Latest / Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight / Community with Rosie Sherry

Transcript

Community with Rosie Sherry · Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight

0:00
Here we go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
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Watch yourself in orbit.
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Thank you so much for joining me.
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I'm Nola Simon.
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I'm the host of Highway Remote Center of Excellence.
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Say that three times fast.
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Today we have a guest from the UK.
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Where exactly are you from, Rosie?
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I'm in Brighton in the UK, the south coast.
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Ah, I'm familiar with the beaches.
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I haven't been there, but I've heard of them.
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Um, anyways, our guest is Rosie Sherry, and she is an
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expert in all things community.
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She started ministry and testing, what, back in 2007?
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And so that has grown to its community of thousands of users, and
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it brings in millions of dollars.
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And in addition, she also runs another community called Rosyland, which is
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dedicated to all things community.
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So Rosie, when I was exploring communities, and I keep continuing
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to explore communities because I haven't figured it out myself.
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Um, she was the expert that I came across online.
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Literally, I think it was more Twitter initially.
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And then more linked in now.
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Um, but she, um, has a way of explaining community, um,
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that nobody else does, I find.
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And I found her approach really relatable.
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Um, you know, you started ministry testing because you had 2 kids
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at home and it was a way that you could start a business, right?
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Did I get that correct?
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Yeah.
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And it's grown since then.
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So, um, and recently you had to step back.
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You had initially headed it off to a CEO and then recently
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you stepped back in as CEO.
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Is that correct?
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Yeah.
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So could you tell us more about your journey with community
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and where that started?
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Yeah, I mean, um, so I guess I've been in tech since around 2000, um, the year
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2000, which is a bit scary to, to say, um, I started off as a software tester.
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I got like my first job as a software tester, hence ministry testing that came
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along, um, probably seven years later.
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Um, But as, as I was working in tech, um, I started going to local meetups in
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Brighton, um, it was quite an active, like, geeky type scene, um, and I was
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just inspired about all the things that were happening, and I kind of
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stumbled across the idea of community, and, um, I enjoyed the local community
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aspect and as the web, um, was kind of grown, it was kind of like web 2.
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0 era.
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For me there was like a lot of kind of excitement around all of that.
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And yeah, mostly like once I discovered the idea of community, I could, I was
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like, you know, that became my thing.
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I just couldn't, couldn't forget.
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What community, you know, the idea of community to me, it just, it
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just stuck with me and I've never been able to let it go since.
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Um, so since I've discovered that and like community has always been like how I start
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things and, or how I think about things.
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And I started a local meetup.
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It was a woman in tech.
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It was a meetup.
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called Brighton Girl Geek Dinners and that was like my first step into like
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actually doing community things and that that kind of opened my eyes to how
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special community can be and like Um, I ran it for probably a couple of years,
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and it was like, always, um, fully, fully booked out, and I met loads of people,
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and, and, you know, still in contact with many of them, like, you know, even like
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20 years on, and it's like, you know, that was kind of, I guess like, as a
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introverted style person that I am, that was like a real kind of eye opener for me.
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So, yeah, after that I kind of.
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Uh, was looking for an excuse to apply community to the ideas I
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had or the work I wanted to do.
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Um, and at that time as well, there were like no community jobs really.
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It just wasn't, wasn't, I think.
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Yeah, it was sort of like a job that, that came later.
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Like, this is the type of job that, you know, when you were a kid, you
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didn't imagine it could be a real job.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Um, I remember seeing like job ads at the time, like for
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Yelp and community managers.
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So there were a few startups that kind of had started to adopt that role,
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but you know, that me and Brighton, those jobs in San Francisco was
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like never, never going to happen.
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Right.
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I know how that feels.
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I'm from Canada.
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Nothing ever interesting ever happens in Canada.
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Um, yeah, so I just like, uh, was always looking for opportunities
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to do my own community thing.
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Um, I ran a co working space for a while and then, and then I also decided to start
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ministry of testing because I felt like there could, there should be a better
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community for software testers, which at the time there wasn't really much at all.
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Um, nothing that I really approved of.
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So I kind of used it as an excuse just to start something.
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I had no real Um, idea that it would turn into something, but it was just
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something I wanted to try, play with, see where it goes, um, and yeah, I
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guess that's what, partly what I'm, I've discovered that I'm good at is
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just like, I just do stuff and then figure stuff out and, uh, either suffer
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the consequences or suffer with, with, with the success along the way as well.
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Yeah, no, that's very interesting.
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Um, So in terms of administrative testing that that's the part of your
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work that I actually don't relate to at all because I don't have that
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kind of software background at all.
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Um, so what's, what's the purpose of community?
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It's to share expertise and and you offer courses as well, right?
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Yeah, so I would call it like a community of practice.
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So it's essentially for software testing professionals or
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quality assurance engineers, you know, they go by a few names.
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And it's a space to gather and to hopefully learn more and advance.
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People's careers and we do conferences.
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So at the moment we do one conference a year in Brighton.
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Yes, you just did that though right?
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Yeah, yeah, because I've seen things online people really
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complimenting, you know how engaging it was and just appreciating
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the, like the in person touch.
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So that's an interesting aspect of Of community, because we got away from
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it, obviously, during the pandemic.
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Right.
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So are people really excited about in person?
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Do you think that's.
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And aspect of community that's going to develop.
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I think so.
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And I think, um, so pre pandemic we, it was a bit crazy to be honest, but
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we had, as, as ministry of testing grew, we, we had like nine conferences
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across the world in the, in 2019, which, which feels like really crazy now.
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But post pandemic we've gone back down to just one conference and the idea
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at the moment is just to have that one conference a year and put much more effort
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into it and hopefully make it bigger than what it's, what it's been before.
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So, um, is there an appetite for it, like 100%?
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It's like people, yeah, I think people need it.
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I don't think they're realising how much they need it until they show up.
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And it's once they show up that they're like, ah, this is exactly what I needed,
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this is like the break I needed from work, or this is just like reconnecting with
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people, or getting to meet people in real life that they've connected with online.
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And yeah, I think we've just forgotten that.
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And, you know, partly, you know, a big part of that is the pandemic,
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but, um, when people go, they, they don't regret going in my opinion,
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you know, especially, um, this past conference, which I think we've kind
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of, um, leveled up the experience, um, and got amazing feedback, um, from it.
