We’re Using the Mute Button All Wrong: Part 1 — Power
Don't be scared of the crowd.
We need to talk about the Mute button. Too much of the time, we mute when we shouldn’t, and we unmute when we ought not. And it’s sucking the life out of our virtual gatherings.
Given the latest CDC reports, it looks like we may be relying on virtual groups for some time to come. Sigh. So, whether you’re attending yoga or cooking classes, running virtual workshops, or logging in for co-op board meetings, weekly staff all-hands, or your second-cousin’s wedding, we gotta keep getting better at this for our collective sanity. In that spirit, I invite you to examine your group’s relationship with the Mute button.
The mute button affects the two Big Mamas of group dynamics: power and intimacy.
Today, I’ll focus on power. Next time, we’ll address intimacy.
As I wrote in our most recent letter, power exists in every gathering. In virtual gatherings, power disproportionately lies in the Mute button: who controls it, when it’s used, and how it’s used. And, in part because we are scared of complete chaos, we over-mute.
Particularly for larger groups, we use the Mute button as if we were operating the wall of a dam: a weighty commitment to open or close. But what if we were to think of it instead as different sized buckets on a rope in a well, to be dropped in and filled, as needed, depending on what the watering needs might be on each specific day?
Let me give an example of an organization that used the Mute button beautifully, well before Covid hit.
Soon after the 2016 election in the US, a progressive organization announced they were hosting a conference call open to anyone in an effort to regroup after this historic defeat. They held it (I was told) on a Monday evening and to their amazement, 60,000 people dialed in. Sixty thousand. Now, most hosts would hold on to that Mute button for dear life. But they didn’t. At the top of the call, they said something like, “We just learned that there are 60,000 of you on this call around the country. We are overwhelmed with how many of you showed up. In a moment, we’re going to turn the mute button OFF and invite you to yell/scream/give a giant yawp into the phone.” A participant later told me that in that moment, screaming out loud into the phone alongside 59,999 other people who she couldn’t see was deeply powerful. And, that regardless of however the hosts chose to use the other 59 minutes, it didn’t matter. They had already achieved their purpose. Through turning the mute button OFF, they demonstrated to everybody on that call that they were not alone.
Why did this work so well?
They muted and unmuted based on when it served the purpose of the call and the community.
They weren’t terrified by the big numbers, they tapped into its size.
They contained the unmuting portion and gave it form.
They gave a simple, specific, easily-understandable instruction to an enormous group that was appropriate to the medium. (Screaming into the telephone.)
They opened with it, and thereby set the tone and context for the rest of the time.
They didn’t assume that the Mute button either needed to be on or off for the whole call. (Most of us are married to the mute button when we should actually be casually dating it.)
How have you been using the UnMute button?
Inspirations
How to talk to conspiracy theorists—and still be kind
Part self-help guide, part peek into a compelling Reddit community, I found the article, "How to talk to conspiracy theorists—and still be kind" by Tanya Basuarchive illuminating.
For members (or those who want to be members) of the Burning Man community who do not like the idea of completely miss the Black Rock City experience this year. Built by the Burning Man Project, this "experiment" invites all to join (and create) live, virtual gatherings from "across the multiverse."
