February's Update from the Thailand Collective

Get the latest news from the team in Thailand

Greetings  from Pai, Thailand! We hope you enjoy this latest update from us, hearing about  the things we have been up to this past month.

What Is CouchSurfing’s Purpose? 

The answer may  seem simple, yet CouchSurfing means many different  things to many different people. We each have our individual perspective on  what it means to be a CouchSurfer and the role it plays in our lives. As we  approach half a million members worldwide, to make sure we stay aligned  with our core intent as a non-profit organization and a world community,  now is the right time to do some essential self-examination.
  
Collective  participants are now embarking on important projects that hone in on  the core principles of CouchSurfing. CouchSurfing means more  than just intercultural understanding to members; it's about the powerful  personal connections we forge with each other and the personal growth we  experience through these connections, along with a shared sense of  adventure!  

Through this process of defining our  essence we are building a strong foundation for the future of CouchSurfing. As  a part of that process, we're examining CouchSurfing’s "brand identity", which  is the marketing term for how we present ourselves to the public visually,  verbally, and in text form. For example, our current CouchSurfing logo has  served us well, but as we continue to grow, it is essential that our logo also  reflect our changing community. 
  
During the past month, each expert team has  scheduled time for discussions about CouchSurfing’s purpose and identity, who we are now, and where we want to grow - the results of which will guide each team through the growth of the coming months and years. Expect exciting improvements to come to the CouchSurfing brand in the near future!

Now Showing at a Venue Near You: CouchSurfing Events! 

CouchSurfers around the world are connecting with each other and spreading the  CS spirit through meetings organized by members nearly every day! To help  members continue to experience these amazing connections three participants are  here at the Collective to establish CouchSurfing’s very first Events and  Outreach Team.

This team  will be focusing on providing the CouchSurfing Community with the tools,  resources, and support they need when creating events, including assisting with  promotion of events that clearly support the CS mission, creating tools that  help members promote their events and expanding the CS community through  coordinated events and outreach.

This  Collective team dove straight in with several efforts to help the CS community  now.

One lot of event organizers the Collective team has been assisting are from the Gigswapping group. They are organizing a string of extraordinary music events in Utrecht, Vienna and Pardubice in April 2008. These events are providing CouchSurfing musicians the chance to showcase their talents – check out the details here! 
    
Keep track of the progress of this new and exciting team in CouchSurfing in the Events and Outreach Team.

Instant Updates from the Tech  Team! 

Did you know that when you update a friend’s reference, they will now receive an email  to let them know you’ve updated it?  

This is just one  of the many small changes occurring all the time in the CS website as our  tireless team of tech volunteers’ focus on improving the site. Some of the  changes fix problems that have been identified by members. Other changes are  refinements to features that make things easier for you as a member. 

To help to keep members informed about changes to the site, the tech team has  created a new way for members to get notification whenever one of these changes  occurs. This Tech Team News Feed will give you information about the new  features and changes. 

To subscribe to this news feed, click here and join the group and select  whether you want to receive these updates instantly, daily or weekly!

CouchSurfing to Take Center Stage

CouchSurfing continues to make  news worldwide, and we love being the object of the media’s affection. But up  until now, we’ve waited for reporters to come to us with their story ideas.  That is all about to change.

During this Collective, we’re building a foundation for positive, proactive  media relations. Simply put, we’re fired up to start telling the world our story,  on our terms. Our dedicated Public Relations team is developing a media  training module that will help prepare our spokespeople for the calls they’ll  be fielding from reporters. This module not only clarifies the media’s goals  and challenges, but helps a potential spokesperson focus his or her thoughts,  develop key messages for a targeted audience, and hone his or her interviewing  skills. The training and support will ensure that the CS passion and messaging  will come through, loud and clear. 

If media relations interest you, stay tuned. The Public Relations and Media  Team will soon be looking for experienced volunteers to join them. In the  meantime, we’ll be flashing our pearly whites for the paparazzi, with pleasure!

New Team Focuses on Improving Your CS Experience! 

A new team is under development right now; a team that has your primary experience as a member as its central focus: The User Experience team. This team will focus all of its efforts on helping CouchSurfing produce the best possible experiences for all present and future CouchSurfers of the world. 

A key part of achieving this goal is creating two teams. The Research Team will be instrumental in uncovering, understanding, informing and enhancing the experience of being a CouchSurfer. The Design team will be dedicated to all the design aspects in CouchSurfing, from logos to website graphics to a whole host of other design opportunities that may come up as we grow.

The development of these teams is in good hands with  Sebastien Le Tuan, one of the co-founders of CouchSurfing. Seb is excited about the opportunity to apply everything he has learned in the past working in product and experience design, and cognitive science. "This team will help make new and existing features of the website more useful to members, easier to use, and will improve the whole experience of being a CouchSurfer." 

To find out more about this team as it develops, visit the current Design & User Interface Team. 

  
We’re an International Bunch! 

With more than 400,000 members around the world, it’s not surprising that members speak a wide range of languages. We want as many people as possible to know what fantastic achievements are happening at the Collective, so we arranged for the last newsletter to be translated into French and Spanish. These are the next two most widely spoken languages after English within the CouchSurfing community.

These updates can be accessed here:

• Nouvelles de Janvier pour la Collectivité en Thailande
  
• Noticias del Colectivo en Thailandia - Edición de enero
  

We will  translate this update as well, and once available it will be posted on the Thailand Collective webpage at www.couchsurfing.com/collective_thailand.html

Collective Members Learn a New Way to Talk it Out

Communication is crucial, particularly when considering our growing membership. That’s why volunteers at the Collective are devoting their  own time to learn from enthusiastic CouchSurfer, Johnny Colden about Nonviolent  Communication (NVC). Collective participants who already have training in this  communication technique have found it useful not only in CS member relations,  but in their personal and professional relationships as well.

We’ve all had those moments where we say something that immediately raises the guard of the person standing opposite us, and we all know how difficult those  discussions can become as a result. What if you could find a way to communicate that would keep the door of discussion open, allowing you to forge a deeper connection with those with whom you communicate? NVC offers a series of steps to express yourself without the use of criticism or judgment. It’s a tool that helps us to truly hear one another, without injecting our perceptions of "good"  or "bad" into our discussions.

What does this mean for you, as a member of CouchSurfing? Our intention, as always, is to be in touch with your needs and the needs of the community at large. With NVC as part of our toolkit we can improve organizational communication and make our community a closer-knit family where everyone’s core needs can be met. We will also be looking at the possible applications for NVC in other areas of CouchSurfing, including member groups.

New Thailand Collective Webpage Launches

To help make it easier for members to keep track of progress at the Collective, a new Thailand Collective webpage has been created that brings together the different avenues you can find information.

Just  click on the quick link “Thailand Collective” from the CS home page or follow this link to the Thailand Collective webpage. 

We look forward to keeping you updated from this page as the team continues their impressive commitment to building these volunteer teams.

Until Next Time!

With only six weeks left at this Collective, all participants are focused on ensuring their individual goals are met before it's time to leave. This means a huge amount of effort is being put in and we can’t wait to let you know what has been achieved in our update next month!    

Until then, happy surfing!

From the team at the 5th CouchSurfing Collective, Thailand