“We really lean all the way in for our community so they can feel that they're working with somebody and not working for us.” - Jonathan Carey

Atlas Obscura is one of the few community-driven travel platforms.  

The site focuses on the hard-to-find wonders and oddities of the world, from a church with Frederic Chopin’s heart in Poland to an abandoned Eurostar train covered in graffiti in France, to the Ottoman Bird Palaces (yes, ornate mansions for birds!) hiding in Istanbul. All of the 20,000+ discoveries are sourced by their community and published in partnership with “A.O.” staff editors.

Jonathan Carey is Associate Places Editor and Community Headmaster at Atlas Obscura, editing the places people submit and jumping into the forums to encourage conversation. He has developed an eye for spotting what suits the “A.O.” voice and can guide community submissions to the site so they fit the Atlas Obscura lens.

In this episode we talk with Jonathan about capturing and supercharging contributors enthusiasm by designing around natural instincts and treating contributors like staff members.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• From user to team member. How Jonathan first got involved with Atlas Obscura.
• Why Atlas Obscura exists. An outlet for people who want to share what naturally excites them.
• “Build with.” Noticing the interests and desires of community members to help build the community up even stronger.
• Feedback loop. Creating guardrails for submission and keeping contributors in the loop as if they were staff writers.
• “That’s so AO.” Spotting the people most excited about what the platform has to offer through the depth and nuance of how they communicate.
• Hand-raiser stories. A superuser writes a book of the adventures they chronicled and how an email from a 7th grader sparked an art and writing prompts series at the beginning of quarantine.

👋🏻Say hi to Jonathan and learn more about Atlas Obscura.

📄See the full transcript

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