For the last two years, I’ve been involved in the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Program.

For those who aren’t familiar, the World Economic Forum runs an annual meeting in Davos to bring world leaders together to discuss pressing issues.

In recent years, the Forum has expanded their programs and events. To get a stronger youth perspective they formed The Global Shapers. Shapers are in their twenties, and members of a “Hub” based in their city. Hubs are each required to do at a project impacting their area.

The program was established in 2011 and was quickly scaled. It now includes more than 300 Hubs. I joined the program in 2012 as founding Shaper in the Seattle Hub, briefly served as the Seattle Hub Curator (leader), and transferred to the NYC hub in 2013.

Since joining the program I’ve fielded a lot of questions about what it’s like, and if it’s worth applying to. I wanted make my thoughts and reflections accessible to anyone interested in the program. This is not a “everything is so great!” essay (like this one on Sandbox). There are definitely good elements to the program, but there are also many ways the program could improve.

Since joining the Shapers I:

• Helped organize a launch event for the Seattle Hub.
• Started, and failed at, a project to study the needs of Seattle Youth.
• Attended the first Annual Curator Meeting in Geneva.
• Threw a Shapers dinner party no one came to.
• Worked on ShapeLOVE with a Shaper from the Toronto Hub.
• Moved to NYC & had the experience of being a “transfer Shaper” – my transfer application was rejected once, and then accepted.
• Worked on the Artrium project with some members the NYC Hub.

Here are my big takeaways:

The Forum is a great place to find people working on similar challenges.

My favorite moment of being involved in the Global Shapers program was at the Annual Curators Meeting in Geneva.

I got the chance to talk to Catherinerose Barretto about her work at a coworking space in Tanzania. She was trying to figure out how to make software engineering a more accessible career for women.

It was great to be able to share lessons with someone who cared about the same issues as me, but had a completely different system and set of constraints. I learned more from that one conversation than I have from talking to anyone else about the “gender and tech” problem. It was an interesting, serendipitous experience.

It makes sense that this would be my favorite part of the program: it’s what the Forum is good at. Events like the ACM draw on the Forum’s core knowledge: running events like the annual meeting in Davos. The bottom line is that the Forum is excellent at bringing an interesting, diverse set of people together to discuss and work on the challenges they face.

They try to do a similar thing at a city level for the Shapers program, but being in a “business” meeting for two hours is very different than being at a multi-day event. It’s also not necessarily easy to connect with Shapers from other cities if you haven’t had the benefit of meeting them.

If you decide to get involved in the Global Shapers program, definitely apply to go to Forum events. I’ve also heard wonderful things about the Shaper-led SHAPE events, but haven’t had the chance to participate in one.

Finding the “best” people for the job isn’t easy.

I’ve been very impressed by many of the people I’ve met through the program. It can be a rough group to join. I think it’d give even the most qualified person a bit of impostor syndrome.

That’s partially because the Global Shapers program is about existing achievement. The about page says “They are selected on the basis of their achievements, leadership potential, and commitment to make a difference.”

From my experience with applications and meeting other Shapers, this is definitely true. People have been rejected for not being far enough along in their career. People have also been rejected for being too similar to other Shapers already in a Hub. People far more qualified than myself have been rejected, too. (If you applied and were rejected, please don’t feel bad! You’re probably still doing awesome work.)

I have very mixed feelings about this. I think achievement is one way to measure people who will actually do things. But, I’m not sure picking the people with the “most” achievements actually serves the goal of the program.

Plus, needless to say, there’s a big difference between 20 and 30. How do you even begin to compare what “accomplished” means at those ages? Do you go for absolute? Relative deviation from peers? What level of achievement do you expect?

This emphasis on qualification and application also makes things feel more formal. There’s an awkward tension between if it’s a professional group, or a set of friends. That’s how you ended up having a dinner party no one comes to – even if it’s a “friendly” dinner party, it’s not as though your five best friends are coming over to hang out. (Aside: I haven’t noticed the same tension in the 40something YGLs. I’m not sure if that’s the individual application, or the emotional maturity that comes with age).

Even if you could overcome these tensions, there’s still the root problem with high achievers. Lots of these “best” people have already started their own organizations, or are committed to a big role at a company. Many travel regularly. Many are already working to capacity, which doesn’t leave them much time to participate in the Shapers. Frankly, these people are already doing great things. I’d prefer their priority be to add value in the ways that they already are.

So, if the goal of the Shapers program is to do new projects, having the best people doesn’t necessarily make sense. If we selected Shapers that were a bit less “prestigious” and a bit more focused on improving the Shapers, we could do more. (By a bit less “prestigious” I don’t mean less qualified, I just mean people that haven’t been widely commended for their work yet).

