#816 Just Doing It & Insight

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: Clubs are turning into Houses on Clubhouse — we try it out live and reflect on the process. Just doing it is the motto in Room #816 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Insight (and gaining it).” Listen in on the experiences we made together in this exchange, and the insights we arrived at along the way…

Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.

Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome. Today we’re talking about the theme of “just doing it” and insight — the idea that certain things we can only really come to understand through direct experience. I’m really looking forward to today, because as I already announced yesterday, there’s a switchover coming on April 11th, when all Clubs on Clubhouse will be converted to Houses. That’s been announced, so we don’t really have a choice in the matter. Originally, I believe the plan was for both to run in parallel, so you could choose whether or not you wanted to use a House. But because that led to confusion, especially for new members, they’ve apparently now decided to merge the two. That merger means that if you hadn’t already switched over yourself, it now happens automatically for everyone as of the 11th — every Club, in every room, gets switched over to a House. And so that we’re not caught off guard by something suddenly not working quite the way it used to, I waited until after yesterday’s Authors’ Breakfast and decided to do the switch afterwards. So today we want to use this room together to gather our first experiences with it. According to the descriptions, now that I’ve waited this long, you keep all the functionality the Clubs had, plus additional features that come with the House on top of that. That wasn’t the case before — originally, you couldn’t, for example, plan events or set appointments, certain functions simply didn’t work, so not everything was a one-to-one match. That’s also why I didn’t switch over earlier — otherwise we might have had to give up things that were previously available. So today I’d like to go exploring together with you a bit. Let’s see what functionality we discover on this occasion. We can just take a look together. Right now, apart from things looking a little different when I first came in, it all looks fairly similar to me. But apparently there are supposed to be new features and so on. Some of you may already have come across one thing or another elsewhere, in other rooms — we can take another look at that together. And we can also use the time to try a few things out ourselves, look at how it’s displayed, and share whatever we discover as a new feature. I’m really looking forward to that. And as mentioned, I’ve also brought along an Easter special for today. Since it’s Easter Monday, I hope you all had a lovely Easter Sunday yesterday. For Easter Monday I’ve brought a coaching special, which is pinned right here — anyone interested in booking coaching at special conditions as part of the Easter Monday special is warmly invited to click the link, take a look, and grab the offer. And just a quick reminder that we’re recording again today, so you’re warmly invited, as every morning, to simply join in and take part in the exchange — even just first impressions, or if you’ve already heard something about this. So let’s just shape this room together today, live, through doing — and if your first comment is “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” that’s fine too. Anyone who comes up on stage automatically agrees to — or is aware — that the whole thing is being recorded, and agrees that it will be published. If you don’t want that for whatever reason, you’re of course welcome to use the chat instead. And the same goes for everyone here — we have three small rules to follow: a profile photo in which you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio. Please make sure of that so that I can bring you up on stage — simply to make sure we’re not dealing with Clubhouse trolls, but genuine, sincere contributions. And with that, we already have our first comment. Let’s take a look — who’s joining us? And today I’d really love to know: have you already had experiences with Houses? What experiences have you had? Have you perhaps already opened rooms within a House yourself? Do you know your way around it? Then please come on up and share whatever knowledge you have, so that together today we can arrive at some insight. Layla, a very good morning to you.

Good morning, Yasemin, a very warm one. I’d also like to wish everyone a happy Easter Monday. As for your question — I honestly don’t have any experience with this yet, and I’m really grateful that you teased it yesterday already, because that means I can try it out now and genuinely learn along with everyone else. The title of the room is “just doing it” and insight, and that immediately got me thinking, because I had a lot of questions. I thought, wait a minute — can you still open a completely normal room without a Club, or is that function gone too? Because that would mean everyone would have to open a Club. Then I wondered, do you have to be a member of that Club, or can you also come in as a guest? What’s actually changed there? And then I had a background thought: why was this even done? Is this an attempt to deal with the “fitna” rooms? That’s just what I like to call it, half-jokingly — it’s an actual term, referring to a kind of discord or strife. I’ve mentioned before that Clubhouse, in the beginning, was shaped by this incredible friendliness that — and I consider myself a polite person — was actually quite jarring for me at first, because I just wasn’t used to it. Things like, “you’re so warmly invited, it’s wonderful to have you on stage,” and then someone walking you back down to the audience afterwards. That struck me at first, but I actually liked it. Then came — and I’m sorry to say this, Yasemin — the coaching wave. And just as not every teacher is a good teacher, unfortunately not every coach is a good coach either, even though you can at least check whether they’re certified or not. And that gave the whole thing a certain — how should I put it — well, these are my own experiences that I’m sharing right now, I don’t claim completeness or even truth here, because it’s just my perception. At some point I started to feel like, okay, now this is turning into a sales event. Then at some point we had what the media liked to call conspiracy-mongering, ranging anywhere from genuine exchange of opinions to something else entirely. And then, at some point, the “fitna” wave began — meaning people started using this app to make jokes that I personally don’t find funny at all, to do a bit of bullying, to say negative things, to walk up to someone and say, essentially, what I wanted to tell you is that your opinion is nonsense — and then every insult under the sun, in every language, gets hurled after that. And fitna doesn’t just mean this is limited to people with a migration background — it happens absolutely everywhere. And so I found myself thinking, because I really do think this is a very good app — I thought about it for myself, because then people started saying, well, Clubhouse is dead. There were even rooms specifically about whether Clubhouse was really dead — which I actually find to be a nice bit of personification. And I have to say, for myself: things are always what you make of them. To me they’re neutral, the same way money is neutral. And breaking something, riding along on that wave, and then saying, well, it’s already broken anyway — I personally found that a bit irritating. Because there are still so, so many good rooms here. Sure, Thomas Gottschalk and Torsten Sträter aren’t around as often anymore, but that’s still okay. Of course it was exciting to talk with the two of them — well, Thomas Gottschalk talked and I listened, and I really enjoyed that. And yet there are still wonderful rooms here, like yours. So I’m curious to see what happens. Sorry for talking so much, but there were quite a few questions bundled in there on the topic. Thanks for listening.

