How We Connected

About How We Connected

The most creative artists in America right now aren’t in galleries. They’re in your neighborhood. How We Connected is a front-row seat to the social artists rebuilding human connection. Hear inspiring stories about roller skating crews, bad art clubs, jousting societies, city saunters, Georgian dinner parties, catch-playing challenges, midnight runners, and picnic societies. Hosted by Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst, co-founders of the US Chamber of Connection. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

US Chamber of Connection

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Dec 2025

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

47 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Teams Sell Belonging: Todd Rogers, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

   Every Sunday 100 million Americans watch football. Half of them watch alone. Todd Rogers and his team at Harvard tried something simple: they asked people who planned to watch by themselves to invite someone. That’s it. Watching with others jumped by more than 40 percentage points, people enjoyed the game more than they expected, and weeks later people who’d been nudged were still watching with company every week. Todd is a lifelong Eagles fan who lives in Boston and hosts a party for every game. He’d never thought of it as infrastructure. Then he read a book called Fans Have More Friends. Three quarters of Americans root for a team. Fandom gives them an excuse to gather, a ritual that repeats every season, something to talk about with anyone, and a shared identity. Almost every man would text a new acquaintance to watch a game. Far fewer would suggest dinner. The activity men are least comfortable proposing turns out to be a walk. This is awkward, because Todd and Aaron met over coffee, which turned into a four-and-a-half-hour walk around Seattle. Before the interview, Aaron and Charlotte unpack the Connected City Summit, where 250 leaders from 25 cities co-wrote a blueprint for connected cities. 00:00 Welcome 01:08 Inside the Connected City Summit 09:03 Why Sports, Why Todd 10:24 Meet Todd Rogers 13:21 Why Sports Is Hidden Infrastructure 15:59 Four Engines of Fandom 19:08 NFL Watch-Together Experiment 21:44 Masculinity and Invitations 33:25 Where the Kraken Fit In 36:09 What Teams and Cities Should Do Differently 44:46 Reflection About the Chamber of Connection The most creative artists in America right now aren’t in galleries. They’re in your neighborhood. How We Connected is a front-row seat to the social artists rebuilding human connection. Hear inspiring stories about roller skating crews, bad art clubs, jousting societies, city saunters, Georgian dinner parties, catch-playing challenges, midnight runners, and picnic societies. Hosted by Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst, co-founders of the US Chamber of Connection. Aaron Hurst is the co-founder of the US Chamber of Connection. He’s a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy. Charlotte Massey is the co-founder of the US Chamber of Connection and leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship. Learn more: www.chamberofconnection.org (https://www.chamberofconnection.org/) Todd Rogers, Weatherhead Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School Todd is a behavioral scientist. He’s spent earlier chapters scaling research on civic participation, communication and student absenteeism, with work published in Science, Nature Human Behaviour and the American Economic Review. His latest chapter is social connection. One of the biggest social infrastructures Americans already have: more than three-quarters of them root for a sports team. He now leads the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, a research lab supported by FOX Sports, where his experiments have shown that one simple prompt to invite a friend can turn solo viewers into regular hosts. His next goal is to get every team and league to see that what they’re really selling, alongside entertainment and winning, is belonging. Learn more: https://shorensteincenter.org/research-initiative/fandom-social-connection/ (https://shorensteincenter.org/research-initiative/fandom-social-connection/) Heylo Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and membership tools into one place so clubs, teams, and interest groups can stay organized and connected without the noise of traditional social platforms. Learn more: https://www.heylo.com (https://www.heylo.com/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   14 Oct 2026

