Why Listen to Simon U. Ford?

Simon Has Been Involved in Community Building Even Before Facebook and the Social Networking Phenomenon Started.

I have over 20 years experience building and harnessing actual communities with a deep-rooted insight into the dynamics of group psychology.

These experiences have taught me how to create situations and scenarios that best capture the collective power of the individuals to create a synergistic and beneficial environment for everyone. It’s amazing how things start to fall into place, once you figure out how communities work. Today, I would like to share a few of the experiences I have had with you to give you a peek into my past.

My First Experience Of Group Dynamics…

As an African Tour Guide: I started out working as a tour guide in Africa, where I first learned the importance of group dynamics.

These were safari tours with groups of 18 people who each paid a good $12k for a one month tour to visit different sites in Kenya, Tanzania and the outskirts of Uganda. People usually came alone or as couples and hadn’t met the rest of the tour group before.

The peak of this trip was a 5 day hike…

Deep into the a mountains that bordered Uganda, Zaire & Rawanda to visit the gorillas in the wild (of ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ fame), this was back in the days when Rawanda was at war and Zaire was a refugee camp.

Although I would agree that most of the people who came to this trip were already adventurous by nature, the interesting observation throughout my first 6 months was that the passengers either had the time of their life or they would come back threatening to sue the company, because the experience was so bad.

Because of the living arrangements, there was nowhere to hide, making the outcome all or nothing at all; everyone either had a great time or everyone had a poor experience. I found this fascinating. It’s what got me really interested in group dynamics, leadership and the community building psychology.