoking community discussion and contribution, as well as providing factual info 

Future Plans:

App/ Member’s area

• Access to businesses/ designers – allowing members to view their work/ ideas and then message to collaborate/ work with them on projects to bring nature into cities

Aim of Nature In Community: 

Bringing together professionals to make bringing nature into city spaces an accessible and innovative priority.

Possible tag line – Making nature and sustainability an easily accessible, engaging priority for professionals working in and on city spaces. 

Everyone is concerned with acting more sustainably with nature, for the planet, especially in a professional/ corporate setting where there is pressure to be seen to be doing so.

The Nature In Community offers a one-stop-shop to access the leading experts, businesses, and ideas in bringing nature into city spaces.

Bringing nature into the city aids personal wellbeing and the climate crisis through protecting and enhancing nature as well as encouraging sustainability-conscious behaviors. 

Discussion and Collaboration: 

• On current members current work with issues and questions regarding including nature
• Instigating projects between members from connections made in the group
• Members can post their work in the community inspired by community conversations

Content Ideas: 

Questions/ facts/ talking points/ games/ competitions/ interactive activities

• Could look at introducing monthly themes or mini-series?
  • Theme could centre around that month’s panel discussion?
  • Mini-series idea – how to introduce nature through evoking the senses through the elements – air, wind, fire, earth, water
• Games/ Interactive activities 
  • Interactive maps – Jauntly 
    • Map of biophilic/ natural places to visit in London
    • Map of the best biophilic/ natural spots to work in London (co-working/ cafes)
  • Group Collage 
    • Inviting members to post ways of adding nature in their work that week through images or text – these can be added to a collage of all the members posts 
• Could begin posting content/ facts around a close look of nature and professionals in the city, gradually zooming out on the subsidiary impacts/ benefits of including nature in the cityscape 
• Similar idea to ‘minute of me’ 
  • Community members post short videos of themselves – stating their work, goals and ideas
• Post responses/ questions/ facts regarding the outcomes of COP26
• Catching lucky leaf idea
  • Community members asked to post their reflections/ wants for good luck into the new year

Ideas for Talk Topics: 

• How can nature improve wellbeing in the city? 
• What can natural building do for your work/ life in urban interior spaces? 
  • Contact Jeffery Heart to guest speak
• How can nature improve your work environment? 
  • Contact Percy Smith to guest speak
• What does nature bring to the table? – benefits of nature to wellbeing and climate crisis
• How can nature be introduced in designing urban interior spaces 
  • Contact architects and interior designers with natural deisgn professionals to guest speak
• How can regenerative design aid our integration of nature into cities? 
  • Contact Carole Collet to guest speak
• How can nature help graphic designers? – utilising nature for inspiration and for restorative rest bite 
  • Contact graphic and natural designers to guest speak
• How can technology boost connections to nature?
  • Contact Sue Thomas and Kristina Libby to guest speak 
• How can adding nature help your businesses attract more customers? -Economics of biophilic design
  • Contact Bill and Catie from Terrapin Bright Green to guest speak 
• How targeting the senses can help to build connections to nature
• Can you make a difference to biodiversity/ rewilding living in the city? 
• Nature and Virtual Reality
  • Could link with Sam’s project for VR and mental health?
• Nature and displacement activities from screens
  • Could link to Jariel’s project – utilise nature to give a the opportunity to step away from work and improve your project output
• Nature and furniture
  • Contact Yarn Collective, John Lewis and alike to guest speak 
  • How products reduce carbon output and how natural materials help to improve wellbeing and build connections to nature, alongside benefits to climate crisis 
• Is a green wall really the best we can do? 
  • General debate/ collaboration of companies pushing innovative ways of how nature can be added into spaces 
  • Could even form this idea into a competition – getting companies to collaborate and produce ideas to add nature to an internal city space 
    • The ideas can then be pitched as part of a competition where the winner gets to create their idea and install it in a given space
      • This does require someone to volunteer a space for the installation of the natural design
    • People will take part as it offers an opportunity to showcase their work, which can draw people to get involved in their work as customers or collaborators   
• What is the power of plants in a city space? 
  • Contacts Planteria and Plant Designs to guest speak?
• Nature and city culture – exploring in music, fashion, nightlife and how to incorporate nature
• How to introduce nature in none-creative careers – nature for lawyers, bankers and business people in the city – ‘we haven’t forgotten about you’ 
  • Pushing past things companies do for their employees in regard to nature, such as adding nature to work environments and instead focusing mire upon how nature can aid personal work/ careers
• Nature and food 
  • Contact chefs or the likes of Waitrose food magazine writers for a special 
  • How to feel close to nature through city food, where foraging and growing your own food is out of the question 
  • Nature for city chefs? – contact London honey company to guest speak? 
    • Bearing in mind out pricing people due to heightened prices of local produce? 
• Nature and health/ wellbeing 
  • Exercise, yoga, mindfulness and nature’s integral role in instigating and elevating these practises 

More customer based: 

• How can you bring nature to your life when living in the city with no garden? 
• Nature for city kids 
  • How to get city kids to include nature in their lives, goals and ideas
    • Explore what’s out there for kids – ‘mind’ game looking at nature and now and getting kids to consider it at meal times

The Product 

• App/ community platform 
  • Thursdays rebrand from honey pot that was hosted on Instagram and the oncoming birth of Web 3 suggests that the internets of social media is shifting towards a space where customised online community spaces are the form of social media whereby the spaces are less mindless scrolling and more mindful scrolling in community spaces of like-minded people 
    • Suggesting moving the online community group off linkedin to an own hosted platform might be the correct move to form the community into more of a viable business model
  • Companies/ experts/ professionals pay to be on the app as listed Nature In approved – subscription-based payment? – free gets you to see certain things but to utilise it properly or message people you have to subscribe? 
    • Possible feature/ section for venues wanting to add nature in projects and the professionals on the app can select them – the venues could pay to be listed in this section
  • Professionals want to join the app/ space to see who they can work with, see what projects are available and what ideas they can create/ utilise 
  • Could offer professional access first and then roll out to the public to access the listed professionals? 
  • The panels/ talks will be linked to/ access given via the app platform – free to members 
    • Or could do a tiered membership: 
      • Free- access to see some posted content (just enough to give the sense of the community and what to be achieved? 
      • Basic – access to members, messaging, and community content
      • Premium – access to all the above and panel discussions/ talks and access to listed venues or companies available for projects? 

Who to Get on Board with the Project – large targets: 

Technology Inspiration: 

• Onezone app
• Thursday app- Massively growth in short period of time – Jess Wreford Marketing lead 

Podcasts:

• Design the future

Big Big: 

• Bill Gates 
• Google 
  • Off the back of how to avoid climate disaster – highlight need to include nature in all lines of professional work aimed in cities

Natural World:

•  More younger generation figure of the likes of Chris Packham or Alan titschmarch 
  • Consider who this could be?

Reflection

Having started to grow the Nature In community on LinkedIn, through inviting the contacts I have made throughout my matsers journey to the page and uploading content, it is exciting to plan the future growth of the space.

I feel the platform of LinkedIn is the most suitable strating point to grow the community initially as it allows of easy acess to many professionals already on the site. However, looking to the future and growing this community and platform into a viable model for change and business I feel it may be best to move onto a self made home platform such as an app or website space that can be fully customisable and provide a space to unify people with alined intentions. Thus, helping to step away from the negative connotatons that can be brought into the soical media space. For instance, ideas of watsing time on the platforms through encourgaing habits of mindless scrollling. Also, with the prodicted trends in Web3 exploring future rises in social networking online moving off the current platforms I feel establishing a unique community space may be a suitable option.