Almost every tool we use to organise communities starts with the same demand: create an account, prove who you are, and carry that identity with you. Over time these accounts become records of where we’ve been, who we know, what we’ve done, and what we’re allowed to access. Those records can be useful, but they can also leak, be sold, or create new barriers around who gets to participate.

In this workshop we’ll design community tools that work differently. We’ll start from real needs: organising something, staying in touch, sharing things, asking for help, finding people around a cause, and self-governing. Then we’ll ask: what does a tool actually need to know to make that possible?

Together, we’ll explore ways identity can become lighter: temporary, local, specific to a situation, or separated across different parts of our lives. We’ll question common assumptions about what apps need to remember, and work through the real tensions that appear when we remove permanent profiles, especially around trust, safety, and belonging.

We’ll also look at Dyad, an app we are building in Berlin for meeting strangers in person, as a case study in designing social technology without bios, follower counts, or permanent identities.

The workshop is structured in three parts over ~90 minutes:

• First, we’ll take apart what existing community tools ask people to hand over, and why.
• Then, we’ll design alternatives together in small groups: new tools from the ground up, or existing platforms reimagined without permanent identity.
• We’ll finish by sharing what we found: what can we build today, and what new infrastructure would make more possible?

For organisers, artists, people who run spaces, designers, and builders. No coding and nothing to bring; if you do code, the same questions apply to your own stack.