The excitement (a.k.a. craziness) of the season has taken over, and we have decided to take a break from podcasting this weekend. Our next episode won't be for another week or two.

In the meantime, we wish you, your friends, family and others in your communities all the best of this holiday season!

Cheers,

Connie & Eden
Community Divas

Photo: adapted from Jiazi's Statue of Girl & Dove on Flickr, available for use and adaptation under Creative Commons when attributed.

Following this week's Community Divas episode, Amrita Chandra has continued the discussion over on her blog tinku tales. She expands on her ideas about community building and how she is building community around tinku gallery.

A quick take:

1. Start with who you know.
2. Make it a two-way conversation.
3. Provide an environment for the community to grow.
4. Give and take.
5. Be yourself.

You will have to read the blog post for her full discussion.

Thank you for continuing the conversation, Amrita!

Welcome to episode nine!
Run time: 16:02
Community Divas on iTunes

A podcast about communities and social media tools

In this episode:
- Eden interviews Amrita Chandra of tinku gallery
- We talk about community building events
- Have a bit of a community calendar
Amrita Chandra is the Founder of tinku gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Toronto, representing emerging and mid-career artists from across Canada and the U.S.Her website is http://www.tinkugallery.com/ and she blogs at http://tinkutales.blogspot.com/.

00:01 Intro by Jay Moonah
00:09 Eden Spodek and Connie Crosby
00:15 Summary of today’s episode
00:36 Eden welcomes Amrita Chandra.
00:44 Where did the idea of tinku gallery in Toronto came from?
01:31 Why is community building important to the success of an art gallery?
02:19 Building relationships with customers and artists. Amrita talks about the blog she created to start.
03:08 Other online tools she is using: Twitter and Facebook. She has found that Twitter and the blog have been the best tools for building
community.
04:00 On Facebook she started with ads and a page.
04:45 How long did it take to build awareness for the gallery?
05:22 Word of mouth has been important to her.
05:35 Comparing on-line and off-line community building, she has found them to be similar. With on-line she has been able to reach people further afield geographically.
06:24 She has not seen a lot of commercial art galleries doing this kind of community building yet.
06:57 She has learned from the past that you need to be yourself, you need to be authentic.  You also need to be a very good listener. People who are listened to and given a voice tend to have the most engagement.
07:53 Her plans for the future: using the gallery to still make art accessible to those who would like to purchase it; holding more salon type events at the gallery in which people can talk, making it a focal point for the neighbourhood.
08:48 Eden winds up the interview
08:59 Eden and Connie discuss using face-to-face events to reinforce online communities.  Eden uses HoHoTO, a party created by the mesh guys which is also being used as a fundraiser for the Daily Bread Foodbank, as an example (see the HoHoTO Facebook page).  Eden mentions Viigo as one office using it as their annual seasonal party. Connie talks about a question that came up at Sustainability Camp, whether on-line social networking tools can replace in-person interaction.
14:13 Community calendar
15:07 We would like to hear how you are keeping connected between events.
15:17 Eden winds up the episode.

Community calendar:

1. HoHoTo - Toronto - Dec. 15 , The Mod Club 7 p.m.
2. Podcamp Halifax -  http://podcamphalifax.ca/ - January 25, 2009
3. Podcamp Toronto - http://podcamptoronto.org/ - February 21 & 22, 2009
4. Mesh conference Apr 7 &8  - http://www.meshconference.com - April 7 & 8, 2009.

Our cool theme music “Get Out of My Face” is by Uncle Seth and is from the Podsafe Music Network.

We hope to hear from you! Send your comments to communitydivas@gmail.com or post them on the blog at communitydivas.com. Follow us on Twitter, our Facebook page or our FriendFeed room. Some registration may be required.