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

Transcript

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

0:02
Nola Simon: Thank you so much for joining me.
0:04
I'm Nola Simon.
0:05
I'm the host of Highway Remote Center of Excellence.
0:07
Say that three times fast.
0:10
Today we have a guest from the UK.
0:13
Where exactly are you from, Rosie?
0:16
Rosie Sherry: I'm in Brighton in the UK, the south coast.
0:18
Nola Simon: Ah, I'm familiar with the beaches.
0:24
I haven't been there, but I've heard of them.
0:26
Anyways, our guest is Rosie Sherry, and she is an expert in all things community.
0:30
She started ministry and testing, what, back in 2007?
0:34
And so that has grown to its community of thousands of users, and
0:40
it brings in millions of dollars.
0:43
And in addition, she also runs another community called Rosyland, which is
0:46
dedicated to all things community.
0:48
So Rosie, when I was exploring communities, and I keep continuing
0:52
to explore communities because I haven't figured it out myself.
0:55
She was the expert that I came across online.
0:59
Literally, I think it was more Twitter initially.
1:02
And then more linked in now.
1:05
But she has a way of explaining community that nobody else does, I find.
1:11
And I found her approach really relatable.
1:14
You started ministry testing because you had 2 kids at home and it was a way
1:18
that you could start a business, right?
1:21
Did I get that correct?
1:23
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
1:23
Nola Simon: And it's grown since then.
1:25
And recently you had to step back.
1:26
You had initially headed it off to a CEO and then recently
1:30
you stepped back in as CEO.
1:31
Is that correct?
1:33
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
1:34
Nola Simon: So could you tell us more about your journey with
1:36
community and where that started?
1:41
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, so I guess I've been in tech since around 2000 the year
1:47
2000, which is a bit scary to, to say I started off as a software tester.
1:52
I got like my first job as a software tester, hence ministry testing that
1:57
came along probably seven years later.
2:00
But as I was working in tech I started going to local meetups in Brighton it
2:05
was quite an active geeky type scene and I was just inspired about all the things
2:10
that were happening, and I stumbled across the idea of community, and I
2:14
enjoyed the local community aspect and as the web was grown, it was like web 2.
2:20
0 era.
2:22
For me there was like a lot of kind of excitement around all of that.
2:27
And yeah, mostly once I discovered the idea of community, I could,
2:33
I was like, that became my thing.
2:35
I just couldn't forget.
2:39
What community, the idea of community to me, it just stuck with me and I've
2:43
never been able to let it go since.
2:46
So since I've discovered that and like community has always been like how I start
2:50
things and, or how I think about things.
2:53
And I started a local meetup.
2:57
It was a woman in tech.
3:00
It was a meetup.
3:02
called Brighton Girl Geek Dinners and that was like my first step into like
3:08
actually doing community things and that kind of opened my eyes to how special
3:15
community can be and like I ran it for probably a couple of years, and it was
3:19
like, always fully booked out, and I met loads of people and, still in contact
3:25
with many of them even like 20 years on, and it's that was I guess as a
3:30
introverted style person that I am, that was like a real kind of eye opener for me.
3:35
Yeah, after that I was looking for an excuse to apply community to the
3:40
ideas I had or the work I wanted to do.
3:43
And at that time as well, there were like no community jobs really.
3:46
It just wasn't, I think.
3:48
Nola Simon: Yeah, it was like a job that came later.
3:50
This is the type of job that, when you were a kid, you didn't
3:53
imagine it could be a real job.
3:54
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
3:55
I remember seeing like job ads at the time, like for
3:57
Yelp and community managers.
3:59
So there were a few startups that kind of had started to adopt that role,
4:03
that me and Brighton, those jobs in San Francisco was like never going to happen.
4:08
Nola Simon: I know how that feels.
4:09
I'm from Canada.
4:10
Nothing ever interesting ever happens in Canada.
4:13
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, so I just was always looking for opportunities
4:15
to do my own community thing.
4:18
I ran a co working space for a while and then I also decided to start ministry
4:24
of testing because I felt like there could, there should be a better community
4:29
for software testers, which at the time there wasn't really much at all.
4:33
Nothing that I really approved of.
4:35
So I used it as an excuse just to start something.
4:37
I had no real idea that it would turn into something, but it was just something
4:42
I wanted to try, play with, see where it goes and yeah, I guess that's what,
4:47
partly what I'm, I've discovered that I'm good at is just I just do stuff
4:52
and then figure stuff out and either suffer the consequences or suffer with
4:58
the success along the way as well.
5:00
Nola Simon: Yeah, no, that's very interesting.
5:02
So in terms of administrative testing that's the part of your
5:05
work that I actually don't relate to at all because I don't have that
5:08
kind of software background at all.
5:10
So what's the purpose of community?
5:11
It's to share expertise and you offer courses as well, right?
5:16
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, so I would call it like a community of practice.
5:21
So it's essentially for software testing professionals or quality assurance
5:27
engineers, they go by a few names.
5:29
And it's a space to gather and to hopefully learn more and advance.
5:36
People's careers and we do conferences.
5:40
So at the moment we do one conference a year in Brighton.
5:46
Nola Simon: Yes, you just did that though right?
5:48
Yeah, because I've seen things online people really complimenting, you know
5:53
how engaging it was and just appreciating the, like the in person touch.
5:58
So that's an interesting aspect Of community, because we got away from
6:02
it, obviously, during the pandemic.
6:03
So are people really excited about in person?
6:07
Do you think that's.
6:09
And aspect of community that's going to develop.
6:12
Rosie Sherry: I think so.
6:13
And I think so pre pandemic we, it was a bit crazy to be honest, but we had
6:20
as ministry of testing grew we had nine conferences across the world in the, in
6:26
2019 which feels like really crazy now.
6:30
But post pandemic we've gone back down to just one conference and the idea
6:36
at the moment is just to have that one conference a year and put much more
6:41
effort into it and hopefully make it bigger than what it's been before.
6:46
Is there an appetite for it, like 100%?
6:48
It's like people, yeah, I think people need it.
6:53
I don't think they're realising how much they need it until they show up.