Thank you so much. As for the question about rooms — I think rooms will still exist regardless, that it won’t be strictly necessary to have a Club. Even before, you didn’t necessarily need a Club. I assume rooms will continue to be available independently of a Club or a House, but we’ll see once the switch actually happens on the 11th — though of course there’s also the time-zone question to factor in there. My assumption is that rooms can still be opened independently of a Club or a House. If not, you’d always have the option of setting up a House, because — if you think back to the very early days when Clubs first launched — that was actually quite complicated. You basically had to apply for one, so to speak, if anyone remembers those first days, and then sometimes wait until it got approved and so on. And they couldn’t keep up, because the rush was so big that at some point they changed the process to make it much simpler. So you can see that a new app or a new feature sometimes needs a bit of time — certain changes get added along the way, or things that didn’t work well get dropped again, that sort of thing. So I think it was actually a good decision not to switch immediately, but to really wait and observe for a while first. I had looked at the House features early on, and honestly, they didn’t convince me at the time. There were certain things you simply couldn’t do. It was originally meant to represent something different from a Club, which is why I said, no, I’ll just stick with the Club for now — I couldn’t really see any added value in the House. So I never claimed it for myself. And then at some point I noticed — because as a Club owner, every time you open a room, you now get a kind of advance-warning notification, so to speak — that there was now also a notice saying it would switch over on the 11th. Which of course means it makes sense to deal with the topic in good time, so you’re not caught by surprise. I mean, for the daily rooms it’s not quite so bad, in a manner of speaking — but especially when you have a guest and have promised a recording and so on, it wouldn’t have been a nice surprise. So I waited until after the Authors’ Breakfast and thought, now, on a Monday, is a good opportunity, before it switches over tomorrow or whenever and catches us off guard. Visually, everything looks identical for now, at least at first glance. Someone in the chat also wrote that joining was completely normal, as always, no noticeable difference. I was also able to share it in the Main Hall completely normally, just like before. So from what you see on your phone, it all looks very much the same at first. When I go into my three-dot menu as moderator, top right of my display, I get some additional functionality, and I’ve already spotted a few things there — though since I don’t use everything, I honestly can’t say for sure whether those were there before or not. In any case, there are definitely some new features in there. A few might have already existed and I just never noticed them because I don’t use them. For instance, I just noticed, from looking specifically, that you can apparently now select background music from here. There’s also a specification for “Game” listed — since we’re not playing any games or anything like that, I think that’s irrelevant for us. And then there’s also a function listed for hand signals that I now see here. We already had audio quality before, where you could switch that too. You can search for other rooms from here as well, though I do wonder — I’d have to look into that feature — what that’s actually meant to do. Why would I want to look for another room while I’m already in this one? Interesting. Maybe you can use it to ping people to come join. There’s the option to mute all speakers on stage at once, or unmute them again, and of course share the room. And you can open or close the chat for everyone. There’s also a Show Captions option here. Other than that, it all looks fairly identical to me for now. How was it for you all, visually? Did the room show up completely normally in the Main Hall this morning, or did you get in some other way? Maybe someone can say something about that. Layla, how was it for you?

For me it was like this — I got a notification, because yesterday you posted this nice invitation-style image that I reacted to. You can respond with whether you’re coming or not, sort of a “save the date” thing. And then at first I couldn’t find it, because I went into the Houses section and didn’t see it there. Then I went to “your house” — your House — and it still didn’t show up directly there either. Then I clicked around a bit more, but I’m also pretty technically challenged, so I might be the wrong person to ask about that. Yasemin, can I ask you another question?

Let me just pick up on that quickly — someone in the chat is saying it appeared completely normally, as always, so it does seem to be showing up normally in the Main Hall too. Good, let’s tick that off — and then go ahead, please.

So what I wanted to ask you — because even though I sell education myself, and I always say that’s something the learner has to actively pick up rather than something I can just hand over, which doesn’t mean I don’t try to make that pickup as easy as possible — I’m a little bit into marketing, and what occurred to me is this: Clubhouse had that huge hype originally because it was so limited, that’s my sense of it. That artificial scarcity — you could only get in with an invitation, and at first it was only for iPhone users. And I just found myself wondering whether they’re now trying to recreate that unique selling point by saying, okay, it used to be Clubs, now it’s Houses. I don’t actually know whether this membership is even required to see a listing at all, or to be able to open this room. And what I wondered is — is this a marketing strategy to make it feel exclusive again? Because if I have a Club, or a House, it’s a bit like that Kaya Yanar line — “you’re not getting in here.” That feeling of, well, I have to meet certain requirements to get in here. And I also have a Club, and I also have a waiting list for it — meaning I don’t let just anyone in either. I’m effectively the bouncer of my own Club, and I’d be the bouncer of my own House too. And the question I keep asking myself is, what’s the actual goal here? Because I think — Amazon has this now, Spotify has this now too, Spotify has folded that into their podcaster app. Is that where this is heading? Because if that’s the direction, then — you mentioned music earlier — I’d really wish the music selection were more varied than what we currently have. I use background music in rooms myself, and I find it a bit of a shame that the background music is personally too loud for me, so I can’t really play it continuously, because it just doesn’t work well with my headset — even though it’s pleasant for the audience, I know that, because I’ve been in the audience myself when music was playing. That variety, having individual little gimmicks to play with, is something I’d really like to see. Okay, let me quickly sum up the question: first, what’s the unique selling point here, is it artificial scarcity? And second, are there any new features when it comes to the music?

