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🔥 And now, for your weekly spark.

Eight giant glowing seesaws showed up in Herald Square, New York a few weeks ago. And they disappeared today.

The installation, called Impulse, turns a childhood playground fave into a public light-and-sound experience. But here's what makes it interesting: the experience doesn't exist until people participate in it.

One person moves, another responds. The lights change. The sound changes. What happens depends on who gets on and what they do together.

Walking by it this week, it was impossible to miss the instant joy that people felt, both by using it and by witnessing others do the same.

How much of what we build today is designed for people to consume rather than participate in? If things go as planned:

We make the campaign, and people see it. We build the product, and people use it. We launch the community, and people join it.

Let’s be honest, some of the most valuable things we build don't actually work that way.

👉🏽 You can create the conditions for participation. You can't manufacture what happens once people participate.

That's one reason that what I wrote last week about using the resources we already have has stayed with me. The value isn't always in what we build next. Sometimes it's in what happens when we give people a reason to activate what already exists.

That brings me to Maryam Banikarim and The Longest Table.

Banikarim, the experienced marketer turned founder, saw a photo of an iftar in Egypt with one long table running down a street, posted it to her neighborhood Nextdoor group, and asked, "What if we did that?"

Eight people said yes. And it started something none of them could have imagined.

Five hundred people showed up at first. Then 700. Then 1,000. Then more than 2,000.

Now people she has never met are setting up their own Longest Tables using a toolkit she created.

Maryam didn't build a finished experience and ask people to consume it. She created a simple structure and gave people enough ownership to make it their own.

The thing she built became more valuable because other people changed it.

That's a useful distinction for anyone building a business, brand, team or community.

If you're a founder, are you building something customers can shape, or something you're asking them to simply buy?

If you're a marketer, are you creating campaigns people can participate in, or messages they can only receive?

If you're leading a team, are you creating culture for your employees, or giving them enough agency to help create it?

And if you're building a community, are you measuring how many people joined, or paying attention to what actually moves between them?

I've spent plenty of time trying to make things more polished, more strategic, more ready before putting them into the world.

But sometimes the thing that makes an experience work isn't how much you control.

It's how much room you leave for other people to shape it.

That's what made the seesaws stick with me.

You can build the structure, create the invitation, and make it interesting enough for someone to climb on.

But you won't know what happens next until someone moves. And when someone else moves with them.

📌 The Participation Principle

The next time you're building something, ask:

👉🏽 Is this something people can participate in, or something they're expected to consume?

👉🏽 What could people change, add, remix or make their own?

👉🏽 What happens between people because this exists?

That last question might be the most important one.

Because the value of a product, campaign, team or community isn't always contained in the thing itself.

Sometimes it's in what the thing makes possible between people.

🔥 Build the structure. Then leave room for people to make it their own.

✅ Now Hiring

Is someone you know considering what’s next for them? Here are a few roles with people hiring across the network. I list roles here every week, so stay tuned and make sure to spread the word.

💥 VP, Enterprise & Field Marketing — Diligent (multiple other roles)

💥 VP, Impact — RED

💥 Director, Connections & Media — Coca-Cola

💥 Director, Entertainment Marketing & Advisory — WME

💥 Director, Brand & Social Media Marketing — TIAA

💥 Director, Social Media — McDonald’s

💥 Director, Global Head of Brand Marketing, Wearables — Meta

💥 Director, Marketing — Deer Valley Resort

💥 Head of Social — Dick Clark Productions

💥 Sr Manager, Marketing Partnerships — Columbia Sportswear

💥 Manager, Media Strategy & Planning — Hilton

ICYMI Last Week:

💥 VP, Commercial Marketing — Midi Health

💥 Head of Marketing — Avelo

💥 Director, Connected Commerce & Media — Coca-Cola

💥 Director, Brand Strategy — Workiva

💥 Sr Manager, Creator Content & Partnerships — Disney (multiple other roles open)

💥 Sr Manager, Social Media — Nvidia

💥 Brand Partnerships Marketing Manager, Health & Home — Google

💥 Retail Digital Marketing Manager — Ben & Jerry’s

💥 Creator Marketing Manager — Triple Whale

And before you go, consider who else might value this newsletter and what’s coming up on YouTube. Make sure to fwd this newsletter onward to them too. They can subscribe here for more directly in their inbox.. 🔁 

In community,

Fahad