6:58
And it's once they show up that they're like, ah, this is exactly what I needed,
7:02
this is like the break I needed from work, or this is just like reconnecting with
7:06
people, or getting to meet people in real life that they've connected with online.
7:16
And yeah, I think we've just forgotten that.
7:18
And, partly, a big part of that is the pandemic, but when people go, they,
7:23
they don't regret going in my opinion, especially this past conference, which
7:28
I think we've leveled up the experience and got amazing feedback from it.
7:33
And it was a product manager who attended And she shared on LinkedIn, I can't
7:39
remember her name off the top of my head, but she was sharing on LinkedIn how, just
7:45
like, how amazing it felt and how jealous of FOMO she had that software testers had
7:51
this space to gather and she didn't feel like The product managers had that same
7:56
kind of space with that community feel.
7:59
Where everyone's literally supporting each other.
8:01
And the speakers have grown up in the community.
8:05
Nola Simon: Oh, so you bring in people who are actually members of
8:08
the community to actually speak.
8:10
Rosie Sherry: That's cool.
8:11
Yeah, like, all our effort is like, all our kind of I guess you, you
8:15
call it marketing effort, but all our effort is focused on the community and
8:19
uplifting the community and trying to get them to publish their first article.
8:24
Or do their first talk or, speak at a conference or, all our
8:28
effort is like community first.
8:30
It's the people in the community.
8:31
We don't go outside seeking other speakers.
8:36
Don't do keynote talks.
8:37
We've never done keynote talks.
8:38
For example, it was just like every talk is a talk from the community.
8:43
So you're really focusing on the
8:44
Nola Simon: relationships that build within the community themselves.
8:47
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
8:49
And it really makes a difference because people know these people and
8:52
they can identify with them, right?
8:54
And they can see, oh, I know that person.
8:57
I've spoken to him or we've been in touch.
8:58
He's never spoken and now he's up on stage.
9:02
And the vibe that gives as well is that you have like people like cheering
9:05
them on, or if they're struggling, you can really see that the crowd
9:09
is like supporting them rather than criticizing them, for example.
9:15
So the online
9:16
Nola Simon: connection is really fueling the in person.
9:18
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
9:19
So I guess like some conferences happen once a year for us.
9:23
The conference is just part of the community.
9:25
So really we're like planning all year round.
9:29
We, we publish content all year round and all year round, we're looking for new
9:33
speakers and those sparks was, connections that, or, information or trends that
9:39
might be of value to the community.
9:41
And we're trying to get better at spotting it and then bringing it to the
9:46
conference as like the icing on the cake,
9:50
Nola Simon: so you mentioned before we started recording
9:51
that you're a deep introvert.
9:53
So how does an introvert plan a conference?
9:56
Because I would assume that a lot of people in that type of
10:00
profession tend to be introverts.
10:02
I could be completely wrong there, but that's my perception.
10:06
So how does a conference for introverts in person differ from the standard
10:11
conference that's planned by extroverts?
10:14
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, I say introverted these days I'd probably use
10:18
neurodivergent, being neurodiverse.
10:22
But, whatever it is, it's people struggle in, In real life situations
10:25
and say, how do you make it feel more comfortable for them.
10:29
And part of it again is going back to community and feeling welcomed
10:33
and supported and things like that.
10:37
And another part is creating a variety of activities or meetups or events
10:48
that are happening so that, hopefully there's something for everybody.
10:52
But like a big part of it.
10:54
I feel, sometimes I feel like I harp on a lot about community, but it's so
10:58
many of the people arrive and they're like really nervous and but like the
11:02
moment they step in, they're welcomed by the community or there's there's
11:06
this culture of everyone's checking in on other people or people standing
11:09
alone, and they might go up to them and say hello or just checking on them.
11:14
Nola Simon: I saw you write on thread something about that.
11:16
Somebody had mentioned the fact that they were nervous that a
11:17
community just standing around, or they were at a conference and they
11:20
were just standing around and just having that awkward conversation.
11:23
It was like the worst experience ever.
11:24
And you're like, just.
11:26
Being generous enough to go up to somebody and say hi, that's the most generous thing
11:30
that you could do to, for somebody at a group, if you see them standing alone.
11:34
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, and it's part of the culture so it's like everyone is
11:37
literally doing it because they experience it and they see How great it can feel
11:42
and how it brings that belonging.
11:44
And it just like naturally ends up extending.
11:49
And it's not just oh, let's, this is what we want to see.
11:52
It's that's happened over the years.
11:54
And like when, we try to communicate it.
11:58
And then run up to it, we have the host on stage who also communicates it.
12:03
So it's like we're trying to really embed this culture of we're all here to support
12:07
each other, and we're all actually quite friendly, or we're all struggling a bit.
12:11
And, it's just yeah, for whatever reason, it's just it's become
12:15
a big part of what Ministry of Testing and Test Bash is all about.
12:19
And it's pretty, pretty amazing to see that, to be honest, because I
12:25
do go to other conferences and no one ever comes up to me, other tech
12:29
conferences and it's just sometimes I just like wonder why am I even here?
12:34
So it's yeah, I guess there's the, there's a Pac Man model as well, which
12:39
is one way they talk about it, so it's it's like when you're having a
12:43
conversation with other people, they always leave a gap like Pac Man's mouth.
12:50
So that others can come in, stand in and listen, and maybe join in.
12:54
So people have naturally started doing that as well, as
12:57
trying to welcome people in.
12:58
Nola Simon: You want to leave windows and doors open so that people can feel,
13:03
see entrances into the conversation.
13:05
I've been part of groups like that before and it's you have no idea when
13:08
these guys are going to stop talking.
13:11
It's hey, I don't know how to do this.
13:13
Yeah, I one of my first employee resource group meetings that I ever went to, I,
13:17
I remember walking in and I'd never done one of those and it was a whole bunch of
13:21
executives and I just, I didn't know who to talk to, even though I'd worked for
13:26
the company for over probably 15 years at that point, the majority of people from
13:30
my division weren't usually the ones who attended those types of events, right?
13:35
And I went in and I, I didn't know what to do.
13:37
So I went to my table.