We can take a look at the music question together in a moment. Honestly, I don’t know off the top of my head, like I said, because I’ve never used that feature myself — I just run music through my mic normally when we play something on Sundays. So we can happily look into that together shortly. As for the other point — originally, I think we always have to keep half an eye on the US market, because the app originally comes from there, and generally speaking there tend to be significantly more features available there than here in the German-speaking world, and that also varies somewhat depending on the country. On the one hand, features get rolled out at different speeds, because it’s simply easier to launch in the US first and then keep expanding the rollout once it’s been tested and so on. On the other hand, there have also been features announced in the past, for rooms or for Clubs, that still haven’t materialized to this day. I don’t know the reasons behind that. I could well imagine that legal reasons sometimes play a role here too. For example, in the US there was — or still is — the option to link payment methods so that you can also collect donations and so on. And as far as I’ve seen, that still hasn’t come to the German-speaking market to this day. Which actually makes legal sense, because not just anyone can simply collect donations in Germany, so to speak. It could be related to aspects like that, but I honestly don’t know — I’m not in exchange with that particular group anymore. There used to be groups that regularly opened rooms specifically to discuss and share experiences around new features as they rolled out. I don’t even know if they still exist today. I thought that was pretty cool, and I sat in on those a few times myself just to listen. And it’s the same thing now with the Houses. So on the one hand, there may well be differences between what’s possible in the US and what’s available here now, or what might still come later — that’s one difference we can note. And the other point is that, ultimately, this also has something to do with marketing, or with the goal of opening up certain monetization possibilities, of course. In other words, it’s about creating added value for everyone involved. The so-called creators — on social media, that’s the people who post — here, that’s the people who run the rooms. These so-called creators are meant to get the option not just to simply open the app, but to actually differentiate: is this closed, is this open, does it require payment, or something similar. That’s almost certainly connected to aspects like this too. And with Houses, we definitely also have the option, when you open one, or later on via the settings, to choose how it should be handled — is it open to everyone, including when setting up rooms? Is it open to everyone, or only for members? So here too we have this option to say only members of this House — or this Club, since ultimately both are the same thing now — get to actually participate at all. And related to that — and this is a genuinely new feature that comes along with the Houses — there’s supposed to be the option to have Lounges. That means members of the Club or House get the chance to meet up in a Lounge. Honestly, I’ve turned that off myself, because I don’t exactly know what runs, or doesn’t run, in the background there, or however that works. And if Lounges are opened by other people, I can’t really assess what that means for the members, or whether it’s even visible to them. As a creator, I think you carry a certain responsibility there. So for now, I’d rather take a closer look at how that actually works, what exactly it is, and whether Lounges really can, or should, be opened under the House’s name or not. If anyone here has experience with that, please feel free to come up and share it with us — that would be great. And since we actually have a hand raised right now, let’s take a look — maybe there’s a direct connection here. So, a very good morning to you. Mimi, what do you have to say about that?

Good morning, Yasemin. I’m really glad I could be here today. We set up a House a while ago now — right at the start, actually — and we do use the Lounge function. There’s one Lounge per House, and as the creator, or the starter of a House, you can decide whether people are also allowed to open their own rooms. I think that’s what you meant. The Lounge, once you activate it, is open to everyone who comes in. And it’s turned out that Houses are really great for strengthening a community and encouraging conversations among members. Like you, we’re on Clubhouse almost every day too, and we did that non-stop for two years. Now, for the first time, we’re taking weekends off, or time off like now over Easter, or going on vacation — and during those times, our Lounges get used a lot. That’s where people meet up and carry on by themselves, get to know each other better. It’s very, very communicative, and it’s an absolute enrichment.

Wonderful, thank you so much. Strengthening community — yes, that’s exactly one of the underlying reasons behind this too. And letting people open their own rooms — right, I’ve actually turned that off, because that feels a bit too risky for me, so to speak, though of course that always depends on the intention behind the room. So it’s really up to each House owner, or creator, to decide for themselves whether that fits with their goals, their plans, and so on, and to weigh the advantages and disadvantages themselves. And the Lounges — yes, they’re apparently there so that community members, as you just said, can get into conversation with each other. What that actually looks like, I have no idea, I haven’t tried it yet. Maybe we can try that out together somehow — though I don’t know if we’ll manage that while we’re in this room, we probably won’t manage that, we’d have to do that separately. Right. Maybe you can share some more of your experience with that — that would be great.

It works like this — if you enter a House where the Lounge is activated, and you’re in there alone, you basically instantly become the person who opens up that Lounge room. And if you unmute your mic and a Lounge is already running, you go straight up onto the stage and can join in speaking immediately. So in the Lounge, there’s no hand-raise function, no queue — anyone can just chat freely. It’s a bit like entering a House and standing in the hallway before a talk starts, before you walk into the actual hall — everyone gathers there beforehand and just chats away, all mixed together. That’s basically what the Lounge is. And if you want to leave the House, you basically have to do a “leave quietly,” just like in any room, to make it stop. You do have to get used to that a little at first. Rooms themselves work exactly the way we already know them — that’s different again. There you do have the hand-raise function, there’s a queue, and you have a lot more control.

