Impossible Minds: Rosalind Gahamire
Our Impossible Minds series profiles the individuals who are building new possibilities for the future across technology, design and culture. This time we talked with Rosalind Gahamire, our Community and Content manager at Bond Touch, who is passionate about understanding mindsets, which she believes are the foundation behind all good design and strategy.
What’s interesting about your role at Impossible?
Remember those random encounters with strangers we used to have… waiting in an airport or on a long bus journey… when someone you had just met would tell you their whole life story or their deepest most personal secrets, then walk away and you’d never see them again…I feel like my day-to-day is somewhat like that!
As Community and Content manager at Bond Touch I have very close contact with our community. It’s incredible what people share with our brand. I’d like to think our Communications puts people so at ease that they can talk to us like a best friend, but perhaps there is also an element of the anonymity of going to Confession - either way people are always pleasantly surprised to be responded to by a “real human”. I’ve heard it all, from the break ups, the insecurities and tough times in relationships to planning surprise visits and proposals!
Understanding our community’s dreams, fears, doubts on this level in turn helps with the planning of our Content by allowing me to tap into their mindset. What type of content will resonate most? What conversations should we be having? What improvements do we need to make to our communications? It’s a constant feedback loop, and I love seeing how one influences the other.
What problem are you solving now?
Building brand equity is the main focus for the Communications team at the moment. Bond Touch is a pioneer in the relationship-tech space, there are not many products like it on the market. That said, we need to keep feeding into our community if we want them to continue to maintain interest and grow with us. Our communications strategy has to address retention of our audience even after purchase. With this in mind, we are incorporating more educational content into our content strategy. Addressing the bad as well as the good sides of relationships, like signs of toxic behaviour or why #couplegoal comparisons can be more harmful than good. It’s important to address these issues. Relationships are dynamic, there are ups and downs, and if we only showed one perspective this would paint a false reality of what building healthier and happier relationships actually looks like.
What are you passionate about?
I’m passionate about design, behaviours and people. I love being around people but I would describe myself as more of an introvert. I was always very observant as a kid and I think I learnt a lot about people, their behaviours and understanding mindset and motivations in this way. Understanding mindset is the foundation behind all good design and strategy, which is where I think my passion for these subjects stems from.
What do you want to create next?
In a post-covid world I would love to create a space or event to merge our online and offline communities. Whilst it’s only natural that our community is mostly digital, the people and the relationships behind the screen names exist IRL (in real life). I think in a post -covid world people will crave tangible, touchable experiences even more!
Whether it’s through language, digital media, experiences or space, there are so many touchpoints to foster community and to communicate our brand values.
What are you currently obsessed with and why?
Despite some hesitance….TikTok!
Whilst all social platforms have their downsides (addictiveness and strains on attention being some), what I love about all of them are the tools they give people to display their creativity and connect with others. TikTok is essentially an edit suite in the palm of your hand which has democratised content creation. I’ve seen pure genius in a 7 second video clip, produced on zero budget. I also like that it’s not about how many followers you have that controls the level of exposure your content gets. I’m interested to see how the platform evolves as it matures.
Tell us something not many people know
I’ve had a number of random jobs growing up as a teenager: gyoza dumpling seller, Christmas tree decorator and hand model to name a few… I guess life came full circle working at Bond Touch when we launched a new metal band collection. With covid restrictions, it was safer to have as few people as possible on set, so a colleague and I had the great honour of being the “hand models”.