13:39
Because we were assigned tables and I just sat thinking that, once dinner started,
13:44
at least that way, it would be natural.
13:46
I'd have somebody on either side of me.
13:47
At least conversation would start to float the table and I just.
13:52
sat there by myself.
13:53
And this woman that I used to actually work for, she was my skip level.
13:58
So my boss's boss, she saw me at the table and she came over and gave me this
14:02
big hug and introduced me to people.
14:04
And then people started rising at the table.
14:06
So she started introducing me to people around the table.
14:09
And honestly, without her breaking that ice, I was just, I was so
14:12
grateful that it's like, Oh, okay.
14:16
Now that I've been introduced, I feel better.
14:17
And she just made me feel like I had a place there.
14:20
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
14:22
Nola Simon: I can relate.
14:23
I can relate.
14:25
Rosie Sherry: We've also done things like for quite a few years now,
14:27
we do lean coffee in the morning.
14:30
So there's like a few tables set aside.
14:32
And lean coffee is basically like people writing down in post it notes
14:37
things that they want to talk about.
14:39
And then people float on them around the table and they just start talking about
14:43
those things that they've written down.
14:46
So it's like a small group thing.
14:48
And so things like that really help to give people, another option of meeting
14:54
people and having conversations with people, perhaps without the small
14:57
talk, because a lot of people struggle.
15:01
Nola Simon: So do you run that around the world?
15:03
So not just in Brighton, but because your community is global, right?
15:06
Do you have the
15:08
Rosie Sherry: community is global?
15:09
Yeah, the conference is just in Brighton at the moment.
15:12
But we do have localized meetups, like kind of community volunteer led as well.
15:18
I think it's about 40 of them at the moment.
15:21
It was like 100 pre pandemic, but obviously.
15:25
Pandemic does that.
15:26
Yeah, we do a lot of stuff online.
15:31
We do monthly virtual events as well.
15:35
Again, people who speak on those all come from the community.
15:42
So literally our source of voices is 100 percent from the community.
15:49
Nola Simon: Very cool.
15:51
And one thing I like about the way you position your work,
15:53
especially for Rosalind is you are the source for all community.
15:57
You research so you do all the research so that other people don't have to.
16:01
So I think that's genius.
16:04
What trends are you seeing right now that you think are either
16:07
helpful or hindering community?
16:10
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, I guess like AI is an obvious one.
16:12
I think it's
16:15
probably hindering more at the moment.
16:18
Nola Simon: Yeah, I saw a post you wrote on that.
16:20
Rosie Sherry: It's a nightmare like with content and if you have a community
16:23
where anyone can submit content or write something, a lot of communities
16:26
are really like struggling with how to deal with that because it's just so
16:32
much, I guess I would call it AI spam.
16:35
It's we had spam before, but now it's 100x like what we, what used to exist.
16:40
And.
16:41
It's, 100x harder to spot it or to figure out how to deal with it.
16:46
So are
16:46
Nola Simon: people like using it to post and comment or like both?
16:51
Yeah.
16:52
Really?
16:52
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
16:52
So
16:53
Nola Simon: what's the point of Using AI to comment, because, personally for me,
16:58
comments are how I express my opinion, how I express my value, to share expertise.
17:05
To filter that through AI, I don't know that I would get value from
17:10
that, for me personally, right?
17:12
What's the point of even commenting?
17:13
I don't get it.
17:15
Rosie Sherry: I don't know.
17:16
There's tools now that will auto Also create comments for you,
17:20
like on social, isn't there?
17:22
So it's so you can leave so many comments and they look genuine,
17:26
but they're not really genuine.
17:27
Or they read the posts that you're commenting on to try to sound authentic.
17:32
And it's just yeah, I just don't get it.
17:33
It was like, what's the point?
17:34
And, places like product don't have a lot of AI spam.
17:38
People always trying to play the game, always trying to,
17:41
ends up becoming not really bad.
17:43
community it ends up becoming about trying to get as many upvotes so that
17:47
then that might somehow turn into click throughs or more sales or more
17:52
awareness of the product Right and like sometimes comments can influence the
17:58
algorithm Whether that's true or not, that's, generally like what they say is
18:02
that the more comments, the more chance it has of being featured and stuff.
18:07
So people will play the game and they'll use AI to support that.
18:10
Yeah.
18:11
And it's just Yes, it's just not great and I did work at Indie Hackers I
18:16
led the community there for a couple of years and that was pre AI hype
18:21
but like they suffered a ton from spam in general And I saw as AI was
18:27
becoming popular as like a lot of the comments on the posts were AI generated
18:33
And it's hard to deal with, right?
18:34
It's just as a community person, you don't want to have to deal with that.
18:38
But and, yeah, it causes extra work for anyone who's trying to run it.
18:42
Probably work that they don't want to do.
18:45
Nola Simon: How are you managing that?
18:46
Are you deleting posts that are obvious AI?
18:49
I
18:52
Rosie Sherry: don't actually have that problem.
18:53
It's just
18:54
Nola Simon: it's a
18:55
Rosie Sherry: problem like we see.
18:58
Yeah.
18:59
Okay.
19:00
So we get minimal spam at Ministry of Testing, but there
19:04
is some, but not a huge amount.
19:06
Nola Simon: Do you think that's actually because of the connection?
19:10
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
19:11
Nola Simon: Cool.
19:12
I love that.
19:14
Rosie Sherry: And because we don't go out trying to create fake games.
19:18
We don't go out trying to create fake hype or there's no real motivation
19:23
for people or reward for people who do come in and comment on stuff.
19:30
We use a discourse as a forum and they're quite good at like auto fragging like
19:35
suspicious behavior Okay, we make we get that maybe a couple times a week.
19:41
It's no big deal to manage right?
19:43
and A lot of that is because we don't really focus on
19:48
that kind of external growth.
19:49
We're not like stressed out about trying to get new people in and participate in.
19:54
It's just the forum is just like one part of our community strategy.
19:58
It's not the community.
19:59
It's I call it like the 80 20 rule of conversations and community.
20:05
A lot of people think of community as community.
20:08
It's all about the conversation.
20:10
It's let's talk and have fun and blah, blah, blah.
