We live in an era in which communication between people is more efficient, faster and simpler than ever before. Nevertheless, we at Moishe House Mexico City feel that the most effective way to bring people to our events is through warm and personal invitations. Technological tools such as the facebook fan page, the official website and the google calendar can be very useful when it comes to branding the and giving the whole initiative some sort of legitimacy; however, without an intimate approach to our potential attendees (telephone calls or word-of-mouth) such tools are useless. First, we will elaborate on the reasons why the use of standard internet tools is limited at best. Then, we will propose a couple of alternative strategies that have proven useful or seem to have greater potential.
Unlike other countries such as the United States and most of the developed world, mexicans tend to be very informal when it comes to social gatherings. To give you an example, for most events, any of our friends, or even ourselves, would confirm their assistance. The problem with this confirmation is that it is not a binding contract and no seriousness is attached to it. Obviously implying that those people are not necessarily going to show up and it most cases they will not call to apologize or cancel, i.e. it is socially accepted and expected for people to not show up even if they confirmed.
Our own experience has taught us that, from the amount of persons that "confirm" their assistance to events on facebook, only around 10 percent of them will eventually show up. This means that 35 persons can confirm their assistance, via facebook, to a Shabbez dinner, but out of those, only 2 or 3 actually attend the event. This makes it difficult to plan ahead, and we have found ourselves in situations in which we prepared food for 30, and only 9-10 people eat it. Another probable reason for this informality is that the social-networking-through-internet culture is something that has yet to settle. This is why we have began to rely less on facebook and more on personal contact through phone or sms (which are more binding although still limited).
There is very little foresight in Mexico City when it involves filling out or planning for a social agenda. This is why, rather than focusing on what to do in order to make people come to a specific event, we at MHMC have understood the importance of consolidating the house as a place where things are always happening. As someone living in this chaotic city, where millions of things are going on all the time, it is very hard to plan a week ahead. This is why we at MHMC feel that we need to establish the presence of the house in such a way that it will make people consider it as an option for their free time. Thus, inciting them to consult the calendar and check the events or just drop by for a quick visit. The different strategies that we have come up with to make this happen are varied and involve different aspects of the whole Moishe House initiative. The main goal of this strategies is not only to engage people more actively in our events, but also to arouse people´s curiosity for the whole project. In such a way that the Moishe House agenda can be present in the back of people`s mind as a general constant for their "free time".
One of the ideas that we had was to produce an electronic bulletin that will reach a specific crowd with a more personalized message. The bulletin would be monthly and it would let people know about the upcoming events. The reasons why we think this could be successful is that, unlike an electronic calendar through Google or an invitation through Facebook, the bulletin gives you a degree of membership that is not easy to convey through the website or through facebook. The interesting facet of this "membership" is that it will allow a more personal dialogue with the residents and the attendees, making it possible to create community without relying on the usual social-networking tools.
Being frank, the constant bombardment of events through facebook has made it impossible for the user to prioritize and commit to them. Most of the time, people just take a quick glance at such events, accepting or declining the invitation, postponing their decision to a later date that they might forget. The advantages of a mailing list is that it can speak personally to them (if the rest of the contacts are placed on the BCC field), making it easier to establish a personal relationship with the user than through other media (although there´s always the chance that people can mark us as SPAM). For this month we plan on sending a Hannukah greeting card, with our picture, to a large database we have gathered from our other projects in the mexican jewish community.
Our newest strategies concerning bigger gatherings was to target potential attendees and speak to them directly about the whole project, involving them as part of the production of the events. We want to focus specifically on group leaders. These people will be able to create a snow-ball effect and get people interested. Another peculiarity of our culture is that people move in closed-knit packs and are less individualistic. For this reason, gathering leaders would create a word-of mouth presence among 20-30 crowd. The reason why this has not been terribly successful is that we not found yet the best way to express the goal of the whole project, in a way that is clear and concise for other mexican jews. The Moishe House concept still appears foreign to most mexican jews. Our main goal is to first establish a word-of-mouth presence and then utilize our internet technology as an extra tool. Because our experience has taught us not to rely too much on the internet as a networking tool.
We have also began to diversify our events. The aim of such a strategy is to attract a more diverse crowd and at the same time not exclude people with different interests. Clearly, our previous plan ,of involving more people, is a perfect complement. Opening our house to more diversity and actively involving our previous participants seems like the next logical step. Apathy seems to be a growing phenomena in our community and this appears to be the best remedy. We think we need to change our philosophy from come to our Moishe House, to come to your Moishe House.
In conclusion, we at Moishe House Mexico City believe that we struggle with a culture that is quite distinct from other Moishe Houses around the world. Most jewish people in the Diaspora, particularly in the US, suffer from a lack of jewishness in their life. This makes attracting jews who long for a sense of community or belonging much simpler. Our problem is different. We suffer from an over-abundance of activities that do not address the needs and tastes of young contemporary jews. Add to this the previously mentioned cultural and social differences and you get a very different scenario from other Moishe Houses. For this reason, some of our solutions might seem unorthodox but we believe they are and will be successful. Given that our problem is different, it appears sensible that our solution should be too.