Wonderful, thank you so much. Maybe just one more thing about what’s happening in the background — I actually just got a pop-up. At the same moment you joined, Mimi, it said “Invite Mimi to Deep Talk Club.” So it still says Club there, even though we’re technically not a Club anymore. Maybe it’s just still pulling the old name along automatically, so to speak.

Exactly. And unlike with the Club, you can actually change that now. And I’ve also got a little red label showing on my end — meaning I’m not yet a member of your Club, or rather your House. But I’m allowed to speak as a guest, because you’ve made this room public.

Oh, how neat. Yes, exactly. And that’s actually another difference we can see here — on my display I now see the House members listed, and if I scroll down a bit further, there’s also a “followed by the speakers” category, for instance, and we see these corresponding icons showing up next to it. So that would be people who were already following the rooms, who were here regularly. I do recognize quite a few faces in that “followed by the speakers” group whom I can personally place, but who might not be members of the House yet — they’re probably being automatically sorted into that category now. And then there’s a third category for everyone else in the room. That’s interesting. Layla, I believe you wanted to say something too — or was it a question?

No, actually I wanted to… I had something to add to what you both were just saying too. As I mentioned, I also have my own Club. And if I understand correctly, this Lounge thing — I run something like a weekly hangout, a kind of get-together in the Lounge — and that can be done by members. Yasemin, I get your point, I’m wired very similarly — if you all could open rooms under my name, that’s something I’m also a bit cautious about legally. It’s got nothing to do with not trusting people as such — I’d rather describe myself, not negatively, as naive, but more like — I tend to assume the best in people, and that’s not always a good thing. A professor once explained something to me that stuck with me — he said, you know, if someone has different values than you do, you can do whatever you want, you simply won’t find common ground unless you actually engage in exchange the way it happens, say, in the Deep Talk Club, which requires openness to begin with. What you were saying about monetization and the creators, I wanted to add something to that. There used to be this feature, of course, where you could link your PayPal here. But there are pitfalls with that too. I’m not a legal expert by any means, but I do know that, for example, if you receive donations, you’re required to disclose them. There was a case — in Stuttgart — you can look this up yourself, this isn’t something I came up with, Jan Böhmermann did a nice segment about it, about Michael Ballweg. I don’t want to advertise for him in any way here, I just want to point out — and this isn’t a how-to for committing any crime — that in Germany, if you make a “Schenkung,” a gift, you don’t have to disclose it. And Mr. Ballweg apparently declared all his “donations” as gifts instead, so that he wasn’t required to disclose them. That’s not to say he did everything wrong, or whatever — this isn’t a moral judgment on my part at all, it’s just something I happen to know from that segment, and it made me think that you don’t necessarily have to disclose things the way a political party would, where they have to say exactly where each donation went. Anyway, back to Clubhouse. I think it’s good when people who put real work into this actually get appreciated for it. And appreciation in words — I think that matters a lot too. Both of you run really lovely rooms, I have to say, and I think it’s great that they happen regularly. Because I think that’s part of it too — we all knew that primetime starts at 8:15pm, and then a movie comes on, I always knew the news was at 8pm, and I know your schedules too, and that’s nice, that’s a lovely thing. And the idea that money — or rather, appreciation — has something to do with “my work has value,” I think that’s entirely justified. I know people who’ve linked their PayPal, or say “well, I do this and that,” and immediately get told, “oh, do you really need to?” I think if you put in the work, that work deserves to be appreciated. I’ve given free German-as-a-foreign-language tutoring here myself before — completely for free, just because. And sometimes really lovely people came to those sessions — but sometimes people came in thinking the game was called “find the mistake.” I actually studied this, and I charge a very high hourly rate for it professionally — and sorry, that’s not meant to be bragging, it’s simply a fact. I put real work into that, and the two of you put real work into this too, and that deserves to be appreciated. And finally, I wanted to say — I think doing things is a wonderful thing, but you also have to be able to go in the other direction sometimes, because I’ve also seen people here who said things like, “I’m an institution, without me Clubhouse would just be lost.” You get the feeling they’d need a stone tablet to carve those important words into. And I honestly think that’s also the wrong attitude. So we’re talking about two extremes here, and I’m a fan of the middle path. Thanks for listening.