20:13
But actually, constant conversation is like really tiring and exhausting
20:18
and people don't have time for that.
20:19
Idea of the 80 20 rule is 20 percent of community should be conversations.
20:25
And then the other 80% Is other stuff.
20:28
So like our forum is maybe 20 percent of our efforts and the other 80 percent
20:33
are articles we publish, the conference we run, courses we produce, there's
20:40
a whole list of other things that we do that counts up for the other 80%.
20:44
Nola Simon: So there's actually action in addition to conversation.
20:46
Yeah.
20:47
Action.
20:47
And that, that, that combination, like people often join community
20:51
because they're looking for not just support, but they're actually looking
20:55
for transformation of some sort.
20:58
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
20:59
Nola Simon: So if you're helping people achieve goals that they
21:01
have personally and professionally, then that's, is that the key to,
21:08
to really having community stick?
21:10
Do you think?
21:11
Rosie Sherry: I think so.
21:13
I really do.
21:14
And it's definitely easier said than done, right?
21:16
But at Ministry of Testing the goal is perhaps they want to stay on top of
21:20
trends that are happening, so that's something we're giving more focus on,
21:25
and making it easier for the community to learn about trends that are happening.
21:29
But another thing is, a lot of people have a goal of being a speaker, right?
21:34
Getting up on that stage.
21:36
So we then design things in to enable that.
21:40
Whether it's a simple encouragement of submitting to speak, that's
21:45
always like a good first step, right?
21:47
But then another thing is like a test bash, which is our conference.
21:52
We've done it since our second ever conference, but I came up with this idea
21:57
that wouldn't it be great if anybody had the opportunity just to get up on
22:01
stage just to get a little bit of tape.
22:05
So I came up with the idea of doing 99 second talks at
22:08
the end of a conference day.
22:10
So anyone can stand in the queue, get up on stage, talk about
22:13
absolutely anything for 99 seconds.
22:16
We have a buzzer, we set the timer, they go, they talk, we buzz them
22:22
if they go over the limit and then the next person comes on.
22:25
Nola Simon: Okay, so you're on stage, you take the action, you're fighting your
22:32
like, imposter syndrome, and you actually get a sense of achievement, right?
22:38
And do you get feedback?
22:39
Do you get feedback for that speaking or?
22:42
Rosie Sherry: You get the feedback from the audience, and it's amazing,
22:44
like everyone's like cheering them on.
22:46
Okay.
22:48
So there's that aspect, we record all the talks, then it goes on to our website.
22:53
So they can show it to other people.
22:57
They have proof of their contribution.
23:00
And now at the moment, as we're building our Ministry of Testing further,
23:04
and we're going increasingly down the route of just, Custom building
23:10
everything pretty much apart from the forum and then, they get that talk
23:15
on their profile page So now we're introducing profile pages which becomes
23:19
a portfolio and it becomes something more It gives you know, the sense of
23:25
they are contributing to the community
23:28
Nola Simon: right
23:28
Rosie Sherry: and here's a proof of it and Not quite like a Facebook
23:32
page or LinkedIn page, eventually one day it'll get there, but right.
23:36
So is it externally
23:38
Nola Simon: accessible, the profile page?
23:39
Yeah.
23:40
Oh, that's cool.
23:42
So you can build it out and use it as like a mini profile or portfolio.
23:47
Rosie Sherry: Yeah,
23:47
Nola Simon: more active you are in the community.
23:49
I like that.
23:50
That's really cool.
23:55
Rosie Sherry: Sorry, a phrase I said the other day is like, why should all the
23:59
social networks have all the fun, right?
24:01
So I'm trying to bring that in, but into A community that's ours and it's a community
24:08
that's not owned by a big tech company.
24:10
We're just trying to build something like really special and we've got we've
24:14
got photos now we call them memories.
24:16
So now people can post photos.
24:19
So our conference that just passed.
24:21
We've, started building a collection of photos that anyone can add.
24:26
And people can add memes as well.
24:27
So we're building up this, knowledge base, community knowledge base.
24:31
I would call it, and where everyone can contribute, right?
24:35
And these ideas aren't new.
24:39
It's there's memes, there's Instagram, right?
24:41
But it's actually Let's do that within our community, let's own the data, let's not
24:47
let the big socials like, be forever in power, and let's see what we can do for
24:53
ourselves and People are loving it, we're doing it on a really small budget, but
24:58
Nola Simon: we're trying.
24:59
Yeah, it's amazing how happy GIFs and memes can make people laugh.
25:04
It's still true.
25:05
It is still true.
25:06
For all the people who try to tell us that it's not cool Gen
25:10
Z it still makes people laugh.
25:12
It's very
25:12
Rosie Sherry: cool.
25:13
Nola Simon: Exactly.
25:14
It's very cool, yeah.
25:15
It's actually interesting to think about, The profile page in conjunction
25:19
with AI, because one of the most interesting uses I've come across
25:22
with AI when I'm testing AI at all.
25:26
And when I say test, I'm just using it.
25:30
I literally start with a question of tell me about an assignment and it pulls
25:35
in anything that I've done on LinkedIn or anything on my website and whatnot.
25:40
And if you don't recognize me, that means that I don't know what
25:43
data you're crawling, but it's not.
25:46
The data that are like, it's not the places that I am, right?
25:49
So I like perplexity because perplexity knows really who I am.
25:54
So I'm like, okay they pick up my media, they pick up my podcast, they pick up
25:58
LinkedIn, they pick up all of this stuff.
26:00
So to have a publicly profile, like a public profile page that's
26:05
indexed by search, that's actually helping building out yeah.
26:10
Personal branding, right?
26:11
And that's the interesting thing about personal branding.
26:13
Going forward is it's it's not just what's on Google.
26:16
It's not just what's on LinkedIn.
26:17
It's not what you put on your resume, but it's like, what is a I going
26:21
to know about you and if you're not a public person and you're not in
26:25
media, you don't have a podcast.
26:27
What does it know about you?
26:28
And so that's interesting.
26:30
For software developers who aren't necessarily public people, how does
26:35
that publicize them in a way that is advantageous for the future of work?
26:41
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
26:42
And that's interesting, right?