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And, um, it was a product manager who attended, um, um, And she, she shared on
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LinkedIn, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she was sharing
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on LinkedIn how, just like, how amazing it felt and how, um, kind of jealous of FOMO
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she had that software testers had this space to gather and she didn't feel like,
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uh, The product managers had that same kind of space with that community feel.
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Um, where everyone's literally like, uh, supporting each other.
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And like the speakers have, have grown up in the community.
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Oh, so you bring in people who are actually members of the
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community to actually speak.
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That's cool.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, all our effort is like, all our, all our kind of like,
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I guess you, you know, you call it marketing effort, but all our effort is
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focused on the community and uplifting the community and trying to get them
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to like publish their first article.
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Or do their first talk or, you know, speak at a conference or, you know,
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all our effort is like community first.
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It's, it's the people in the community.
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We don't, we don't like go outside seeking other speakers.
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Um, you know, we don't do keynote talks.
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We've never done keynote talks.
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For example, it was just like every talk is a talk from, from the community.
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Um, So you're really focusing on the relationships that build
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within the community themselves.
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Yeah.
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And it really makes a difference because people know these people and
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they can identify with them, right?
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And they can see, oh, I know that person.
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I've spoken to him or we've been in touch.
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He's never spoken and now he's up on stage.
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And like the vibe that that gives as well is that you have like people
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like cheering them on, or if they're struggling, you can really see that the
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crowd is like supporting them rather than like criticizing them, for example.
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So the online connection is really fueling the in person.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So like, I guess like some conferences happen once a year for us.
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The conference is just part of the community.
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So really we're like planning all year round.
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Um, we, you know, we publish content all year round, um, and all year round,
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we're looking for new speakers and those sparks was, you know, connections that,
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or, you know, uh, information or trends that might be of value to the community.
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And we're trying to get, get better at spotting it and then bringing
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it to the conference as like the icing on the cake, I guess.
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So you mentioned before we started recording that you're a deep introvert.
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Uh, so how does an introvert plan a conference?
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Uh, because I would assume that a lot of people in that, that type of
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profession tend to be introverts.
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I could be completely wrong there, but that's my perception.
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So how, how does a conference for introverts in person differ
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from the standard conference that's planned by extroverts?
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Uh, yeah, I say introverted, um, these days I'd probably use neurodivergent,
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you know, being neurodiverse.
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Um, but, you know, whatever it is, it's like, you know, you know, people
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struggle in, you know, In real life situations and say, how do you make it
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feel more more comfortable for them.
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And part of it again is going back to community and feeling welcomed
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and supported and things like that.
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And another part is creating a variety of activities or meetups or events
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that are happening so that, you know, hopefully there's something for everybody.
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Um, but like a big part of it.
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You know, I feel, you know, sometimes I feel like I harp on a lot about
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community, but it's like so, so many of the people arrive and they're like
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really nervous and, um, but like the moment they step in, they're kind
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of welcomed by, by the community or there's, uh, there's this culture of
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like everyone's kind of Uh, checking in on other people or people standing
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alone, and they might go up to them and say hello or just checking on them.
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I saw you write on thread something about that.
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Somebody had mentioned the fact that they were nervous that a
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community just standing around, or they were at a conference and they
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were just standing around and just having that awkward conversation.
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It was like the worst experience ever.
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And you're like, just.
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Being generous enough to, to go up to somebody and say hi, that's the
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most generous thing that you could do to, for somebody at a group,
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if you see them standing alone.
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Yeah, and it's part of the culture so it's like everyone is literally doing it
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because, because they experience it and they see how, How great it can feel and
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how it kind of brings that belonging.
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And it just like naturally ends up extending.
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And it's not just like, oh, let's, you know, this is what we want to see.
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It's like that's kind of happened over the years.
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And like when, you know, we kind of try to communicate it.
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And then run up to it, we have the host on stage who also communicates it.
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So it's like we're trying to really embed this culture of like, we're
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all here to support each other, and we're all actually quite friendly,
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or we're all struggling a bit.
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And, you know, it's just like,
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yeah, for whatever reason, it's just like, it's become a big part of what Ministry
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of Testing and Test Bash is all about.
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And it's pretty, pretty amazing to see that, to be honest, because I do
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go to other conferences and like no one ever comes up to me, you know,
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like, you know, other tech conferences and it's just like, sometimes I just
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like wonder why, why am I even here?
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So it's, um, yeah, I guess there's the, there's a Pac Man model as well, which
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is one way they talk about it, so it's like, um, it's like when you're having
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a conversation with other people, they always leave a gap like Pac Man's mouth.
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So that others can come in, stand in and listen, and maybe join in.
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So people have naturally started doing that as well, as like, you know,
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trying to, trying to welcome people in.
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Right.
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You, you want to leave windows and doors open so that people can feel,
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see entrances into the conversation.
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I've been part of groups like that before and it's like, you have no idea when
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these guys are going to stop talking.
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It's like, hey, I don't know how to do this.
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Yeah, I, uh, one of my first employee resource group, uh, meetings that I
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ever went to, I, I remember walking in and I'd never done one of those and
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it was a whole bunch of executives and I just, I didn't know who to talk to,
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even though I'd worked for the company for over probably 15 years at that
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point, the majority of people from my division weren't usually the ones who
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attended those types of events, right?
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And so, um, I, I went in and I, I didn't know what to do.
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So I went to my table.
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Because we were assigned tables and I just kind of sat thinking that, you
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know, once dinner started, at least that way, it would be kind of natural.
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I'd have somebody on either side of me.
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At least conversation would start to float the table and I just.
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sat there by myself.
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And this woman that I used to actually work for, she was my skip level.
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So my boss's boss, she saw me at the table and she came over and gave me this
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big hug and introduced me to people.
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And then people started rising at the table.
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So she started introducing me to people around the table.
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And honestly, without her breaking that ice, I was just, I was so
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grateful that it's like, Oh, okay.
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Now that I've been introduced, I feel better.
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And like, she just made me feel like I had a place there.
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Right.
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So, yeah.
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I can relate.
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I can relate.
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We've also done things like, um, for quite a few years now, we
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do lean coffee in the morning.
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So there's like a few tables set aside.
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And lean coffee is basically like people writing down in post it notes
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things that they want to talk about.