If you’re amazing at what you do, but find you still have bandwidth for side projects, the Shapers could be a good fit. I’d say that’s particularly true if you’re excited in contributing to broad projects for society, or if you have a project you’d love to get a bunch of perspectives on.

It’s extremely difficult to pick a good project.

I’ve been part of trying to define projects in two cities now, and it’s definitely been one of the most challenging pieces.

All the projects I’ve done have come about organically. I’ll be sitting around and realizing I want a better way to visualize my books. Or, that I’m bad at keeping track of my own energy level. I’ll make a little project to do something about it. That’s true of bigger things, too. Kickstarter came about because Perry wanted to have a concert, and couldn’t afford to pay for it upfront.

I think many of the best projects come from people who are thinking about ideas over time. The idea might not be solving “their own” problem, but it’ll be something they really want to do.

In the Shapers, because a project is required, it’s much more likely to be a forced process. “What problems do we care about? What do we all like? What are all of our skills?” and it’s particularly hard to find a big overlap for that when you have up to 50 qualified people, all with different interests.

That’s how we picked the unsuccessful Seattle Youth project. It seemed good on paper: we all cared about youth! But it was also very open-ended and vague. That made it hard to make traction and narrow down on something specific to do.

There have been hugely successful projects in the Global Shapers program. Many of those projects came from initiatives that were already started by Hub members, and accelerated by the Hub.

That’s why it’s been so great to work on Artrium: Pam already had a really clear vision for what she wanted the project to be. Shapers have been helping her execute on that vision. For example, Adam connected her to a real estate company, and I got advice from Emily (formerly the art project specialist at Kickstarter). While lots of us have made suggestions and given advice, at the end of the day, we’re fulfilling Pam’s vision.

From watching projects for two years, I think that the Hubs could make quicker progress more quickly by helping each other finish and expand existing projects, rather than starting new ones.

The Forum is very hierarchical.

So, why do constraints around membership and projects exist? Most of them were defined by the World Economic Forum. I understand the need for hierarchical organizations, and for consistency.

On top of the constraints, due to the nature of the Forum, one of the first goals was scaling the Shapers. This means we’re now at 300 Hubs. In my mind, growing so quickly didn’t leave enough room for experimentation, then sharing and formalizing those learnings.

Instead, lots of the Hubs have struggled through the same problems, because some things weren’t sorted out (things like: how do we pick a project?) I think it would have been stronger to experiment with a few hubs, come up with ways to make solid programs, and learn form there.

On top of that, sometimes experimentation is thrown away.

When I was at the Annual Curator Meeting in August 2012, many Hubs had opted to personalize their logo and to emphasize the “local” aspect of the program. They hadn’t been given guidance, and it seemed a reasonable thing to do.

Professor Schwab presented towards the end of the meeting, and effectively just said “No. Everyone will use the same logo.” There wasn’t a discussion about the tradeoff in local brand vs. global brand. There wasn’t acknowledgement the effort these Hubs had put effort into making. There was nothing but a “No.” Based on how I work, things like that drive me insane. I think it disenfranchises people from continuing to innovate and invest effort.

In contrast, I always think about the Awesome Foundation. The Awesome Foundation was started in 2009 with the overarching goal of “making the world a more awesome place.” Past that, there aren’t really rules. The rough format is that each chapter is based in a city and gives out $1,000 per month. Want to give out your money every two months? Fine. Want to change the amount? Fine. Want to make your own logo? Fine. Want to be organized around a topic instead of a city? Also fine. Just keep making the world a more awesome place.

While I understand the guidelines of the Global Shapers program, it’s not the format I work best in.

Putting my “money” where my mouth is.

I hope these experiences and observations shed a bit more light on being in the Global Shapers program. It’s a fantastic way to get to meet people who are solving interesting problems in different contexts. The Hub model is still struggling with more definition for both how to get the right people, and how to do projects. What the Shapers program needs most is people with the time and energy to dedicate to creating a really strong program.

After writing about what the Shapers really need right now, I realized that I’m not the right person for the job. I have a bunch of other commitments that come first. I don’t have a project I want to throw into the fray and get help on. I don’t thrive in hierarchical organizations.

We really need someone who can, and who wants to sitting in that chair. Maybe in a few years my priorities will change, and I’ll be ready to apply again. That’s where I’m at right now, but that isn’t where you are.

Do you have the time, energy, and desire to try to define an organization, create great projects, and work within a set of constraints? You should apply for the program!