26:43
I think that's where AI can come.
26:46
Yeah.
26:46
Would be helpful in coming, rather than AI creating content for people, it's
26:51
like actually AI, Making it easy to find information or data about people, right?
26:56
Yeah,
26:56
Nola Simon: that discoverability, I think, is what's interesting,
26:59
and how does it connect dots?
27:01
That's what I'm interested in, is because there's so much
27:04
information in the world these days.
27:06
It's like, how can you filter it?
27:08
And Google search is being weird lately, personally.
27:11
So AI is interesting, too.
27:13
But, anyways, that's just an aside.
27:15
But I think what you're doing Has a lot of potential, is what I'm saying.
27:21
Rosie Sherry: I'm excited about it.
27:23
The first time in a few years, I'm actually like really excited about
27:27
the work that we're doing again.
27:29
It felt like there was this lull and first pandemic and then there's like
27:33
community hype and then it feels like everyone's now forgotten about community.
27:36
It's no longer the hype anymore.
27:38
And there's this lull in community, but like the deeper, like I go into trying
27:43
to explore how to build community.
27:46
Our way, from scratch, custom building it, going through all the pains
27:51
that are involved in that as well.
27:53
I just it feels exciting again to be like, building something.
27:57
Yeah.
27:58
Yeah, something unique, and trying to do something different,
28:02
trying not to be scared.
28:04
With, people saying, oh, you're crazy for doing that stuff, it'll never work,
28:08
social media, whatever platform, they'll always have the advantage over yourself.
28:14
All those things, but it's like.
28:15
Yeah, I just feel a bit more excited partly the Fediverse,
28:19
partly like open web stuff.
28:21
I think, I have hope that the trend is changing more towards that.
28:26
And I'm definitely seeing a few more tech people just disregarding the big socials.
28:31
Twitter is an obvious one that people have just left en masse.
28:36
To be honest, I think people feel the same with everything.
28:39
Even Thread seems nice, or LinkedIn seems nice, and they'll play in your favor for a
28:44
while, but then they own your data, right?
28:47
Yeah.
28:47
And they opt you in to the AI stuff without permission, but you
28:52
can uncheck yourself, but people mostly don't, or they're not aware.
28:57
And to me, it's just I don't want to play that game anymore.
29:00
I've just I've decided I've had enough.
29:02
Nola Simon: Yeah.
29:03
So I'm part of generalist world.
29:05
I know you're considering yourself a generalist and I think you've
29:07
consulted with Malik on how to build that community, right?
29:10
So it is the one group that I've been part of where we've done the in person meetup.
29:15
So I actually went to Toronto what, two weeks ago now?
29:18
It took me two and a half hours each way.
29:22
Certainly a full time commitment.
29:24
But it was fun.
29:24
It was neat to find something.
29:26
It was actually interesting because a lot of the people who are actually
29:28
there were potential community members.
29:31
They weren't actually part of the community.
29:32
So I was like, oh, okay.
29:33
So I found myself pitching a lot of it, what the community
29:37
was and what the potential was.
29:39
But what was interesting is he mentioned threads.
29:41
I posted I took a picture of just.
29:44
Toronto it's really just trying to prove that I was in Toronto because
29:47
I don't go very often right because I'm north of the city and I took a
29:50
picture I had Roy Thompson Hall in front of it and then Seattle Tower.
29:53
It was just those are recognizable Toronto landmarks, right?
29:57
And I post it on threads and I just put, every time I go to Toronto, I
30:03
remember why I don't go to Toronto.
30:05
Meaning that the keeming was awful, right?
30:07
Traffic was just awful, right?
30:09
And oh my God, people just jumped on me.
30:11
It, the whole thread went viral, but it was like for completely the wrong reason
30:15
because they're like if you don't want to come to Toronto, don't come to Toronto.
30:18
And it was just like all of these negative people.
30:21
They're like, what's your problem with Roy Thompson Hall?
30:23
And I'm like, I don't have a problem with Roy Thompson Hall.
30:26
It's a beautiful facility.
30:28
I've been there once in my life.
30:30
I don't care.
30:32
It's just in the picture because that's where the CN Tower is, right?
30:38
Oh my goodness.
30:39
So yeah, it was interesting because I like threads, but I do find that it still
30:44
gets that type of like viral negativity every so often that Twitter has.
30:49
It's interesting how it's pages.
30:54
Rosie Sherry: I've had a couple of viral threads.
30:57
I didn't get the negativity though, so that's interesting.
31:01
Block and mute.
31:04
Yeah, I basically posted about Twitter, and leaving Twitter,
31:09
or something like that.
31:10
What was it?
31:13
I got kicked out of a group.
31:16
On Twitter for some reason.
31:18
Yeah, I can't remember what it was
31:22
or something about Elon Musk blocking me or no, it was
31:26
because I had blocked Elon Musk.
31:29
It wouldn't let me join.
31:31
Yeah, it wouldn't let me join their kind of Twitter moderation group or something.
31:38
Oh,
31:39
Nola Simon: yeah, because you can be part of the group if you had actually
31:41
blocked Elon Musk and you were like yeah, I'm blocking him to be able to join.
31:47
Rosie Sherry: So I posted a screenshot of that, and it went viral.
31:50
It was quite funny.
31:51
But does it add value to my life in any kind of way?
31:54
Is it?
31:54
Absolutely not.
31:56
Did it bring followers?
31:57
Not really.
32:00
So it's I think it's I don't know, I'm getting older, I just don't care
32:03
anymore about that kind of stuff.
32:06
And to be honest, I've just whilst I still occasionally post, and I still
32:11
will, but There's a term, it's post once, syndicate everywhere, I think it is.
32:18
P O S E so the idea is to like, first post on your own platform, on your own website.
32:25
And then cross post to yeah.
32:28
But these days, I just I just post to either Ministry of
32:31
Testing or Rosyland for my stuff.
32:33
And I barely bother anymore with social, I just,
32:37
Nola Simon: Yeah, I've seen you a lot less.
32:38
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, I just can't, I don't have the yeah, I don't know.
32:43
Nola Simon: I think there's a general amount of these, basically.
