Community with Rosie Sherry

0:00 Here we go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Watch yourself in orbit. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Nola Simon. I'm the host of Highway Remote Center of Excellence. Say that three times fast. Today we have a guest from the UK. Where exactly are you from, Rosie? I'm in Brighton in the UK, the south coast.

0:41 Ah, I'm familiar with the beaches. I haven't been there, but I've heard of them. Um, anyways, our guest is Rosie Sherry, and she is an expert in all things community. She started ministry and testing, what, back in 2007? And so that has grown to its community of thousands of users, and it brings in millions of dollars. And in addition, she also runs another community called Rosyland, which is dedicated to all things community. So Rosie, when I was exploring communities, and I keep continuing to explore communities because I haven't figured it out myself. Um, she was the expert that I came across online.

1:23 Literally, I think it was more Twitter initially. And then more linked in now. Um, but she, um, has a way of explaining community, um, that nobody else does, I find. And I found her approach really relatable. Um, you know, you started ministry testing because you had 2 kids at home and it was a way that you could start a business, right? Did I get that correct? Yeah. And it's grown since then. So, um, and recently you had to step back. You had initially headed it off to a CEO and then recently you stepped back in as CEO. Is that correct? Yeah.

2:04 So could you tell us more about your journey with community and where that started? Yeah, I mean, um, so I guess I've been in tech since around 2000, um, the year 2000, which is a bit scary to, to say, um, I started off as a software tester. I got like my first job as a software tester, hence ministry testing that came along, um, probably seven years later. Um, But as, as I was working in tech, um, I started going to local meetups in Brighton, um, it was quite an active, like, geeky type scene, um, and I was just inspired about all the things that were happening, and I kind of stumbled across the idea of community, and, um, I enjoyed the local community aspect and as the web, um, was kind of grown, it was kind of like web 2.

3:01 0 era. For me there was like a lot of kind of excitement around all of that. And yeah, mostly like once I discovered the idea of community, I could, I was like, you know, that became my thing. I just couldn't, couldn't forget. What community, you know, the idea of community to me, it just, it just stuck with me and I've never been able to let it go since. Um, so since I've discovered that and like community has always been like how I start things and, or how I think about things. And I started a local meetup.

3:43 It was a woman in tech. It was a meetup. called Brighton Girl Geek Dinners and that was like my first step into like actually doing community things and that that kind of opened my eyes to how special community can be and like Um, I ran it for probably a couple of years, and it was like, always, um, fully, fully booked out, and I met loads of people, and, and, you know, still in contact with many of them, like, you know, even like 20 years on, and it's like, you know, that was kind of, I guess like, as a introverted style person that I am, that was like a real kind of eye opener for me.

4:29 So, yeah, after that I kind of. Uh, was looking for an excuse to apply community to the ideas I had or the work I wanted to do. Um, and at that time as well, there were like no community jobs really. It just wasn't, wasn't, I think. Yeah, it was sort of like a job that, that came later. Like, this is the type of job that, you know, when you were a kid, you didn't imagine it could be a real job. Yeah, yeah. Um, I remember seeing like job ads at the time, like for Yelp and community managers. So there were a few startups that kind of had started to adopt that role, but you know, that me and Brighton, those jobs in San Francisco was like never, never going to happen.

5:11 Right. I know how that feels. I'm from Canada. Nothing ever interesting ever happens in Canada. Um, yeah, so I just like, uh, was always looking for opportunities to do my own community thing. Um, I ran a co working space for a while and then, and then I also decided to start ministry of testing because I felt like there could, there should be a better community for software testers, which at the time there wasn't really much at all. Um, nothing that I really approved of. So I kind of used it as an excuse just to start something. I had no real Um, idea that it would turn into something, but it was just something I wanted to try, play with, see where it goes, um, and yeah, I guess that's what, partly what I'm, I've discovered that I'm good at is just like, I just do stuff and then figure stuff out and, uh, either suffer the consequences or suffer with, with, with the success along the way as well.

6:18 Yeah, no, that's very interesting. Um, So in terms of administrative testing that that's the part of your work that I actually don't relate to at all because I don't have that kind of software background at all. Um, so what's, what's the purpose of community? It's to share expertise and and you offer courses as well, right? Yeah, so I would call it like a community of practice. So it's essentially for software testing professionals or quality assurance engineers, you know, they go by a few names. And it's a space to gather and to hopefully learn more and advance. People's careers and we do conferences.

