I took a winter break, slightly longer than I normally do. Partly because COVID completely knocked me out, and also because I thought I'd cut myself some slack as I've been going pretty much non-stop on Rosieland for 4 years.
First, a thank you to our sponsors:
I've published hundreds of newsletter roundups and articles in that time frame. Never have I ever been so consistent with my writing. I've hosted events and run cohorts, somewhat inconsistently.
2024 is the year I change things up, just a bit, nothing drastic. Mostly my style is to "just keep going" and change things a little bit at a time. I had a seriously stressful end to last year. It's certainly helped me re-evaluate about what is truly important.
I'm back as CEO of my own company, the Ministry of Testing. I've surprised myself at how much I'm loving it. I feel like I can take everything I've learned about indiependence and community and apply it in a busy and real life community. I'm sure a big chunk of my writing going forward will be inspired by the work I do there. There sure is a lot of work to be done!
For now, I'm switching this newsletter to Sundays. I'll still write every week, though I will likely cut myself some slack and just miss some weeks as and when my life dictates it. I'll also likely get more lightweight and tactical with some of them too.
Other times, I will probably prioritize the community research and curating of content that I do over putting pressure on myself to publish something. I put everything into the Rosieland (Notion) Knowledgebase.
However, in 2024 I will put more emphasis on curating it into our community platform so that the community becomes an overall place of value to visiting daily/weekly.
We will be running free events hosted by good community people and myself sometimes too. Please get in touch if you'd like to host one.
Rosieland is meant to be a place of community fun, joy and education. I suppose that is my focus for 2024.
🌈 Upcoming events at Rosieland
- Exploring Community Discovery - January 16th
- Exploring Community Conversations - January 30th
- Exploring Community Flywheels - February 13th
📝 Interesting community reads...
- Now We Know: Exit to Community is Possible: I enjoy keeping up to date with progress and news from Nathan Schneider. The general vibe I get is that it is generally more complicated than people anticipate. It's easy to say we should have community ownership, it's so much harder to implement.
- Ambient co-presence - this is such a great read from Maggie Appleton and thought provoking in how we can start to re-imagine being together online. I've been saying for a while that community is not about 'community tools'. It's about building software that enables us to connect, exchange and be together in many creative ways.
- The Power of Triadic Relationships - I've been paying attention a lot to the power of small groups, but I hadn't come across the term 'triadic'. It kind of seems obvious word to use now! 😆
- Going far together - the value of social learning - I'm a sucker for anything that is community + learning and these days I'm enjoying Drew's writing on the topic.
🙏 Thanks for getting this far, and let us be hopeful for a positive 2024!