32:46
People are just not enjoying it.
32:48
Honestly, I gotta tell you, I love LinkedIn.
32:51
I always did love LinkedIn.
32:52
But it's been less fun this year.
32:54
Something is in the air.
32:56
And I don't exactly, couldn't tell you what.
32:59
And maybe it's the focus on video.
33:01
Because I really just don't love video.
33:05
Rosie Sherry: You can barely tell what platform you're on anymore,
33:07
it's like sometimes I'm on LinkedIn and I think I'm on Facebook.
33:10
Nola Simon: Oh
33:10
Rosie Sherry: yeah.
33:11
Nola Simon: And if you scroll the video feed, like if you have the new video
33:14
feed, it's oh my god, these are all the people that I know from TikTok.
33:18
But it's I've never seen those people on LinkedIn before ever, right?
33:23
So it's like, where does that come from?
33:25
And it's I don't know.
33:26
I just, I don't know that there's so much value.
33:29
You can share it.
33:30
Like the videos have to be like under 60 seconds.
33:32
And I tried, or is it 90, 90 seconds?
33:35
I tried and I could only get do two minutes and 20 seconds.
33:38
And that is I couldn't cut it down anymore because I'm like, I'm just,
33:41
I'm not sharing anything useful.
33:43
So it's I don't care if you don't like me, but that's how long I need to
33:47
be able to actually craft a message.
33:49
But honestly, maybe that's wrong because you do 99 seconds.
33:52
You have to get better at speaking.
33:57
That's funny.
33:59
Rosie Sherry: We'd love to, like one of the ideas I'd love to do is
34:02
actually do really short form videos on MOT, like Reels, like TikToks.
34:08
Yeah.
34:09
I think that would be quite fun.
34:11
Nola Simon: Yeah.
34:12
Rosie Sherry: With us owning the data.
34:14
Obviously.
34:15
Nola Simon: Yeah.
34:15
Rosie Sherry: Not the social platforms.
34:17
Nola Simon: Yeah.
34:18
I wanted to bring one thing up.
34:19
You mentioned that people have been going away from community
34:22
and is starting to come back.
34:24
Before we started recording, I got an email from somebody that I
34:27
follow that I like and basically they were talking about, like, how
34:31
to facilitate return to office.
34:32
And one of the themes was, So what's your theory?
34:37
I know what my theory is about immunity as part of an agenda, right?
34:46
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, that kind of, it feels if someone like, All of a sudden
34:49
springs the answer is community.
34:51
It feels just genuine.
34:53
It doesn't feel real, right?
34:55
It feels like another fad.
34:57
It's we're doing back to office because we want to build community.
35:01
I think most companies, if they really wanted to do community, they
35:04
would have been doing it anyways.
35:06
And maybe if there's a back to office thing, it's like, Considering the
35:10
communities or the people's voices in that is do people really want to go back?
35:14
Or are they, have they really listened to people that about their opinions
35:19
or needs about going back to office?
35:22
Nola Simon: And that's what I think about a return to office community.
35:25
It's is the topic of whether going back or not off the table, because if that
35:31
conversation isn't a conversation you're willing to have, then automatically
35:37
it's not a genuine community, right?
35:40
Because you're limiting the conversation, right?
35:44
Rosie Sherry: So it's also a very ableist thing to do, right?
35:48
It's like dismissing like the needs of so many people.
35:52
And I think honestly, like
35:55
a lot of good came from COVID from that perspective.
35:59
I've worked from home for 15 years, but the fact that like working
36:02
from home became normalized, I think it's amazing for.
36:07
For so many people around the world, new divergent people, mothers,
36:11
it's just people with complicated lives or, parents to care for.
36:14
I almost have all of that in my life at the moment.
36:18
I've got my care for, I've got a new divergency, we homeschool have five kids.
36:23
It's there's no way I'd be able to go into an office, but it's like, can I
36:27
still build community in a sense of work?
36:30
And what we do is yeah, But it doesn't, it doesn't mean going into the office
36:34
and I, I definitely know with Ministry of Testing if we force people into
36:38
the office, it's like, everyone would leave, it's not community focused if
36:43
you're not taken into consideration.
36:46
what people need.
36:47
And I know in my circumstance, it wouldn't be possible because of how people's
36:54
lives have now adapted since COVID.
36:56
It's there's been too much change to go back, in my opinion, to and, often, I
37:00
think, isn't that illegal to force that?
37:03
onto people, isn't that like discrimination, like
37:06
disability, like discrimination?
37:08
This is where if you can work from home,
37:11
Nola Simon: yeah, this is really where the laws get interesting around the
37:14
world, because like the UK is actually being pretty thoughtful, I think,
37:18
because isn't there a a law that where, All companies have to at least consider
37:24
the work from home request and actually assess it so everyone can believe.
37:29
So yeah, I just don't know what that looks like in practice and whether
37:33
it has any and if you're denied what you're What your rights are basically.
37:38
Think that's a whole area of development that needs to really come into play to
37:44
make sure that rights are respected.
37:45
But that whole aspect of, does return to office impact women, people who are older
37:52
people who have neurodivergence, like you mentioned, disabilities, physical
37:55
disabilities as well, too, when you see systems in place that are targeting those
38:01
people, because those are the people who are said that their lives are impacted
38:04
negatively by going back to the office.
38:06
Then that's a whole system of oppression, right?
38:10
So basically systems are meant to continue, right?
38:16
So they're built to continue.
38:17
So my personal take is Return to Office is an example of
38:22
systems of oppression thriving,
38:26
and that's a conversation that not a lot of people are having.
38:31
Rosie Sherry: And then from the community aspect.
38:33
I guess what I get annoyed about and sometimes a bit, I wouldn't say
38:37
angry, but protective with community is, it's like using communities as
38:44
an excuse to make Thanks Other things happen because like when people say
38:49
the word community everybody's oh, yeah, of course, that sounds great.
38:52
Oh, we'd love more.
38:54
Yeah Oh, yes, let's buy into it.
38:56
And like through the whole Pandemic is that it's like community hype and
39:02
Yeah, oh my god, like crypto stuff and like people going into all this stuff
39:08
Crypto's community and I kept pushing back and saying, it's not community
39:11
what the heck are you talking about?