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And then people float on them around the table and they just start talking about
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those things that they've written down.
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So it's like a small group thing.
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And so things like that really help, um, to give people, I guess, another
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option of meeting people and having conversations with people, perhaps
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without the small talk, because like a lot of people struggle.
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So do you run that around the world?
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So not just in Brighton, but like, because your community is global, right?
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Like, do you have like, the community is global?
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Yeah, yeah, the conference is just in Brighton at the moment.
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But we do have like localized meetups, like kind of community
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volunteer led as well.
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I think it's about 40 of them at the moment.
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It was like 100 pre pandemic, but obviously.
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Pandemic does that.
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Yeah, we do a lot of stuff online.
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We do monthly virtual events as well.
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Again, people who speak on those all come from the community.
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So literally our source of voices is 100 percent from the community.
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Very cool.
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And one thing I like about, um, the way you position your work,
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especially for Rosalind, um, is you are the source for all community.
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You research so, uh, you do all the research so that
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other people don't have to.
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So I think that's genius.
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Um, what, what trends are you seeing right now that you think are either
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helpful or hindering community?
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Uh, yeah, I guess like AI is an obvious one.
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I think it's
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probably hindering more at the moment.
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Yeah, I saw, I saw a post you wrote on that.
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Um, you know, it's a nightmare like with content and like, if you have a community
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where anyone can like submit content or write something, a lot of communities are
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really like struggling with how to deal with that because it's just like, um, so
19:38
much, I guess I would call it AI spam.
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It's like, we had spam before, but now it's like, you know, 100x
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like what we, what used to exist.
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And.
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It's, you know, 100x harder to spot it or to figure out how to, how to deal with it.
19:55
Right.
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So are people like using it to post and comment or like both?
20:01
Yeah.
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Really?
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Yeah, yeah.
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So what's the, what's the point of Using AI to comment, because, I
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mean, personally for me, comments are how I express my opinion, how I
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express my value, to share expertise.
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To filter that through AI, I don't know that I would get value from
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that, for me personally, right?
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Like, what's the point of even commenting?
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I don't get it.
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I don't know.
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I mean, there's tools now that will, like, auto Also create, uh, comments
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for you, like on social, isn't there?
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So it's like, you know, so you can leave so many comments and they look
20:40
genuine, but they're not really genuine.
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Or they, they read the posts that you're commenting on to try to sound authentic.
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And it's just like, well, yeah, I just don't get it.
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It was like, what's the point?
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Right.
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And, you know, places like product don't have a lot of like AI spam.
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People always trying to play the game, always trying to, you know, you
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know, ends up becoming not really bad.
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community it ends up becoming about trying to get as many upvotes so that
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then that might somehow turn into um You know more click throughs or more
21:12
sales or more awareness of the product Right and like sometimes comments can
21:18
influence the algorithm Whether that's true or not, that's, you know, generally
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like what they say is that the more comments, you know, the more chance
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it has of being featured and stuff.
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So people will play the game and they'll use AI to support that.
21:32
Yeah.
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And it's just like, um, Yes, it's just not great and I did work at Indie Hackers
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I led the community there for a couple of years and that was kind of pre AI hype
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but like they suffered a ton from from spam in general and And I saw like as AI
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was becoming popular as like a lot of the comments on the posts were AI generated
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And it's hard to deal with, right?
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It's just like, as a community person, you don't want to have to deal with that.
22:05
Right.
22:05
But, um, and, and, yeah, I mean, it causes extra work for
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anyone who's trying to run it.
22:12
Right.
22:12
Um, probably work that they don't want to do.
22:16
So, how are you managing that?
22:17
Like, are you, like, deleting posts that are obvious AI?
22:21
I
22:24
don't actually have that problem.
22:25
It's just like, it's a problem like we see.
22:30
Yeah.
22:31
Okay.
22:32
So we get minimal spam at Ministry of Testing, but there
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is some, but not a huge amount.
22:39
Do you think that's actually because of the connection?
22:42
Yeah.
22:44
Cool.
22:45
I love that.
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And because we don't, we don't go out trying to, uh, create fake games.
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We don't go out trying to create fake hype or, uh, there's no real motivation
22:58
for people or reward for people who do come in and comment on stuff.
23:05
We use a discourse as a forum and they're quite good at like auto
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fragging like suspicious behavior Okay, but you know, we make we get
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that maybe a couple times a week.
23:16
It's no big deal to manage right?
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and A lot of that is because we don't really focus on
23:23
that kind of external growth.
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We're not, we're not like stressed out about trying to, trying to get
23:28
new people in and participate in.
23:30
It's just like, the forum is just like one part of our community strategy.
23:35
It's not the community.
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It's like, um, I call it like the 80 20 rule of conversations and community.
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A lot, a lot of people think of community as community.
23:47
It's all about the conversation.
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It's like, let's talk and have fun and blah, blah, blah.
23:52
Right.
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But actually, constant conversation is like really, really tiring and exhausting
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and people don't have time for that.
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Right.
24:00
Um, so, um, the idea of like the 80 20 rule is like, well, 20 percent of
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community, um, should be conversations.
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And then the other 80% Is other stuff.
24:14
So like our forum is maybe 20 percent of our efforts and the other 80 percent are
24:20
articles we publish, the conference we run, courses we produce, you know, there's
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a whole list of other things that we do that counts up for like the other 80%.
24:31
Right.
24:31
So there's actually action in addition to conversation.
24:34
Yeah.
24:34
Right.
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Action.
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And that, that, that combination, like people often join community because
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they're looking for, uh, not just support, but they're actually looking
24:44
for transformation of some sort.
24:47
Yeah.
24:48
Right.
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So if you're helping people achieve goals that they have personally and
24:53
professionally, then that's, is that the key to, to really having community stick?
25:00
Do you think?
25:01
I think so.
25:03
I really do.
25:04
And like, It's, it's definitely easier said than done, right?
25:08
But like, at Ministry of Testing, like, the goal is, uh, perhaps they
25:12
want to stay on top of trends that are happening, so that's something we're
25:16
giving more focus on, and making it easier for, for the community to, um,
25:21
learn about trends that are happening.
25:23
But like, another thing is, a lot of people have a goal
25:26
of being a speaker, right?
25:28
Getting up on that stage.
25:30
So we then design things in to enable that.