Thank you so much. And ultimately, this is something we see again and again, completely independent of Clubhouse. We often talk about technology here, and right now, for instance, there’s a lot of discussion around ChatGPT and so on — and we’re back to the same point: the tool itself isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s always a question of what we make of it. You described that yourself earlier, Layla — a lot of experimenting happened, and so on, and that’s part of it too. That was also driven by curiosity, especially in the early days, which is why so many, many rooms sprang up here — everything from Silence Rooms to who-knows-what. Really all sorts of things existed side by side and found their place, until at some point the people behind Clubhouse itself started putting up certain barriers. I remember there was a bit of a clean-up at some point, along the lines of, no, we’re not going to have Silence Rooms here — that sort of thing — and that got reined in accordingly. But a lot of other things were simply allowed to exist for a while, in the spirit of trying things out, observing, gathering experience, and so on. And on one hand, sure, not every room out there is positive, in a manner of speaking — though of course everyone will judge that differently. What’s positive for me doesn’t have to be positive for someone else, and vice versa, so it’s always an individual decision too. That’s exactly why you have the option here to try things out, to see what you want to be part of and what you don’t. And on one hand, I always find that discussion interesting — whether Clubhouse is dead. At the same time, I know that similar discussions are already happening around alternative tools like LinkedIn Audio, for instance, because things there don’t always run as smoothly as they should either, certain things aren’t optimized, the algorithms in the background don’t work well, which leads to rooms only showing up three days later — we’ve actually experienced that ourselves, that rooms sometimes only get displayed three days after the fact. That obviously doesn’t work at all, because how are people supposed to notice and come join if they only see it advertised three days later? So with all these different tools, we’re bound to have different experiences, and it’s on us to make the best of it. And then there’s the monetization aspect — I find that completely legitimate, and I always find it fascinating to see the different attitudes and stances people take here, how differently we’re all wired on this. While, say, in the US rooms, this was celebrated and used pretty quickly, without any ifs or buts — people just did it, and whoever wanted to donate something, or wanted to use it, used it, and whoever didn’t, simply didn’t. Whereas here, there are always these huge debates about whether it’s justified, whether it’s fair, whether it’s okay or not. And the same goes for the rooms that took place around the topic of data privacy and so on. I mean, sure, I can discuss that too — on one hand I use the app, and then I talk about data privacy — well, then I probably shouldn’t be using the app in the first place either. Those are the kinds of things I can smile about, in a manner of speaking. Ultimately, everyone has to decide that for themselves, of course. Every app, every social media platform has its own pros and cons, and everyone has to decide for themselves whether they want that or not. We also had a room at one point about TikTok, for example, where I said very clearly that I do see the trend, I do see that a lot of people are switching over there now and saying we need to be there too. Personally — and I still stand by this — I decided not to join that rush, for various reasons, based on my own values, where I see certain problems on a societal level, in a manner of speaking. That could also lead to some quite serious downsides later on, and it just feels too uncomfortable to me there. That’s why I don’t want to promote it further with my own content, and that’s why I decided against it. I did set up an account at some point, just to secure my name on the app and to occasionally look at a post if someone sends me a link — that happens now and then — but otherwise I don’t use that app at all, at least not as a creator, and not really as a user in any meaningful sense either. But that’s ultimately everyone’s own choice. For every app, every social media channel out there, we each get to weigh the pros and cons for ourselves and make conscious decisions. I actually explained this in more detail during that TikTok discussion. Let me just summarize it briefly here, so it makes sense to anyone new who might have missed that and to avoid any confusion. Of course, companies like Facebook and so on are ultimately businesses too, wanting to make money — you can certainly have an ethical debate about that as well — and yes, they collect data too, of course. But ultimately, from my perspective, those are US companies whose primary interest is really just making money, plain and simple, whereas with TikTok, given its Chinese background, I personally find that uncomfortable, so to speak, because from my personal point of view — and this is just my personal opinion — I don’t feel safe about what might eventually be done with that data, given the government and the governmental structures involved there. But that’s entirely my own personal opinion, I’m not claiming it’s the correct one — I just see certain risks there, and I mean that on a societal level, not even an individual one, possible downsides that could eventually come back to bite us in some form. And because I personally don’t want to support that with my own content, I decided against it — but of course everyone is free to handle this however they see fit. So, very interesting point there. And regarding the Lounge, Mimi, I have another question for you. You mentioned that when you come in, everyone who’s in the Lounge automatically ends up on stage and can speak right away. I have a specific question about that, if you don’t mind. Here’s the thing — before, with the Club, we had a lot of members, and I never had any kind of restriction where I had to manually approve them or anything like that. So now that I’ve switched over to a House, presumably the people who get notified automatically also have the option to just switch back over. But there are a lot of people in there whom I honestly can’t even place — I don’t necessarily know exactly who they all are. So if I enable this Lounge functionality and they start opening Lounges themselves, isn’t there a certain risk that troublemakers, so to speak, could end up in there too?

There’s only one Lounge per House, that’s the first thing. And the Lounge is basically the space you enter before going into whichever rooms happen to be running that you currently have access to. And anyone who was in your Club is now automatically a House member too. And depending on how you’ve configured the House, members can also invite other people into your House. And the moment a Lounge is open and two people happen to meet there and unmute their mics, they can just chat, they can talk to each other freely. And if there’s ever abuse and you notice it, you can issue that person a warning within the House, and if you no longer want them in the House, you can remove them from it. If it’s a public House and they could just come back again, you can also block them from the House entirely. So as an admin you actually have quite a lot of rights within the House now — for example, if it’s a closed House, you can set it up so that no one but you can invite people, or you can grant invitation privileges to members so they can invite their own friends. So you really can fine-tune it quite precisely now. I hope that was clear.

Wonderful, thank you so much. Yes, I’d already noticed that invitation option too — so members get the ability to hand out invitations themselves, meaning they can invite other people in turn. I find that quite fascinating too. So I think we can conclude here — and this was also Clubhouse’s own official statement — that this merger doesn’t actually remove any features as such, but that essentially all the features we had in the Club are being preserved, and we’re just getting additional House features on top of that. Is that correct?

Yes, that’s exactly right.

Well, that’s wonderful. Layla, go ahead.

