In this episode of the Social Lights Podcast, podcast host and Social Mediology founder Kate vanderVoort chats with Tania Cheng (She/They), Director of Process Innovation at SheEO and part of the team that creates and curates of all aspects of community at SheEO. SheEO has more than 7000 activators globally and combined online communities of over 50,000 women and non-binary people.
About Tania
Tania leads initiatives related to community experience design, online community engagement, feedback and evaluation, team learning and development, process mapping, and storytelling through design.
Early on, Tania has been involved in intentional communities and their own personal journey of finding the places where they belong has led to find the value of community and value a sense of belonging. Tania naturally gravitates to work and people who care about the community and who care about relationships.
BIG IDEA 1
“We are working to shift mindsets and paradigms” (08:32)
As an organization and a community, Tania shared the impact they are trying to make; that they are showing the world different ways of doing things; different ways of funding ventures, different ways of doing business, different ways of being in community and different ways of being human. We are working to create more opportunities to have these conversations about equity inclusion, about power and privilege about decolonization around justice, all of these things that are essential to transforming systems.
These mindsets that are deeply embedded in the way they co-exist as a community and how they build a community. Tania added that it's all part of this broader theory of change of transforming ourselves in order to transform systems and creating the systems that we need that will work for everyone.
BIG IDEA 2
“The magic and the secret sauce of community is having the mentality and mindset of giving and generosity and trust and knowing that you can come and show up as you are” (13:11)
Having a “How can I help?” mindset and knowing that you can offer your support and it will be received and you can ask for support and it will be given is one of the magic of communities. Tania says that community should be a space where you can let go of all the things such as being and looking a certain way. She said that we should strive to create a collective place where you can show up as yourself with no judgment.
We recognize that people are at different stages in their lives and have different things going on and how we can create a space that whenever you're here or whenever you participate, you're in the right place.
BIG IDEA 3
“Feedback is critical to our processes. ” (37:32)
Tania shared the process on how they handle feedback. She said that their role as enablers in creating the systems and platforms and tools for the community to self-organize, is to get to action and transform systems. After every engagement event, there is always some feedback form and so they are able to immediately look at the feedback, react and respond as needed.
Their theory of change at the core is their values radical generosity and abundance transformation. She says it's about how they embody the values in day-to-day practices and knowing that when they do that, they create the relationships that then leads to the transformation that we want to see in the world. At the end of the day, it’s all about relationships.
Social Media Links:
You can find Tania Cheng at:
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