What makes us feel safe to express ourselves authentically?

​We've seen a lot of division in the world lately. It happens in global politics and it happens every day in the communities and group chats we all exist in. We also know that being seen, heard and understood is a universal human need.

​We all have thoughts we want to share with people, but we tend to share them in certain spaces - where we feel safer - more than others. That might be with a friend you trust, a group you feel shares your perspective, or in a situation where you feel otherwise protected from harm.

​Google conducted a well-referenced study demonstrating that psychological safety was the top factor common to its highest-performing teams. At Sphere, we think this applies to how communities operate too.

​We want to understand what makes all of us feel safe enough to express our innermost thoughts across different situations and with different people. If we can do that, we believe we can build a technology platform that helps us to create safety for everyone.

​We'll start the discussion by inviting people to share experiences where they've felt safe enough in a group to contribute actively to it, and maybe even counter-examples of when people have felt unsafe or uncomfortable contributing.

​If we have time, we can also brainstorm product ideas for ways to build more safety into the Sphere platform! 💡

​Heads-up that we also plan to record the event and leverage quotes from people on social media etc, but we’ll always check with people before sharing specific things they’ve said. If anyone doesn’t want to be recorded, feel free to turn your camera off or email me if you’d like to discuss!

​Finally, there's a discussion thread on our forum for the event. Free to start or continue the conversation on there.