There’s actually something else I wanted to say that ties in a bit with your title and with what you said earlier — because the title is literally “just doing it” and insight, and that got me thinking, wait a minute. I spend quite a bit of time in Pete Cohen’s rooms — he’s a coach too, has written several books, and is also just a genuinely nice person, if I may say so. And he has this feature where he lets members open Clubs, or rooms, within his structure, in order to multiply things. I understand that idea of multiplication, I actually think it’s very positive — but then I also thought, wait, I have a Club too, which is about to become a House. So what do I do if people are in the Lounge and don’t treat each other well? And then I thought, well, would I actually set that up the same way? I can’t be everywhere at once. And that made me think — would I have to station someone up front to keep an eye on things? And then I thought, now we’re back to the Club model again, now we’re back to needing a bouncer, or someone standing there monitoring everything. And what can we actually control there? My question, on one hand, is: why is it not a problem in America to give donations openly? Because then I thought, is that because we’ve been taught that self-praise stinks? Is it because we’ve learned from the wealthy that you’re supposed to save, that we perceive it as showing off? And I believe, without knowing this for certain, but I think I’ve heard, that it’s not seen as a big deal over there, whereas here we have this whole “you don’t talk about money” thing — and does that mean we have a culture of envy? That’s the question I have. And the other thing is, you mentioned this “German Angst” earlier, and that’s what got me asking all these questions, because I grew up in Germany and I do tend toward that German Angst myself, whereas an American, or someone from a different country, simply wouldn’t hesitate the same way, because they were socialized differently. Because just doing it — I don’t know, is that something that’s just not so easy if you were socialized in Germany?

That’s an interesting question, ultimately. I can only really share my own personal view on this, and you’re both welcome to add your own perspectives too. I think it has a lot to do with the underlying societal structures. We live in a country where, in a manner of speaking, we already have relatively strong safety nets. On one hand, there’s also the question of how many people here are actually self-employed or run their own business. You have to differentiate here too — if I use Clubhouse just to run casual virtual-coffee rooms because I enjoy it, that’s a completely different thing, a different intention, than if I’m running a room as a business, as a creator, where it also serves as a marketing supplement — and even there you can differentiate further: am I trying to sell something directly, or is this first about getting to know people, with the actual offer coming in a second or third step, and so on. But there are a lot of considerations like these running quietly in the background that inform the decisions people make. And what I personally observe is that people often forget that, very often, the person running these rooms is themselves self-employed or an entrepreneur, and that the app exists, among other things, to allow for monetization. Whether that’s in the first or the third step is completely irrelevant. Generally speaking, it’s usually not purely for fun, but serves as a genuine supplement to someone’s business. And the same is true for posts made on social media — that’s about generating reach, about visibility. Ultimately, all of it is a marketing strategy meant to eventually turn into a business, sooner or later, in a manner of speaking. And that’s entirely legitimate. In my impression, people who are in a salaried, employed position often have less of a feel for just how important that really is. We don’t usually think twice about it — when I shop at the supermarket, I don’t wonder why there’s bread on the shelf or why prices are displayed, that’s just completely self-evident to us. But when the same thing happens on social media channels, or here on Clubhouse, which is the concrete example we’re actually discussing, it sometimes leads to reactions that, from my perspective, are fundamentally unjustified — because for someone who isn’t in salaried employment, and for whom these bookings are genuinely important just to put food on the table, that’s entirely legitimate too. And if money doesn’t flow in on one side, in a manner of speaking, then it also wouldn’t be possible to do the opposite on the other side — whatever the underlying business model looks like, it also wouldn’t be possible to offer things pro bono, or to open free rooms occasionally, or anything similar. That all plays into each other too. Mimi, how do you see that?

I don’t really think about things like that. I just do it.

Well, you can make it that simple too. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Yeah, but you know, those are just opinions, and everyone’s allowed to have their own opinion here, however they like. We just do our thing and don’t really think about what other people think of it or not. The people who fit with us come, and they feel comfortable. And whoever doesn’t feel comfortable simply isn’t a fit — we’re just not the right fit for them either, and that’s fine too. And we don’t really think about the monetization side either — everything goes through our tax advisor, it’s all fully transparent. You can use this app fantastically well. And let’s be really honest with ourselves here, let’s look at this really honestly: at some point, the money Clubhouse generated from the initial hype is going to run out. At some point, the people behind all this, all those developers who built this and did a fantastic job, are going to want to see some money too. Which means Clubhouse has to monetize this somehow. And that doesn’t bother us at all. If they want to do that, fine by us — I actually think the whole development toward Houses is fantastic. I’d be totally willing to accept a model like, say, Zoom, where they say, for creators it costs this much, and in return you get access to these and these features — I’d happily pay for that, I wouldn’t have any issue with it at all. And if they keep it free, well, someone has to pay for all that computing capacity, all that server capacity — where’s that money supposed to come from? At some point it runs out, and then it becomes untenable, and then they have to start making money.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Layla.

I just wanted to quickly say — I think I’ve figured out why this might get misunderstood, or why that happens. Because I was just thinking about it: we have this sense, with social media, that the word “social” comes first, and so I think people sometimes get the feeling, well, this is meant to be a social togetherness — which it is, of course. And I don’t know whether Clubhouse has made that clear to everyone. What you’re both saying, I don’t actually think it’s unreasonable at all. But if it did work that way — because I have a Club, or a House, of my own too — and if I had to monetize it in the sense that I’d have to pay a fee just to have a House, I think I’d have to think twice about whether I even wanted that, because I’m not currently using it for monetization, which doesn’t mean I couldn’t. But I would have to think about that, and I did think about it — well, for a lot of people it’s probably already the case. And that might be exactly why there’s this feeling, when someone links their PayPal, that people immediately jump to, “oh, do you really need to, are you into Gucci or Balenciaga shoes or whatever” — I’ve heard all of that before. And I thought to myself, no — I mean, you could just say, sure, I only accept transfers starting at a million, I’ll send everything else back, just to make a joke of it. But no, I think this is really a thing, because we forget that on Instagram, we’re also a kind of commodity ourselves, in a sense — because of the data protection terms, we get shown advertising too. Other apps do exactly the same thing. So this wouldn’t really be anything new where we could suddenly say, oh my god, how could they. Because you really have to look closely at the other apps, at social media in general too. But what I was thinking to myself just now is that maybe it really is this “social” part, this social-media idea, that gets misunderstood — because as far as I understand it, it really just means that people come together here. But maybe one of you is fluent enough in English to break that term down a bit more for me.