25:34
You know, whether it's a simple encouragement of submitting to
25:39
speak, you know, that's always like a good first step, right?
25:42
Right.
25:42
Um, but then like another thing is like a test, a test
25:48
bash, which is our conference.
25:50
Um, we've, we've done it since our second ever conference, but like,
25:58
I came up with this idea that like, wouldn't it be great if anybody had
26:02
the opportunity just to get up on stage just to get a little bit of tape.
26:07
So I came up with the idea of doing 99 second talks at
26:10
the end of a conference day.
26:12
So anyone can stand in the queue, get up on stage, talk about
26:16
absolutely anything for 99 seconds.
26:19
We have a buzzer, we set the timer, they go, they talk, we buzz them
26:24
if they go over the limit and then the next person comes on.
26:27
Okay, so you're on stage, you take the action, you're fighting your like, you
26:35
know, imposter syndrome, and you actually get a sense of achievement, right?
26:41
And do you get feedback?
26:42
Like, do you, do you get feedback for, for that speaking or?
26:47
Well, you get the feedback from the audience, and it's amazing, like
26:50
everyone's like cheering them on.
26:52
Okay.
26:53
So there's that aspect, we record all the talks, then it goes on to our website.
26:58
So they can show it to other people.
27:02
They have proof of their contribution.
27:06
Um, and like, now at the moment, as we're building our Ministry of Testing further,
27:12
and we're kind of going increasingly down the route of, um, just, Custom building
27:19
everything pretty much apart from the forum and then, you know, they get that
27:25
talk on their profile page So now we're introducing profile pages which kind
27:28
of becomes a portfolio and it becomes something more It gives you know, the
27:34
sense of they are contributing to the community right and here's here's a proof
27:40
of it and Not quite like a Facebook page or LinkedIn page, but you know, eventually
27:45
one day it'll get there, but right.
27:47
So is it externally accessible, the profile page?
27:50
Yeah.
27:50
Oh, that's cool.
27:53
So you can build it out and use it sort of like as like a mini profile or portfolio.
27:58
Yeah, more active you are in the community.
28:01
I like that.
28:01
That's really cool.
28:06
Sorry, a phrase I said the other day is like, why should all the social
28:10
networks have all the fun, right?
28:12
So I'm trying to bring that in, but into like, A community that's ours
28:19
and it's a community that's not owned by a big big tech company.
28:23
We're just trying to build something like really special
28:25
and we've got we've got we've got photos now we call them memories.
28:29
So now people can post photos.
28:32
So our conference that just passed.
28:35
We've, you know, started building a collection of photos that anyone can add.
28:40
Um, And people can add memes as well, so we're kind of building up this,
28:44
you know, knowledge base, community knowledge base, I would call it,
28:48
and where everyone can contribute.
28:51
Right.
28:51
And, um, these ideas aren't new.
28:55
Right.
28:55
It's like, this memes, there's Instagram.
28:57
Right.
28:58
But it's like, actually, that's, that's.
29:00
Let's do that within our community, let's own the data, let's not let
29:06
the big socials like, you know, be forever in power, and let's, let's
29:12
see what we can do for ourselves and People are loving it, you know.
29:16
We're doing it on a really small budget, but like, we're trying.
29:21
Yeah, it's amazing how happy GIFs and memes can make people laugh.
29:27
It's still true.
29:28
It is still true.
29:28
For all the people who try to tell us that it's not cool, um, Gen Z,
29:33
um, it still makes people laugh.
29:36
It's very cool.
29:37
Exactly.
29:38
It's very cool, yeah.
29:39
Um, it's actually interesting to think about, The profile page in conjunction
29:44
with AI, because one of the most interesting uses I've come across
29:46
with AI when I'm testing AI at all.
29:50
And when I say test, I'm just using it.
29:54
I literally start with a question of tell me about an assignment and it pulls
29:59
in anything that I've done on LinkedIn or anything on my website and whatnot.
30:04
Right?
30:05
And if you don't recognize me, that means that I don't know what
30:08
data you're crawling, but it's not.
30:11
The data that are like, it's not the places that I am, right?
30:14
So I like perplexity because perplexity knows really who I am.
30:19
So I'm like, okay, like, they pick up my media, they pick up my
30:21
podcast, they pick up LinkedIn, they pick up all of this stuff.
30:24
Right?
30:25
So to have a publicly profile, like a public profile page that that that's
30:31
indexed by by search, that's actually helping building out, um, yeah.
30:36
Personal branding, right?
30:37
And that's the interesting thing about personal branding.
30:40
Going forward is it's like, it's not just what's on Google.
30:43
It's not just what's on LinkedIn.
30:44
It's not what you put on your resume, but it's like, what is a I going
30:48
to know about you and if you're not a public person and you're not in
30:52
media, you don't have a podcast.
30:54
What does it know about you?
30:55
And so that's kind of interesting.
30:57
Like, For software developers who aren't necessarily public people, how does
31:03
that publicize them in a way that is advantageous for the future of work?
31:09
Yeah.
31:10
And that's interesting, right?
31:11
I think that's where AI can come.
31:14
Yeah.
31:14
Would be helpful in coming, rather than like AI creating content for
31:18
people, it's like actually AI, you know, Making it easy to find
31:24
information or data about people, right?
31:26
Yeah, that discoverability, I think, is what's interesting,
31:29
and how does it connect dots?
31:31
That's, that's what I'm interested in, is because there's so much
31:34
information in the world these days.
31:36
It's like, how can you filter it?
31:38
And Google search is being weird lately, personally.
31:41
Um, so AI is sort of interesting, too.
31:44
But, anyways, that's just an aside.
31:46
But I think, I think what you're doing Has a lot of potential, is what I'm saying.
31:53
I'm excited about it.
31:54
The first time in a few years, I'm actually like really excited about
31:58
the work that we're doing again.
32:00
It kind of felt like there was this lull and first pandemic and then like,
32:05
there's like community hype and then like, and then like, it feels like
32:09
everyone's now forgotten about community.
32:11
It's no longer the hype anymore.
32:12
And there's this lull in community, but like the deeper, like I go into like
32:17
trying to explore how to build community.
32:21
Our way, from scratch, custom building it, you know, going through all the pains
32:26
that, that are involved in that as well.
32:29
I just, uh, it feels exciting again to be like, building something.
32:34
Yeah.
