One feature we’ll have in the Conscious Growth Club discussion forums is the ability to create groups. A group is like a mini-club within the larger club for a subset of members to connect based on a shared interest.

A group can be as simple as letting members express affinity for a particular interest or value, so other members could easily find them. For instance, we could have groups for members who are vegan, members who are building passive income streams, or members who are in Toastmasters. Then any member would be free to opt-in to one or more of those groups if they wanted to.

A group can be open, which allows anyone to join or leave as they please. Or a group can require the group leader’s approval to join. A group can be listed in the group directory, so all members can find it, or a group can be unlisted, so no one would know it’s there unless a group member told them about it. And we can even change these settings after a group is created if the group members want to do so.

Each group can optionally have its own private discussion area, so group members can discuss their interests in a focused subspace without having to post everything in the main discussion areas, which would give the group members more privacy. For instance, we could have a private category for members of a Vegan group to discuss their vegan-related lifestyle challenges with fellow vegans. Or we could have a group where people who are also members of Toastmasters could discuss speaking skills, share videos of their speeches, get feedback, etc. We could also have groups for different regions, so members from the UK could easily find each other. This last idea could be used to help facilitate local meetups for members who live near each other.

Members could also use groups for connecting with accountability partners who are working on related goals, habits, or challenges. So if several members are writing books or building new websites, they could use a group to connect with members working on similar projects. Members could form mastermind groups with their closest CGC friends as well.

Additionally, if some members decide to work on a co-creative project together, like my friends and I did when recording Imaginary Men, we could provide a group and discussion area for them to collaborate. You can upload files to share with the group too, such as an MP3 of a new audio recording you made.

Of course we want to avoid overdoing it by splintering the whole community into a bunch of private groups. We want to maintain a good spirit of cross-pollination for members in the main discussion areas too. But the judicious use of groups should give CGC members more freedom to connect and collaborate in interesting ways. I’m sure there are ways to use groups I haven’t thought of yet.

This also gives CGC some built-in scalability. As the membership grows, we can create more groups to make it easier for members to connect based on specific interests. Think of it like a big conference where there are main sessions in a big ballroom as well as breakout sessions in smaller meeting rooms, with attendees being free to choose which sessions to attend.