   You Tell My Story, I’ll Tell Yours: Colum McCann, Co-Founder, Narrative 4

   Colum McCann came to America at 21 to write a novel. He failed miserably. So he got on a bicycle in Boston and rode 8,000 miles over 18 months, all the way to San Francisco. Everywhere he went, people asked if he was mad. They invited him into their homes and told him their stories. The failed novelist learned the power of listening. It’s a conviction that has carried him through 13 or 14 books since. He’s lost count, but he knows that the shortest distance between two people is a story. That conviction became Narrative 4, which Colum co-founded with Lisa Consiglio. The method is simple and strange. Two young people pair up, swap stories, and then each tells the other’s story in the first person. Hearing your own life in a stranger’s voice is where the magic happens. The organization now works in more than 30 countries. Colum insists this is not kumbaya. Stories are dangerous. They can take your house, your vote, or your country. That’s why Narrative 4 trains its teachers so carefully. He’s wary of what he calls the disease of certainty. At the Chamber, Charlotte reports from the Best Day Ever in Fremont, home of a troll so beloved the fire marshals attend its birthday. Aaron preps for a summit week that will be either really awesome or a great story. 00:00 Opening 04:32 Minneapolis: Dinner at the Guthrie 13:56 Colum McCann: 8,000 Miles by Bicycle 17:59 Building Narrative 4 22:22 Inside a Story Exchange 26:26 Youth, Loneliness, and Optimism 29:24 Stories Are Tough: The Power and the Danger 34:43 The Disease of Certainty 40:09 Reflection 44:01 Summit Week Ahead About the Chamber of Connection The most creative artists in America right now aren’t in galleries. They’re in your neighborhood. How We Connected is a front-row seat to the social artists rebuilding human connection. Hear inspiring stories about roller skating crews, bad art clubs, jousting societies, city saunters, Georgian dinner parties, catch-playing challenges, midnight runners, and picnic societies. Hosted by Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst, co-founders of the US Chamber of Connection. Aaron Hurst is the co-founder of the US Chamber of Connection. He’s a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy. Charlotte Massey is the co-founder of the US Chamber of Connection and leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship. Learn more: www.chamberofconnection.org (https://www.chamberofconnection.org/) Colum McCann, Co-Founder, Narrative 4 Colum was born in Dublin and came to America at 21 to write a novel. He failed, so he rode a bicycle across the country instead. The strangers who took him in taught him the power of listening. The novels came after, including Let the Great World Spin, which won the National Book Award. There’s Apeirogon, the story of an Israeli father and a Palestinian father united by loss. Twelve years ago he co-founded Narrative 4 with Lisa Consiglio. Its story exchange, where two young people each tell the other’s story in the first person, now reaches more than 30 countries. He teaches writing at Hunter College and lives in New York. His conviction, learned on the bike: the shortest distance between two people is a story. Learn more: https://www.forge.community (https://www.forge.community/) Heylo Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and membership tools into one place so clubs, teams, and interest groups can stay organized and connected without the noise of traditional social platforms. Learn more: https://www.heylo.com (https://www.heylo.com/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   We Bought a School: Mike Skirpan, Executive Director, Community Forge

   In 2017, Mike Skirpan and seven friends bought an elementary school. Johnston Elementary in Wilkinsburg, Pittsburgh had been closed for five years. They negotiated the price, took out a loan, and scraped together some collateral. Mike's share was lent to him by a former student with one condition: please get out of tech and do this. Why does a tech ethicist buy a school? Mike grew up in a small family with a single mom. Friends were his emotional safety net. He became the ultimate socialite, hanging with the chess club and captaining the soccer team. Years later he watched his hometown split into silos while his own industry accelerated the isolation. The mantras from day one: relationships first, break down Pittsburgh silos. They fixed the building themselves. Friends sanded staircases and laid floors. Community Forge was solvent within a year and threw more than 100 events annually. It grew into a nonprofit built on four pillars: social capital for everyone, pathways into the economy, training in the tools of the future, and wellness. The next act is a modern-day Elks Lodge. The ground floor is becoming a social hall with a 130 seat theatre, coffee shop, and social clubs. The question behind it all: what is the third space for this generation? Charlotte reports from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, where one pilot flew a cluster of party balloons to 20,000 feet like the movie Up. Aaron comes clean about the day he was shown the door at Target. 00:00 Introduction 00:47 Balloons, Minneapolis and an incident at Target 11:56 Welcome, Mike 12:48 Origin Story: Small Family, Big Friend Network 16:29 From Tech and Philosophy to Community Work 21:56 Founding Community Forge 24:37 Buying the School 28:52 Who Rented the Space 31:34 Four Elements of a Healthy Community 36:29 Social Hall: Third Space for This Generation 42:05 Reflection: Third Spaces --- The most creative artists in America right now aren’t in galleries. They’re in your neighborhood. How We Connected is a front-row seat to the social artists rebuilding human connection. Hear inspiring stories about roller skating crews, bad art clubs, jousting societies, city saunters, Georgian dinner parties, catch-playing challenges, midnight runners, and picnic societies. Hosted by Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst, co-founders of the US Chamber of Connection. Aaron Hurst is the co-founder of the US Chamber of Connection. He’s a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy. Charlotte Massey is the co-founder of the US Chamber of Connection and leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship. Connect with Us www.chamberofconnection.org (https://www.chamberofconnection.org/) Mike Skirpan, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Community Forge Mike grew up in a small family in the Mon Valley outside Pittsburgh. He became the ultimate socialite of his school. He studied philosophy and economics, earned a PhD in computer science, and teaches technology ethics at Carnegie Mellon. In 2017 he and seven friends bought a shuttered school. They renovated it themselves. Today Community Forge is a hub where neighbors find social capital, pathways into the economy, training, and wellness support. Next year the ground floor becomes a social hall with a 130 seat theatre and cafe. He met his wife swing dancing, so there will be dance classes. Learn more: https://www.forge.community (https://www.forge.community/) Heylo https://www.heylo.com (https://www.heylo.com/) Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and membership tools into one place so clubs, teams, and interest groups can stay organized and connected without the noise of traditional social platforms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.6 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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