32:35
Um, yeah, something unique, I guess, and trying to, trying to do something
32:40
different, trying not to be scared.
32:43
With, you know, like, people kind of saying, oh, you're crazy for doing that
32:48
stuff, you know, it'll never work, you know, social media, you know, whatever
32:53
platform, they'll always like, um, have the advantage over yourself.
32:59
Um, well, you know, all those things, but it's like.
33:03
Um, yeah, I just feel a bit, a bit more excited, uh, partly the
33:07
Fediverse, partly like open web stuff.
33:10
I think, I have hope that, like, the trend is changing more towards that.
33:16
Um, and I'm definitely seeing, um, a few more tech people just kind
33:21
of disregarding the big socials.
33:24
Um, Twitter is an obvious one that, like, people have just left en masse.
33:30
To be honest, I think people feel the same with everything.
33:33
Even like, Thread seems nice, or LinkedIn seems nice, and they'll
33:38
play in your favor for a while, but then they own your data, right?
33:42
Yeah.
33:42
And they opt you in to the AI stuff without permission, but you
33:47
can uncheck yourself, but people mostly don't, or they're not aware.
33:52
And to me, it's just like, I don't want to play that game anymore.
33:56
I've just, like, I've decided I've had enough.
33:59
Um, yeah.
34:02
So I'm part of generalist world.
34:03
I know, I know you're considering yourself a generalist and, and I think
34:06
you've consulted with Malik, uh, on, on how to build that community, right?
34:10
Um, so it is the one group that I've been part of where we've
34:14
done the in person meetup.
34:16
So I actually went to Toronto, um, what, two weeks ago now?
34:20
It took me two and a half hours each way.
34:23
Certainly a full time commitment.
34:25
Um, but it was fun.
34:27
It was, it was neat to find something.
34:28
It was actually Kind of interesting because a lot of the people
34:31
who are actually there were potential community members.
34:34
They weren't actually part of the community.
34:35
So I was like, oh, okay.
34:36
So I found myself pitching a lot of it, what the community
34:40
was and what the potential was.
34:42
But, um, what was interesting is you mentioned threads I posted,
34:46
um, I took a picture of just.
34:48
Toronto it's really just trying to prove that I was in Toronto because
34:51
I don't go very often right because I'm north of the city and I took a
34:55
picture I had Roy Thompson Hall in front of it and then Seattle Tower.
34:57
It was just those are recognizable Toronto landmarks, right?
35:01
And, uh, I post it on threads and I just put, every time I go to Toronto,
35:07
I remember why I don't go to Toronto.
35:09
Meaning that the keeming was awful, right?
35:11
Traffic was just awful, right?
35:13
And oh my God, people just jumped on me.
35:16
It, the whole thread went viral, but it was like for completely the
35:19
wrong reason because they're like, well, if you don't want to come
35:22
to Toronto, don't come to Toronto.
35:23
And it was just like all of these negative people.
35:26
They're like, what's your problem with Roy Thompson Hall?
35:28
And I'm like, I don't have a problem with Roy Thompson Hall.
35:31
It's a beautiful facility.
35:33
I've been there once in my life.
35:35
I don't care.
35:37
It's just in the picture because that's where the CN Tower is, right?
35:43
Oh my goodness.
35:44
So yeah, it was interesting because I like threads, but I do find that it still
35:49
gets that type of like viral negativity every so often that Twitter has.
35:54
It's interesting how it's pages.
35:59
I've had a couple of viral threads.
36:02
I didn't get the negativity though, so that's interesting.
36:06
Block and mute.
36:09
Yeah, I mean like, I basically posted about Twitter, and leaving
36:14
Twitter, or something like that.
36:16
What was it?
36:19
I got kicked out of a group.
36:22
On Twitter for some reason.
36:24
Yeah, I can't remember what it was
36:28
or something about Elon Musk blocking me or no, no, it was
36:33
because I had blocked Elon Musk.
36:36
It wouldn't let me join.
36:37
Yeah, it wouldn't let me join their kind of Twitter moderation group or something.
36:45
Oh, right.
36:46
Yeah, yeah, because you can be part of the group if you if you had actually blocked
36:49
Elon Musk and you were like, yeah, yeah, I'm blocking him to be able to join.
36:55
So I posted a screenshot of that, and it went viral.
36:58
It was quite funny.
36:59
But like, does it add value to my life in any kind of way?
37:02
Is it?
37:02
Absolutely not.
37:04
Did it bring followers?
37:06
Not really.
37:08
So it's like, you know, I think it's like, I don't know, I'm
37:11
getting older, I just don't care anymore about that kind of stuff.
37:16
And to be honest, I've just, uh, whilst I still occasionally post,
37:21
and I still will, but like There's a term, it's like, um, post once,
37:29
syndicate everywhere, I think it is.
37:32
P O S E, um, so like, the idea is to like, first post on your own
37:39
platform, on your own website.
37:41
And then cross post to like, yeah.
37:45
Um, but these days, I just like, I just post to either Ministry of
37:49
Testing or Rosyland for my stuff.
37:52
Right.
37:52
And I barely bother anymore with social, I just, uh Yeah, I've seen you a lot less.
37:57
Yeah, yeah, I just can't, I don't have the Uh, yeah, I don't know.
38:04
I think there's a general amount of these, basically.
38:07
People are just not enjoying it.
38:09
Like, honestly, I gotta tell you, I love LinkedIn.
38:12
I always did love LinkedIn.
38:13
But it's been less fun this year.
38:15
Like, something is in the air.
38:18
And I don't exactly, couldn't tell you what.
38:21
Um, and maybe it's the focus on video.
38:24
Because I really just don't love video.
38:28
You can barely tell what platform you're on anymore, it's like sometimes I'm on
38:31
LinkedIn and I think I'm on Facebook.
38:34
Oh yeah, yeah.
38:35
And if you scroll the video feed, like if you have the new video feed,
38:39
it's like, oh my god, these are all the people that I know from TikTok.
38:42
But it's like, I've never seen those people on LinkedIn before ever, right?
38:47
So it's like, where does that come from?
38:49
And it's like, I don't know.
38:52
I just, I don't know that there's so much value.
38:54
You can share it.
38:55
Like the videos have to be like under 60 seconds.
38:57
And I tried, or is it 90, 90 seconds?
