Before

1. Have members apply.

Use our Airtable form template to have members to apply for “Hot Seats”. Post a thread in your #general or #announcements channel to get some views on this. You can also embed this form in a Heartbeat thread, doc, or course lesson so members can complete it without leaving Heartbeat.

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2. Pick members with open-ended problems.

If a member applies with problems that you could instantly solve in 2 min… they’re probably not a fit. Examples of great problems to work on during a “Hot Seat” include:

• “I’m struggling to do X. I’ve already tried A, B, and C and here’s the results I have from them. I’m not sure how to move forward.”
• “I’m trying to learn X process and I have no idea where to start.”

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3. Turn the answers from these questions into slides.

You can screenshare this during the event & it’ll be easier for your community to follow along with the conversation. Give each problem it’s own slide. Slides can be super basic (i.e. black text on a white background) since this is just a visual aid.

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During

1. Kick-off the event.

Thank everyone for being there. Play some lo-fi music in the beginning (you can “screenshare” audio in zoom) as people trickle in to set the tone for the call.

Bonus: Highlight some great activity in the community! You can create a quick slide deck with screenshots from the community thanking specific members for being helpful and solving problems for others.

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2. Hit record!

This is going to turn into great content for your members & can sliced up into smaller educational videos if you ever need them. At Heartbeat, we like to use the Zoom-to-Vimeo integration to automatically move Zoom cloud recordings to Vimeo.

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3. Introduce the member in the “Hot Seat”.

Hype this person up a TON! They’re being super vulnerable to put their problems out in front of others — use your position as the leader of the community to give them more confidence as you kick off.

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4. Dive into each problem.

For each problem they’ve listed on their application, you should go through 3 steps:

• Allow the member to explain the problem
• Have the member explain what they’ve done to try & solve that problem so far.
• Open the floor for clarifying questions from the community. This time is only for clarifying question, not for giving answers. Any answers should politely cut-off by you, and told to hold it for the solutions section.

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5. Begin sharing solutions.

Now that you’ve give the member enough time to fully explain the problem & given everyone else in the room the full context around the problem, it’s time to solve it! Work with the rest of the community to come up with solutions to this problem. Remember, as the community leader, you voice takes up more space than others’ — try to leave space for other community members to offer solutions before offering them yourself.

Bonus: If you’re worried about overly-prescriptive advice (often the case in business-oriented communities) require that all solutions be framed in terms of personal experiences.

• ❌ ”You should do A, B, and C.”
• ✅ ”Last time I was in a similar position, I did A, B, and C.”

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6. Run through each problem.

Repeat steps 4 & 5 for each problem the member listed on their application.

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7. In the last 10 minutes, solidify the learnings in chat.

“Can everyone drop one this in the chat that they learned or found insightful during this call?”

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8. Encourage people to apply for the next “Hot Seat”.

Paste the link to the application for into the chat so people can apply there & then.

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After

1. Add content to the docs section.

Embed the recording into “Hot Seat” doc for that month using “/embed”. If you’ve already used the first “Hot Seat” doc, you can add it to another one in admin drafts or ‘duplicate’ your previous doc. Make sure to update the highlight section so people know what to expect if they watch the recording. This also helps to surface the document more easily in Heartbeat’s search!

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2. Post a recap thread.

This is for everyone that missed the event. Include a link to the doc you’ve just created with the recording using the “$” notation in Heartbeat threads. You want to create the habit for members to regularly check docs for any content/events they missed. At first you’ll be the one driving this traffic, but after a couple months of these types of posts, it’s going to become second nature for members.

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