39:12
This is not going to work and, but people kept slapping the name community on it
39:16
saying this is community or it's buy it, buy this token or buy this NFT and you'll
39:22
automatically be part of this community and find belonging and you can make money
39:27
and this and that and it's just Yeah.
39:29
Doesn't help like what community is and what we can achieve and people
39:35
end up what I feel is like people are disillusioned by the idea of community
39:40
now they're like oh it's just hype.
39:41
Nola Simon: Because the focus isn't on the members, it's not on that
39:44
connection, there's an agenda.
39:46
Before I actually was restructured in my work, I had founded like an employee
39:50
resource group at my work family because I knew as soon as people were
39:55
forced from home, the people who are going to be impacted were the people
39:57
who had children who had caregiving, who had never worked from home before
40:01
and didn't know how to manage how do you work when you've got three kids?
40:05
I knew that was going to be an issue because I knew what it
40:08
was like to try to manage that.
40:10
And I was really disappointed the other day, they posted that
40:13
still community still exists, even though I'm not there anymore.
40:16
And they posted that it was all about teaching kids about, financial
40:21
literacy, but it's okay, that's great.
40:23
That's a, it's a valid thing to teach kids about, but it's that is directly
40:27
funneling into the products that you sell.
40:29
So basically your community is not necessarily focused
40:32
on family and the kids.
40:34
Your community is really about.
40:36
Building a potential new customers, and that's really what your focus is.
40:41
And I'm like five years later.
40:44
You haven't actually learned what community is about, and the focus is not
40:48
on the people that you actually serve.
40:50
And I'm like, that's so sad.
40:52
It made me so sad, because I'm like, that is not at all what I envisioned
40:56
was the potential for the community.
40:57
I visioned it as being a resource to help people with their lives,
41:01
help people with their needs.
41:02
People with their work and basically just be committed to like their
41:06
belonging and wellbeing and, make it a better place to work, not a funnel for
41:11
potential new customers when they're 10
41:16
. I just, yeah.
41:18
It becomes transactional at that point and it under undermines the trust I think
41:22
that you have in the community organizers.
41:24
Yeah.
41:27
Rosie Sherry: It's also, stuff like that, it's also a reason why I don't
41:30
track our marketing efforts and stuff like that, it's like, we have systems
41:34
in place, we send emails, we do social stuff, but I don't I tend to keep an
41:39
eye on the graphs going upwards and whether it's trending in a positive way.
41:44
Yeah.
41:44
But you open rates like crazy.
41:48
No, and I don't track like sales that come in, like when did they first subscribe?
41:53
How long does it take them to become a customer and stuff like that?
41:56
It's of course, it's in the ideal world, it'd be nice if they became
41:58
a customer quicker rather than later it would make our lives a lot easier.
42:03
We could probably grow quicker and stuff like that.
42:06
But I've come to the conclusion that it's just like too much work
42:09
to even try to make sense of.
42:12
How people make decisions where purchases come from and actually
42:16
often like a lot of our purchases come from like training budgets.
42:21
So there's no actual way to track it from an individual because it would
42:25
be a word of mouth or an internal conversation that happens with the HR or
42:30
training people to get budget sign off.
42:33
And then that budget sign off team would then come to us.
42:38
Separately and say, buy something, but like trying to connect it to the
42:43
original source is like impossible.
42:46
So like the idea of like tech being able to track absolutely
42:49
everything, I think, like for us, it's just it's just overkill, right?
42:53
You can spend so much time, time and money, on all these things, or for me
42:59
it's just or you can have fun along the way and just do your best to grow,
43:03
do your best to get people to sign up, and keep your fingers crossed
43:07
that people will like what you dO.
43:10
Nola Simon: how do you quantify like word of mouth and that connection
43:13
if people are being drawn because of the community aspect and the support
43:18
like all of that kind of stuff.
43:20
It's really hard to quantify.
43:21
So you're probably even not going to get great data on the
43:24
reality of why people join.
43:27
So you're probably wise.
43:29
Rosie Sherry: Yeah, and then there's in the community world, it's oh,
43:31
what's a return on investment on community and stuff, and it's
43:34
just I just cannot get involved.
43:37
Nola Simon: Yeah.
43:38
Rosie Sherry: It's, it just feels like an impossible task, or, pointless task, and
43:41
it's I'd rather spend my time trying to improve the industry, or trying to find or
43:47
create better ways of building community.
43:50
Perhaps, that's what I've ended up being good at.
43:54
I guess that's how you people like yourself like stumble across me
43:57
is because I just tried to push forward with different ideas to
44:01
get people to think differently.
44:03
Yeah, about community because mostly because I'm just frustrated like with.
44:09
I like your genuineness, your honesty.
44:12
Nola Simon: Honestly, that's I feel that you're a straight talker and
44:16
I can trust your expertise and your advice and you come to things with
44:23
what I feel is the right approach.
44:26
putting people first.
44:28
I do have one last thing that I'd like to bring up and that's the whole
44:31
connection of the world loneliness epidemic, if you'd like to call it
44:34
that and how community can really help.
44:38
And it seems like it's a big, vast topic, but I personally think big,
44:43
vast topics are best solved with Small approaches on a regular basis.
44:49
What's your take on that?
44:50
Rosie Sherry: Yeah a lot of people would look at me and I'd say, Oh,
44:52
you've got a lot of followers, or you must be surrounded by people.
44:56
But actually day to day, it's a very small amount of people that I
44:59
actually interact with closely, right?
45:02
I think there's a lot of people who, look at others and think, Oh,
45:05
they must have it all together.
45:06
But, actually we don't.
45:08
And more recently I've been going small and more intentional and I've
45:13
picked out a handful of people and we WhatsApp together and we just have
45:19
this like agreement that we're going to keep in touch whatever way we can.
45:24
And sometimes it's just instead of you could share a photo on Instagram
45:27
or I could share it in a WhatsApp.
45:29
Yeah.
45:30
And the WhatsApp always gets a response or always gets a conversation going.
45:34
And it's always nice to see, right?
45:36
But it's not the same in Instagram.