39:00
I tried and I could only get like, do two minutes and 20 seconds.
39:04
And that is like, I couldn't cut it down anymore because I'm like, I'm
39:06
just, I'm not sharing anything useful.
39:09
So it's like, I don't care if you don't like me, but that's how long I need to
39:13
be able to actually craft a message.
39:15
But I mean, honestly, maybe that's wrong because you do 99 seconds.
39:19
So.
39:20
You have to get better at speaking.
39:25
That's funny.
39:26
We'd love to, like one of the ideas I'd love to do is actually
39:30
do really short form videos on MOT, like like Reels, like TikToks.
39:36
Yeah.
39:37
I think that would be quite quite fun.
39:39
Yeah.
39:41
With us owning the data.
39:43
Right.
39:43
Obviously.
39:44
Yeah.
39:45
Not the social platforms.
39:46
Yeah.
39:47
I wanted to bring one thing up.
39:49
Uh, you mentioned that, uh, people have been going away from community
39:52
and is starting to come back.
39:54
Before we started recording, I got an email from somebody that I follow
39:57
that I like, um, and basically they, um, were talking about, like, how
40:03
to facilitate return to office.
40:05
And one of the themes was, So what's your theory?
40:09
I know what my theory is about immunity, uh, as part of an agenda, right?
40:18
Yeah, I mean, that kind of, it kind of feels like, um, if someone
40:23
like, All of a sudden springs, like, the answer is community.
40:27
It feels just, just genuine.
40:29
It doesn't feel real, right?
40:31
It feels like another fad.
40:33
It's like, we're doing back to office because we want to build community.
40:38
Um, I think, like, most companies, if they really wanted to do community,
40:42
they would have been doing it anyways.
40:45
Right.
40:45
Um, and maybe, maybe if there's a back to office thing, it's like, Considering the
40:50
communities or the people's voices in that is like, do people really want to go back?
40:54
Or are they, you know, have they really listened to people that,
40:58
um, about their opinions or needs about going back to office?
41:04
And that's what I think about a return to office community.
41:07
It's like, you know, is the topic of whether going back or not off the
41:12
table, because if that conversation isn't a conversation you're willing
41:16
to have, then automatically it's not a genuine community, right?
41:22
Because you're, you're limiting the, the conversation, right?
41:28
So it's also a very ableist thing to do, right?
41:32
It's like dismissing like the needs of so many people.
41:36
And I think honestly, like
41:39
a lot of good came from COVID from that perspective.
41:43
Like, I've worked from home for like 15 years, but the fact that
41:47
like working from home became normalized, I think it's amazing for.
41:52
For so many people around the world, you know, new divergent people, mothers, you
41:56
know, it's just people with complicated lives or, you know, parents to care for.
42:01
I almost have like all of that in my life at the moment.
42:04
I've got my care for, I've got a new divergency, we homeschool,
42:09
um, you know, I have five kids.
42:12
It's like, there's no way I'd be able to go into an office, but it's like, can I
42:16
still build community in a sense of work?
42:19
And what we do is like, yeah, But it doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean going
42:24
into the office and, um, I, you know, I definitely know, like, with, with
42:29
Ministry of Testing, like, if we, if we force people into the office, it's
42:33
like, everyone would leave, you know.
42:36
It's, it's, it's not community focused if you're not taken into consideration.
42:41
what people need.
42:42
And I know in my circumstance, it wouldn't be possible because,
42:48
because of how people's lives have now adapted since COVID.
42:51
It's like, there's been too much change to go back, in my opinion,
42:55
to, um, and, and, you know, like, often, I think, you know, isn't that,
43:01
like, illegal to, uh, force that?
43:05
onto people, isn't that like discrimination, like
43:08
disability, like discrimination?
43:11
Well, this is where if you can work from home, yeah, this is really where the
43:15
laws get interesting around the world, because like the UK is actually being
43:19
pretty, um, thoughtful, I think, because isn't there a, uh, a law that where, you
43:26
know, And then it's like, all companies have to at least consider the work from
43:30
home request and actually assess it.
43:33
So everyone can believe.
43:34
So yeah, I just don't know what that looks like in practice and whether it has any.
43:40
And, you know, if you're denied what you're what you're what you're.
43:43
What your rights are basically.
43:44
So, you know, I think that that's a whole area of development that
43:48
needs to really come into play to make sure that rights are respected.
43:54
But, um, that whole aspect of, you know, does return to office impact, um, you
44:01
know, women, people who are older, uh, you know, You know, uh, people who have,
44:06
um, neurodivergence, like you mentioned, disabilities, physical disabilities
44:10
as well, too, when you see systems in place that are targeting, um, those
44:16
people, because those are the people who are said that their lives are impacted
44:19
negatively by going back to the office.
44:21
Then that's a whole system of oppression, right?
44:25
So basically systems are meant to continue, right?
44:30
So they're built to continue.
44:32
So my personal take is Return to Office is an example of
44:37
systems of oppression thriving,
44:41
and that's a conversation that not a lot of people are having.
44:47
And then, and then from the community aspect.
44:50
I guess what, what I get annoyed about and sometimes a bit, I wouldn't
44:56
say angry, but um, protective with community is, you know, it's like using
45:03
communities as an excuse to make it.
45:07
Other things happen because like when people say the word community everybody's
45:11
oh, yeah, of course, that sounds great.
45:12
Oh, we'd love more.
45:14
Yeah Oh, yes, let's buy into it.
45:16
Um, and like through the whole Pandemic is that it's like community hype and you
45:23
know Yeah, oh my god, like crypto stuff and like people going into all this stuff
45:28
Crypto's community and I, I kept pushing back and saying, it's not community,
45:32
what, what the heck are you talking about?
45:34
This is, this is not going to work and, but like, people kept slapping the name
45:38
community on it saying this is community or it's like, you know, buy it, buy
45:42
it, buy this, this token or buy this NFT and you'll automatically be part of
45:47
this, uh, community and find belonging and, and you can make money and this
45:55
and that and it's just like, Yeah.
45:57
Um, it doesn't, it doesn't help like what community is and what we
46:02
can achieve and people end up kind of what I feel is like people are
46:08
disillusioned by the idea of community now they're like oh it's just hype.
46:12
Right, because the focus isn't on the members, it's not on that
46:14
connection, there's an agenda.