Let me just quickly respond to that, and one quick note — we do have another hand raised, but given the time, I’m not going to bring anyone else up on stage after this one. If you’d like, feel free to use the chat, I’ll check in on that in a moment, since we generally cap the room at around 60 minutes, and that’s the case today too — so I’ll hold off on bringing anyone else up. Just briefly on this — I can already see Mimi wants to add something in a moment too. Ultimately, these platforms are businesses offering a service, and of course they want to make money too, that’s just how it is. And what a lot of people don’t see is that, with something like Facebook or Instagram, they run advertising, which means they have a financial model where a substantial amount of money gets generated through ads — Clubhouse doesn’t have that. Which means, right now, it’s really investors and so on who’ve put money into it because they liked the idea, because they liked the concept — so funds are being made available there. And on that point I’m completely with Mimi — at some point, this has to be monetized. Which means, of course, those investors want to see their money again eventually, and that’s going to happen on Clubhouse in some form or another. That could take the shape of a model like Zoom’s, for instance, where creators pay for certain features. And as for “social networks” — yes, Layla, I’m completely with you there, that term is a bit misleading. Ultimately it’s about them being networks, about connecting people, but that doesn’t necessarily have much to do with “social” in the sense we might imagine at first. Mimi, you wanted to add something too.

Yes, I actually wanted to say something along the same lines as what you just said. I think that for the rooms that stay free, ads will probably get played in to monetize them, and maybe there’ll be a model where you can choose whether you want ads or not — because that’s how YouTube does it too, you can turn off the ads by subscribing, and then they stop bothering you. Maybe something similar will happen here too. That was just something I wanted to add. Thank you for the conversation, and it was lovely to meet you all. I wish you all a happy Easter, and I’ll say goodbye now. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. I think it’s really wonderful that you joined us — thank you also for your support and for the experience you brought into the conversation, I found that genuinely valuable. And before we move into the closing round, let’s actually try out the background music together. I’ll just pick “Chill” and see — there’s already a decent selection, not a huge amount, but I think that actually makes it a bit clearer and easier to navigate. So let’s just go with “Chill” for now, so it’s hopefully not too loud or anything. I can see I have the option back here to adjust the volume too — so there’s a volume slider. Let me set it to 10 and turn it on, and we’ll see what happens. One moment. Okay, you should be able to hear the music now. I can turn it down a bit more so it’s not too loud for me. That’s probably something that maybe wasn’t available for you yet, I don’t know, Layla. In any case, you can use the slider to adjust how loud or quiet it is, so it doesn’t distract me while I’m talking — I’ll leave it running a bit quieter in the background. And we’ve got two more comments here on the topic of payment. Someone here — I see this a bit differently, says Vera, I could actually imagine paying a House fee that goes to Yasemin, for instance, since she’s the one doing the work — and similarly from Diana: if someone places an ad in a newspaper or on the radio, don’t they have to pay for that too? So why shouldn’t a customer generated on Clubhouse also pay for that? And can you two not hear the music? Let me just check — I can hear the music. Layla, can you hear the music?

Right, I’d say I heard it very quietly — and what I have to say about the feature you just mentioned, since I already said I listen through headphones, is that when I had it set to seven, it was very loud for me, though it was apparently pleasant for the audience, and you could already adjust that before, “Chill” already existed before too, there were about six or seven tracks. What I would have actually wished for — because deep down there’s a podcaster in me — is that we now have sound effects you can play in, but that there were even more options for the “creators,” so to speak, for the people running the rooms, more ways to actually play around and work with that. That would have been, for me, the real innovation here — which doesn’t mean I don’t like Clubhouse or the app, I think it’s good, and I always think criticizing is easier than doing it yourself. So I’m sure a lot more is still to come.

