Pod Tech

As background, we created the pod technology at the outset of the pandemic, as a labor-of-love experiment, to cater to the surging demand for our “deep change” incubator, Laddership Circles. Unexpectedly, that rippled into many volunteers adopting the platform to offer thematic virtual immersions which has already supported thousands. 

From our original Leadership to “Laddership” pod, volunteers have hosted pods on wide-ranging topics -- from Power + Love to Cultivating Sacred Space, NGO: Impact to Transformation, Qigong, Business + Values, and more. We’re ramping up capacity to host 21-day challenges on wide-ranging practices, from “new story” to “belonging” as well.

Content-wise, curriculum topics that aim to support others (and oneself) in the journey towards deeper awareness, mindfulness, wellbeing, kindness, service, compassion, etc. could potentially be hosted using this platform. However, beyond the content, the pod tech is designed to foster a peer-learning process -- where rather than having teachers give teachings, everyone’s engagement, reflections, and contributions foster a ‘living university’ of collective wisdom and emergence.

Pods are designed to blur boundaries and hierarchies. Everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. What subtle gifts manifest when we assume value everywhere? The pod process optimizes learning from each other by drawing out dormant stories, uncovering innate wisdom and holding space for untapped potential to rise to the surface.

Gandhi offered a trilogy of "hands, head and heart" and suggested that we, as individuals and cultures, should first align those elements and ultimately learn to lead with the heart. Today, our traditional educational institutes are geared mostly to cater to educating the mind, while vocational schools are great at skilling the hands. But we have very limited frameworks to amplify “compassion quotient (CQ)” of the heart. Perhaps that is because compassion's effect is distributed -- in time and space -- and hence hard to quantify and monetize? ServiceSpace ecosystem is holding this question in various circles, and supporting many experiments to generate a cultural dialogue around it. Our Pod Platform is the latest virtual iteration to that end, and is built to promote deep holistic learning and growth.

We have seen that learning can be much deeper (and fun) in a field of mutual trust and care. When we relate deeply to each other, the whole can be much greater than sum of parts. Just like graphite and diamond are made of the same carbon atoms -- their only difference being in how those atoms are linked to each other -- with deep relationships, we unlock synergistic capital, which creates a transformative field for collective change.

The pods we have hosted in previous months have engaged groups of participants ranging from 20 to 250. Some hosts choose to keep their immersions more intimate by design, but the tech can support much larger groups as well.

:) Pinky promise, there is no catch.

If it helps to know, Pods are a project of ServiceSpace. Across our various ServiceSpace platforms, we send upwards of 70 million emails a year, and 14,000 people interact with our online content archives every hour. None of this has been charged or monetized in all 20+ years of our existence. We are just a bunch of volunteers, inspired to do small acts of kindness, as a practice to support our own inner transformation. So the opportunity to offer this platform to you, itself is our reward. :) Consider it our small attempt to honor the spirit of kindness you embody, and the values which you aspire to nurture in yourself and in the world.

We welcome both individuals or organizations. As explained earlier, all ServiceSpace projects are completely volunteer-run and offered in the spirit of gift. To that end, this is not a space for one to derive commercial benefit or monetary return from their pod or participants. 

Our hosts range from seasoned monks, to NGO leaders, educators to entrepreneurs to everyday heroes, and more. Most of our hosts are individuals or non-profit organizations who are using this platform to offer courses in their community as a gift, without any charges.

Below is a brief overview of activities you would find yourself involved in as you host a pod. Once you start the process, we have a detailed guide to support you in the process at each step. 

• Pre-Launch - Design a curriculum (you can also import content from our previous pods), create an invite page (like this), and invite participants to join. Everyone creates a pod profile to get acquainted with others in the group.
• Live Pod - Participants use the pod’s private feeds to engage with the head, heart, hands material, post their responses, and read and comment on others’ responses. As a host, you’ll want to read participants’ reflections, add your comments, and support their learning process by leveraging various creative tools and ideas to amplify the collective wisdom. Also create and manage events, like weekly group video calls. 
• Post Pod - Numerous tools to stay connected, to continue the learning journey, to create and support resultant projects, etc. 

Absolutely. More people would mean you can share the workload and unlock synergies. 

The platform can technically function with minimal human efforts, but having a crew of spirited volunteers to hold space and search-and-amplify individual and collective emergence can work wonders on the overall course experience. For a flavor, read about our pilot pod from June 2020: Alchemy of Uncertainty.

How many volunteers you’d want to engage is a function of how many volunteers you have, :) and also how deep you want the human element to be. We have seen 200-person pods hosted with a few volunteers, and we have seen 25-person pods served by a team of 10 volunteers, too. (We have witnessed surprise group films being created overnight, group rap songs written and recorded in the span of a few hours, and so on). The possibilities are endless. [More about our process of volunteerism.]

Great -- next step is to fill out the application form and if we’re able to approve it, a coordinator will be in touch.

If you are new to ServiceSpace and Pods, you may also find it beneficial to join one of our upcoming pods as a participant for an experiential dive. 

Ultimately, while the pod platform has emerged to be a powerful amplifier to augment our collective learning journeys, as all of our hosts invariably reckon, it is the “human-ware” (i.e. the art of holding space gently with love, the art of “laddership”) that makes “software” come alive in a deep way.