46:16
Um, Before I actually was restructured in my work, I had founded like an employee
46:22
resource group at my work family because I knew as soon as people were forced
46:27
from home, the people who are going to be impacted were the people who had
46:30
children who had caregiving, who had never worked from home before and didn't know
46:33
how to manage, um, you know, how do you work when you've got like three kids?
46:38
Right?
46:39
I knew that was going to be an issue because, well, I knew what it was
46:43
like to, to try to manage that.
46:45
Um, And I was really disappointed the other day, they posted that
46:49
still community still exists, even though I'm not there anymore.
46:52
And, um, they posted that it was all about teaching kids about,
46:56
you know, financial, uh, literacy, but it's like, okay, that's great.
47:01
That's a, it's a valid thing to teach kids about, but it's like, that is directly
47:05
funneling into the products that you sell.
47:07
So basically your community is not necessarily focused
47:11
on family and the kids.
47:12
Your community is really about.
47:14
Building a potential new customers, and that's really what your focus is.
47:20
And I'm like five years later.
47:22
You haven't actually learned what community is about, and the focus is not
47:27
on the people that you actually serve.
47:29
And I'm like, that's so sad.
47:30
It made me so sad, because I'm like, that is not at all what I envisioned
47:34
was the potential for the community.
47:36
I, I visioned it as being a resource to help people with their lives,
47:40
help people with their needs.
47:40
People with their, their work and basically just be committed to like
47:44
their, their belonging and wellbeing and, you know, make it a better place
47:49
to work, not a funnel for potential new customers when they're 10
47:56
. I, I just, yeah.
47:59
It becomes transactional at that point and it, it under undermines the trust I think
48:04
that you have in the community organizers.
48:06
Yeah.
48:09
It's also, you know, stuff like that, it's also a reason, like, um, why I
48:13
don't, like, track our marketing efforts and stuff like that, it's like, we have
48:17
systems in place, we send emails, we do social stuff, but I don't, I don't,
48:22
like, I tend to keep an eye on, like, the graphs going upwards and whether
48:27
it's trending in a positive way.
48:29
Yeah.
48:29
Um, but, like, I guess, like, if you open rates like crazy.
48:37
No, and I don't track like sales that come in, like when did they first subscribe?
48:41
How long, how long does it take them to become a customer and stuff like that?
48:45
It's like, of course, you know, it's like, you know, in the ideal world,
48:49
it'd be nice if they became a customer quicker rather than later, um, it
48:53
would make our lives a lot easier.
48:55
We could probably grow quicker and stuff like that.
48:58
But, um, I've come to the conclusion that it's just like too much work
49:02
to even try to make sense of.
49:05
You know, how people make decisions, where, where purchases come from and, and
49:10
actually often like a lot, a lot of our purchases come from like training budgets.
49:16
So there's no actual way to track it from an individual because it would
49:20
be a word of mouth or an internal conversation that happens with the HR or
49:25
training people to get budget sign off.
49:28
And then that budget sign off team would then come to us.
49:33
Separately and say, you know, buy something, but like trying to connect it
49:38
to the original source is like impossible.
49:42
Um, so like the idea of like tech being able to track absolutely
49:46
everything, I think, like for us, it's just like, it's just overkill, right?
49:50
You can spend so much time, you know, time and money, I guess.
49:57
Um, on all these things, or for me it's just like, or you can have fun along
50:01
the way and just do your best to grow, do your best to get people to sign
50:05
up, and keep your fingers crossed that people, people will like what you do.
50:11
Well, how do you, how do you quantify like word of mouth and that connection
50:18
right like if people are being drawn because of the community aspect and the
50:24
support like all of that kind of stuff.
50:26
It's really hard to quantify.
50:27
So you're probably even not going to get great data on the
50:30
reality of why people join.
50:33
So you're probably wise.
50:35
Yeah, you know, and then there's like, in the community world, it's like,
50:39
oh, what's a return on investment on community and stuff, and it's just
50:42
like, I just cannot get, get involved.
50:46
Yeah.
50:47
It's, you know, it just feels like an impossible task, or, you know, pointless
50:50
task, and it's like, I'd rather spend my time, like, trying to, trying to improve
50:55
the industry, or trying to find or create better ways of building community.
51:01
Right.
51:02
Perhaps, you know, that's, that's what I've ended up being good at.
51:08
I guess like that's how you people like yourself like stumble across
51:10
me is because I just tried to push forward with different ideas to
51:15
get people to think differently.
51:17
Yeah, about community because mostly because I'm just frustrated like with.
51:23
I like your genuineness, your honesty.
51:25
Honestly, that's like, I feel that you're a straight talker and I can
51:32
trust your, your expertise and your advice and, uh, you come to things
51:37
with what I feel is the right approach.
51:42
putting people first.
51:44
I do have one last thing that I'd like to bring up and that's the whole
51:47
connection of the world loneliness epidemic, if you'd like to call it that,
51:51
um, and how community can really help.
51:55
And it seems like it's a big, vast topic, but I personally think big,
52:00
vast topics are best solved with, um, Small approaches on a regular basis.
52:06
What's your take on that?
52:07
Yeah, yeah, like, you know, a lot, a lot of people would look at me and I'd
52:12
say, Oh, you've got a lot of followers, or you must be surrounded by people.
52:17
But actually, like, day to day, it's like, a very small amount of people that
52:21
I actually interact with closely, right?
52:24
I think, I think there's a lot of people who, look at others and think,
52:28
Oh, they must have it all together.
52:29
But, you know, actually we don't.
52:31
And, um, more recently I've, I've been going small and more intentional and I've
52:39
like picked out a handful of people and we WhatsApp together and we just have
52:45
this like agreement that we're going to keep in touch whatever way we can.
52:50
And sometimes it's just like, instead of like, you could share a photo on Instagram
52:55
or I could share it in a WhatsApp.
52:56
Right.
52:57
Yeah.
52:58
And the WhatsApp always gets a response or always gets a conversation going.
53:02
Right.
53:03
And it's always nice, nice to see, right?
53:05
But it's not the same in Instagram.
53:09
Well, WhatsApp doesn't have an algorithm, right?
53:13
It doesn't have an algorithm.
53:16
You know, it's more personal sometimes.
53:18
Yeah.
53:18
Depends how you use it.