Thank you so much. Ultimately, to pick that payment aspect back up — sure, a House fee could theoretically be paid, and in a manner of speaking that would go to me. But ultimately — and here we’re back to the same point — Clubhouse, as the provider of the app, also has to make money in some form sooner or later. So that’s going to come in some shape eventually. And I find that completely legitimate too, whether it’s a model similar to Zoom, with monthly fees, or monetized through advertising in some way. That’s really something they’ll decide for themselves, and once it happens, we’ll see it and we’ll be able to weigh, once again, whether we want to go along with that step or not. And Layla, you just said it would be nice if this or that existed — and I’m totally with you there, things keep developing further and further. If we look back at the very early days, we can say there were so many features that simply didn’t exist yet. And I think it always has two sides. On one hand, the more functionality there is, the more possibilities you have to make use of, which I think is great. But at the same time, I also loved, right from the start, that this app doesn’t have too many features, because that’s exactly what makes it so simple, in a manner of speaking. And especially from experience, with things like the Authors’ Breakfast or expert talks, there are often people joining who’ve never used the app before, joining for the very first time — and they’re genuinely relieved and grateful when it’s not overly complicated, when everything just works relatively simply, and that also saves time for me as a creator, for instance, which I also think is great. So both sides have their pros and cons here too. It keeps developing, there are more features, and we as creators always get to decide for ourselves which of those we want to make accessible, which we want to use, and which we don’t — so overall I feel fairly optimistic about it, and we’ll just see how things continue to unfold. Holger just wrote in the chat: I’m very curious which monetization models could actually work for Clubhouse given how many active creators and listeners are still around. Yes, we’ll see how that develops. It’s a shame, Holger, that you weren’t here earlier — we could have shared a bit of our LinkedIn Audio experience together too. But well, for today our time is essentially up already, so to speak, and I’m glad that, against the backdrop of Clubhouse deciding to convert everything into Houses, we used this time to try a few things out and, at the same time, look at what’s actually changing here. We’ve taken this step now, we’ve switched over, and we’ll simply see what experiences we gather over the coming days and so on, and just make the best of it. And I’m really curious what comes next — this certainly won’t be the last new feature, and this switch might turn out to be a somewhat bigger change than it seems right now. But fundamentally, yes, change surrounds us constantly, all the time, which means we always get to embrace it, simply try things out, gather experience with it, and keep moving forward. And doing itself — you can see it here too — isn’t about knowing everything in advance, it’s about simply embracing it, opening the room, announcing it, and coming together here in exchange, to gather experience and just try out one button or another. You’re all warmly invited to join us for that over the coming days too. I’m curious to see — maybe at some point we can do a kind of recap, an interim check-in, to see what insights emerge after a week, two weeks, or however long. I’m really curious and looking at this with a lot of curiosity. With that, I’d like to move into our short closing round. Layla, what were your highlights from the room today, or is there anything you’d like to underline once more?

So the first thing I’d like to underline again is — I’d like to put out another call to everyone listening. Please, everyone, come up on… well, not everyone, but — sorry, Yasemin, of course, everyone who wants to is invited. I know it’s your room, but I still want to make that call myself, because the more opinions we have, the better it gets. And that’s actually one of the reasons I’m part of the Deep Talk Club, because I keep learning new things every time. And Yasemin, I learn an enormous amount from you too, and I really enjoy talking with you. But I’ve allowed myself to say that just now. Your room was called “just doing it” and insight. I noticed for myself that I gained a lot of realizations today — well, I’d say I recognized a lot, whether that’s already turned into genuine insight, I’m not so sure yet, because recognizing something isn’t the same as insight itself. Still, I definitely learned a lot today, and I’m really happy about that. And yes, I’m one of those people who’s fairly spontaneous and quick to act on things — which I’m already doing again right now, indirectly, whether or not I’m even allowed to say that out loud. Yes, I do think you’re allowed to pat yourself on the back sometimes — that’s not bragging, that’s simply appreciating yourself and your own abilities. And yet I also love rituals and regularity, I like it when things follow a clear structure. And so I’m happy, and I invite everyone to simply just do it, and to overcome that German Angst, or whatever you want to call it — it doesn’t mean you immediately lose your head over it. Thanks for listening.

Not usually, no. Thank you so much. And with that, I think we had a wonderful start to Easter Monday. Thank you all so much for being here, for trying things out with us, for listening. I found it really, really exciting too, even though there were only three of us up on stage, in a manner of speaking. I can only echo that call and underline it once more myself — you’re always warmly invited to come join us. And I know it’s not always easy for everyone — regardless of things like background noise, or simply deciding on any given day that you’re not up for coming on stage, that’s a whole different topic. But we have so many listeners here who maybe have never been on stage before, because it comes with a certain amount of nervousness, and things like that. This is a reflection space here, where it’s not about right or wrong at all, it’s simply about genuinely coming into exchange, giving ourselves the chance to get to know one another — because that’s really what makes a social network what it is, so to speak, the opportunity to actually get to know each other. Otherwise it’s always just one-sided, in a manner of speaking. So this kind of interaction really matters a lot, especially against the backdrop of the whole idea behind Deep Talk — namely, to set up a shared framework for reflection, a space where we can generate insight together, through reflection, through different perspectives and opinions. And that of course requires that we actually have different perspectives and opinions represented here. That’s why I always say, if it takes too long before someone — thankfully that hasn’t happened yet, but I’ve given that warning several times before — because sometimes it has taken a bit longer before someone joined in. I have no interest in giving monologues. This is a reflection space, and that requires different perspectives — meaning at minimum one other person is always needed to be part of it. But the more perspectives we have, of course, the nicer it is to capture all those different angles, to get into real exchange here, and to arrive at thoughts we might never have reached on our own. So you’re all warmly invited. And of course, we’ve also decided that the entire room gets recorded, so to speak, and that the content is published afterwards — so please do use this as an opportunity, maybe even as a practice space, as training, especially for those who don’t yet dare to speak up. Because I think what we’ve really managed to do very, very well in this room is to treat each other with respect and appreciation, as equals. Nobody gets their head bitten off here, it’s not about showing off or anything like that, it’s really about talking substantively about the topics at hand. So just give it a try. Feel free to mention it if you’d like, or simply try it out yourself. And of course everyone else is still warmly invited to make use of the chat too. And I think it’s lovely that the chat has actually been used quite well, relatively speaking, to join the exchange, so that we could capture a few more perspectives here too. Thank you all so much for that. I wish you all a wonderful continuation of the holiday and a happy Easter Monday — whatever you have planned today with your loved ones, friends, or family, enjoy it. And tomorrow we’ll continue again at 8am, with the room topic of insight, in parentheses, negative experiences — meaning we want to talk about experiences and what role experiences play with regard to insight and gaining insight. So I’m really looking forward to seeing how things continue tomorrow together with you all. With that, take care of yourselves, until then, ciao!