45:38
Nola Simon: WhatsApp
45:39
Rosie Sherry: doesn't have an
45:40
Nola Simon: algorithm, right?
45:42
Rosie Sherry: It doesn't have an algorithm.
45:45
It's more personal sometimes.
45:46
Yeah.
45:47
Depends how you use it.
45:48
But I think like startups, especially what, the tech world, they think they
45:53
can solve loneliness through technology.
45:56
And whilst I think it contributes honestly, it's just We have to find
46:00
ways to properly connect one to one with people and have conversations and
46:06
not rely on this spamming of groups or thinking like, getting the attention
46:11
or getting the virality is going to all of a sudden help our loneliness.
46:16
It doesn't.
46:17
It doesn't help at all.
46:20
And I guess if I was making recommendations to people, I would, I'd
46:25
say, think about your local community, think about the people around you.
46:29
Those are really the people, most of the time, who you can, they will
46:35
help you get out of that loneliness.
46:37
It's like when you're Unwell when you're unable to do something and it's the people
46:42
around you who are close to you who can actually give you what you need, if you
46:47
need someone to go to the shop for you and you've got a broken leg, whatever it
46:52
Nola Simon: is, it's like local people can help you, right?
46:54
You just need sugar.
46:55
Let's go back to the old days.
46:57
Ask your neighbor for sugar.
47:01
Rosie Sherry: It's so simple, right?
47:02
But like people have forgotten it.
47:04
Yes.
47:06
That's, that's my strategy.
47:07
That's my intentional strategy at the moment is I'm guilty of falling
47:11
into that loneliness trap as well.
47:13
I'm guilty of just getting overwhelmed with life and everything around it
47:18
and neglecting the people around me.
47:21
But especially in the past couple of years, I've like more
47:25
intentionally reached, reaching out to people, developing friendships.
47:30
And, making that extra effort with people that, I think would make a difference
47:34
to my life with my family's life.
47:38
Nola Simon: Yeah, no, very nice.
47:39
I agree.
47:40
Yeah, I've always I was thinking the other day I've always been a
47:43
part of a community family, right?
47:44
I grew up.
47:45
My parents would get up at five o'clock leave by six o'clock in the
47:48
morning, and they wouldn't get home until six, seven o'clock at night.
47:51
And that's been my entire life until I started working from home.
47:56
And for people to then expect us to give that up, where you feel that you
48:02
can, if you need somebody to walk your dog, you can just go next door, right?
48:07
You've built those connections with people, right?
48:09
Because you have more time.
48:11
To invest in the people around you, right?
48:13
And to give that up to go back to commuting.
48:16
So you have maybe one hour a day with my kids.
48:18
That's a really big expectation.
48:20
And I think that's honestly a big part of why people are fighting it
48:25
is because they've built community closer to where they live rather than
48:29
community where they work in the office.
48:32
How do you let that go?
48:33
And
48:34
Rosie Sherry: some people, they look at me and say, Oh, you're crazy.
48:38
You've got what, five kids?
48:39
You've got a business, a couple of businesses, homeschool as well.
48:45
It's Oh my God, that must be so much.
48:46
But actually there's certain aspects, for example, with homeschooling that
48:50
actually makes life so much easier.
48:52
Not doing the school run every day and not dealing with, like, all the things
48:57
that come with school, all the messages, all the, you don't have to sit in an
49:01
Nola Simon: auditorium and listen to 30 kids play recorders really badly.
49:04
Rosie Sherry: Yeah.
49:08
But instead the flip side of that is we end up connecting with
49:11
other home editors, and we end up supporting each other, right?
49:14
So we're like, we'll have we say playdates, but it's also, playdates
49:18
aren't playdates themselves, often they're a way of supporting each other
49:23
or, it's let's share car runs, or pick up times sometimes we find people locally,
49:28
and we try to, encourage each other to, to help each other out, instead of
49:34
it's good for the environment as well, obviously, but it's like trying to be
49:37
efficient with each, with our time, but also appreciate that we need each other.
49:43
It's really helpful to have other parents who can step up and say, Oh, I'll pick up
49:47
your kid for you if you're stuck, right?
49:49
Yeah.
49:50
And but yeah, just Not having that makes a really lonely world.
49:54
So it's like homeschooling is naturally more community led and it's almost
49:59
like it ends up becoming that, I wouldn't quite say second family, but
50:04
it becomes that supportive network that That we need and we recently
50:09
went on a camping trip with some other home editors and it was amazing.
50:15
It was just like, there's a way to get to know some of the other
50:18
parents, but then the kids just were like, they were off playing all day.
50:21
And
50:23
Nola Simon: you can schedule that when the weather's going to be good.
50:25
You don't have to schedule it around actual school time.
50:28
So
50:30
Rosie Sherry: yeah, literally we scheduled it during the
50:32
week when it's nice and quiet.
50:34
Nola Simon: Yeah, you can take advantage of all of the benefits of that seniors
50:38
have and people who who aren't bound by that school's school schedule.
50:44
I like it.
50:45
Very cool.
50:46
All right.
50:46
Was there anything else that you thought we missed in this discussion
50:49
that you want to highlight?
50:52
Rosie Sherry: I don't think so.
50:54
Nola Simon: We managed to hit the high points of what we planned.
50:57
Oh, that's perfect.
50:58
I will make sure that all your socials are available to people.
51:02
Is there anything else that you want me to add?
51:05
Rosie Sherry: No.
51:06
Just yeah, I guess websites to me are more important than socials these days, okay.
51:12
Nola Simon: Okay.
51:13
Yeah, I will make sure that's in there.
51:15
All right.
51:15
Thank you so much, Rosie.
51:17
I've learned so much from you.
51:18
This is a way of me saying thank you.
51:20
When you put out that post going, I want to be a podcast.
51:22
I'm like, Hey, you want to do mine?
51:24
Because I had you on my list forever.
51:26
And then you went back and you were so busy and I didn't want
51:30
to, I didn't want to bother you.
51:31
But then I'm like, Oh, if she's ready for it, then, make this happen.
51:35
Thank you for doing it.
51:37
All right, let me just hit stop.
51:40
There we go.