53:21
But, but I think like, you know, like startups, especially what, you know, the
53:26
tech world, they think they can solve loneliness through, uh, technology.
53:32
And whilst I think it contributes, um, honestly, it's just like, We have to
53:39
find ways to properly connect one to one with people and have conversations
53:45
and not rely on this spamming of groups or thinking like, you know, getting the
53:52
attention or getting the virality is going to all of a sudden help our loneliness.
53:57
It doesn't.
53:58
It doesn't help at all.
54:01
And I guess like if I was making recommendations to people, I
54:05
would, I'd say, you know, think about your local community, think
54:09
about the people around you.
54:11
Those are really the people, most of the time, who you can, they will
54:17
help you get out of that loneliness.
54:19
It's like when you're Unwell when you're unable to do something and it's the
54:24
people around you who are close to you who can actually like give you what
54:28
you need, you know, if you need someone to go to the shop for you and you've
54:33
got a broken leg, whatever it is, it's like local people can help you, right?
54:37
You just need sugar.
54:38
Let's go back to the old days.
54:40
Ask your neighbor for sugar.
54:44
It's so simple, right?
54:45
But like people have forgotten it.
54:47
Yes.
54:49
That's, you know, that's my strategy.
54:50
That's my intentional strategy at the moment is like, um, I'm guilty of falling
54:56
into that loneliness trap as well.
54:58
I'm guilty of just getting overwhelmed with life and everything around it
55:03
and neglecting the people around me.
55:05
Um, but especially in the past couple of years, I've kind of like more
55:11
intentionally reached, you know, reaching out to people, developing friendships.
55:16
And, you know, kind of making that extra effort with people that, you
55:22
know, I think would make a difference to my life with my family's life.
55:27
Yeah, no, very nice.
55:29
I agree.
55:30
Um, yeah, I've always, um, I was, I was thinking the other day, like, I've always
55:34
been a part of a community family, right?
55:36
Like, I grew up.
55:37
My parents would get up at like five o'clock, uh, leave by six o'clock in
55:40
the morning, and they wouldn't get home until like six, seven o'clock at night.
55:44
And that's been my entire life, um, until I started working from home.
55:48
And for people to then expect us to give that up, where you feel that you can, you
55:55
know, if you need somebody to walk your dog, you can just go next door, right?
56:00
You, you've built those connections with people, right?
56:02
Because you have more time.
56:04
To invest in the people around you, right?
56:07
And to give that up to go back to commuting.
56:09
So you have maybe like one hour a day with my kids.
56:12
Um, that's a really big expectation.
56:15
And I think that's honestly a big part of why people are, um, fighting
56:19
it is because they've built community closer to where they live rather than
56:24
community where they work in the office.
56:28
Right.
56:29
How do you, how do you let that go?
56:30
And like, you know, some people, you know, they, they, they look
56:35
at me and say, Oh, you're crazy.
56:40
You've got, you've got what, five kids?
56:42
You've got a business, a couple of businesses, homeschool as well.
56:47
It's like, Oh my God, that must be, that must be so much.
56:50
But like.
56:51
Actually, like, you know, like, there's certain aspects, for example, with
56:55
homeschooling, homeschooling that actually makes life so much easier.
56:59
Like, not doing the school run every day and not dealing with, like, all
57:04
the things that come with school, all the messages, all the, you know.
57:07
You don't have to sit in an auditorium and listen to 30 kids
57:10
play recorders really badly.
57:12
Yeah.
57:16
But, but, but like, instead, like, the flip side of that is like, we end up
57:20
connecting with other home editors, and we end up supporting each other, right?
57:23
So we're like, you know, we'll have, Uh, we say playdates, but it's also, playdates
57:29
aren't playdates themselves, often they're a way of supporting each other, or, or,
57:35
it's like, let's, let's share, um, car runs, or pick up times sometimes, we,
57:40
we find people locally, and we try to, you know, encourage each other to, to
57:45
help each other out, instead of like, You know, you know, it's good for the
57:49
environment as well, obviously, but it's like trying to, trying to be efficient
57:53
with each, with our time, but also appreciate that we, we need each other.
57:59
It's really helpful to have other parents who, who can step up and
58:03
say, Oh, I'll pick up your kid for you if you're stuck, right?
58:05
Yeah.
58:07
And, um, but yeah, just like,
58:13
Not having that makes a really lonely world.
58:16
So it's like homeschooling is naturally more community led and it's almost like
58:21
it ends up becoming that, I wouldn't quite say second family, but it becomes
58:26
that supportive network that, um, That we need and we, we, we recently
58:33
went on a camping trip with some other home editors and it was amazing.
58:38
It was just like, there's a way to get to know some of the other parents,
58:42
but like, then the kids just were like, they were off playing all day.
58:45
And you can schedule that when the weather's going to be good.
58:49
You don't have to schedule it around actual school time.
58:52
Right.
58:52
So yeah, literally we scheduled it during the week when it's nice and quiet.
58:59
Yeah, you can take advantage of all of the benefits of that seniors have and
59:03
people who, uh, who, who aren't bound by that, that school's school schedule.
59:10
I like it.
59:11
Very cool.
59:12
All right.
59:13
Was there anything else that you thought we missed in this discussion
59:16
that you want to highlight?
59:19
I don't think so.
59:20
We managed to hit the high points of what we planned.
59:24
Oh, that's perfect.
59:25
Well, I will make sure that all your socials are available to people.
59:28
Is there anything else that you want me to add?
59:33
Uh, no.
59:35
Just, uh, yeah, I guess websites to me are more important
59:39
than socials these days, so.
59:41
Okay.
59:43
Okay.
59:44
Yeah, I will make sure that's in there.
59:46
All right.
59:46
Well, thank you so much, Rosie.
59:48
I've learned so much from you.
59:49
This is a way of me saying thank you.
59:51
When you, when you put out that post going, I want to be a podcast.
59:54
I'm like, Hey, you want to do mine?
59:55
Because, well, I had you on my list forever.
59:58
And then you went back and you were so busy and I didn't want
1:00:01
to, I didn't want to bother you.
1:00:02
But then I'm like, Oh, if she's ready for it, then, you know, make this happen.
1:00:08
Thank you for doing it.
1:00:10
All right, let me just hit stop.
1:00:12
Uh, there we go.
1:00:16
I'll see you next time.