Hi! As you’ve no doubt noticed, this site has been dormant for quite a while since my last post. I thought I’d share some of my future writing plans, so you know a bit more about what you can expect to see on this site.
Sense of Community
This is a current focus of mine at work, with the next major survey ready to launch in a week. As soon as I have some breathing room after rushing about doing things, I’d like to write about them. On the horizon at the moment:
- An introduction and overview of the Sense of Community model.
- A tactical piece on how I’ve implemented it, both for my initial run (EoY 2017) and the upcoming FY19 survey.
- A review of the types of data and insights that it provides.
Conferences and presentations
I like attending conferences. I like organising them, too. In both cases I try to contribute to the event in an introvert-friendly way: working behind the scenes, or live-tweeting notes and commentary throughout the day. What I haven’t done much of so far is actually standing up on stage.
That’s changing this year, as I’ve thrown my metaphorical hat into the ring for two of my favourite Community Management events. I’ll be speaking at Swarm Conference in Melbourne this August, and then flying over to the US to speak at CMX Summit in October. If you’re reading this post, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll see you there – so come over and say hi!
And all the rest…
In the meantime, what else has been going on? Quite a lot, it turns out…
- I’ve started a #100daysofcode challenge, trying to develop a basic proficiency in Ruby. It’s my first programming language, so the whole process has a very steep learning curve. I have two goals. The first is improving my technical literacy: I work with developers every day, and work on a platform built in Ruby. I also want to be able to start on problems that otherwise would spend months or years in a development backlog. Even if I don’t end up completely solving those, at least I can help get some momentum behind community-facing issues.
- I’m now leading a team at Envato, which has caused some major changes in how I work. I realise that there’s probably no “standard” setup for a Community team within a business. I’d like to explore that a bit more, sharing some details on how my team operates.
- I submitted my thesis a few months ago, and I’m currently in that strange limbo that follows all peer-reviewed writing, while awaiting feedback. Mostly, I’ve been keeping too busy to think about it. Some time soon, though, I’m likely to receive a lot of reviewer comments, followed by a sudden change in gears back to academic writing mode where I make whatever changes have been requested. To be honest, the entire process still feels terrifying, but that seems to be a recurring theme for 2018: do things that fall well outside your comfort zone, so you can learn and improve.