7:02 So at the moment we do one conference a year in Brighton. Yes, you just did that though right? Yeah, yeah, because I've seen things online people really complimenting, you know how engaging it was and just appreciating the, like the in person touch. So that's an interesting aspect of Of community, because we got away from it, obviously, during the pandemic. Right. So are people really excited about in person? Do you think that's. And aspect of community that's going to develop. I think so. And I think, um, so pre pandemic we, it was a bit crazy to be honest, but we had, as, as ministry of testing grew, we, we had like nine conferences across the world in the, in 2019, which, which feels like really crazy now.

7:58 But post pandemic we've gone back down to just one conference and the idea at the moment is just to have that one conference a year and put much more effort into it and hopefully make it bigger than what it's, what it's been before. So, um, is there an appetite for it, like 100%? It's like people, yeah, I think people need it. I don't think they're realising how much they need it until they show up. And it's once they show up that they're like, ah, this is exactly what I needed, this is like the break I needed from work, or this is just like reconnecting with people, or getting to meet people in real life that they've connected with online.

8:45 And yeah, I think we've just forgotten that. And, you know, partly, you know, a big part of that is the pandemic, but, um, when people go, they, they don't regret going in my opinion, you know, especially, um, this past conference, which I think we've kind of, um, leveled up the experience, um, and got amazing feedback, um, from it. And, um, it was a product manager who attended, um, um, And she, she shared on LinkedIn, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she was sharing on LinkedIn how, just like, how amazing it felt and how, um, kind of jealous of FOMO she had that software testers had this space to gather and she didn't feel like, uh, The product managers had that same kind of space with that community feel.

9:40 Um, where everyone's literally like, uh, supporting each other. And like the speakers have, have grown up in the community. Oh, so you bring in people who are actually members of the community to actually speak. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, all our effort is like, all our, all our kind of like, I guess you, you know, you call it marketing effort, but all our effort is focused on the community and uplifting the community and trying to get them to like publish their first article. Or do their first talk or, you know, speak at a conference or, you know, all our effort is like community first. It's, it's the people in the community. We don't, we don't like go outside seeking other speakers.

10:24 Um, you know, we don't do keynote talks. We've never done keynote talks. For example, it was just like every talk is a talk from, from the community. Um, So you're really focusing on the relationships that build within the community themselves. Yeah. And it really makes a difference because people know these people and they can identify with them, right? And they can see, oh, I know that person. I've spoken to him or we've been in touch. He's never spoken and now he's up on stage. And like the vibe that that gives as well is that you have like people like cheering them on, or if they're struggling, you can really see that the crowd is like supporting them rather than like criticizing them, for example.

11:07 So the online connection is really fueling the in person. Yeah, yeah. So like, I guess like some conferences happen once a year for us. The conference is just part of the community. So really we're like planning all year round. Um, we, you know, we publish content all year round, um, and all year round, we're looking for new speakers and those sparks was, you know, connections that, or, you know, uh, information or trends that might be of value to the community. And we're trying to get, get better at spotting it and then bringing it to the conference as like the icing on the cake, I guess.

11:52 So you mentioned before we started recording that you're a deep introvert. Uh, so how does an introvert plan a conference? Uh, because I would assume that a lot of people in that, that type of profession tend to be introverts. I could be completely wrong there, but that's my perception. So how, how does a conference for introverts in person differ from the standard conference that's planned by extroverts? Uh, yeah, I say introverted, um, these days I'd probably use neurodivergent, you know, being neurodiverse.

12:33 Um, but, you know, whatever it is, it's like, you know, you know, people struggle in, you know, In real life situations and say, how do you make it feel more more comfortable for them. And part of it again is going back to community and feeling welcomed and supported and things like that. And another part is creating a variety of activities or meetups or events that are happening so that, you know, hopefully there's something for everybody. Um, but like a big part of it. You know, I feel, you know, sometimes I feel like I harp on a lot about community, but it's like so, so many of the people arrive and they're like really nervous and, um, but like the moment they step in, they're kind of welcomed by, by the community or there's, uh, there's this culture of like everyone's kind of Uh, checking in on other people or people standing alone, and they might go up to them and say hello or just checking on them.

13:37 I saw you write on thread something about that. Somebody had mentioned the fact that they were nervous that a community just standing around, or they were at a conference and they were just standing around and just having that awkward conversation. It was like the worst experience ever. And you're like, just. Being generous enough to, to go up to somebody and say hi, that's the most generous thing that you could do to, for somebody at a group, if you see them standing alone. Yeah, and it's part of the culture so it's like everyone is literally doing it because, because they experience it and they see how, How great it can feel and how it kind of brings that belonging. And it just like naturally ends up extending. And it's not just like, oh, let's, you know, this is what we want to see.

14:18 It's like that's kind of happened over the years. And like when, you know, we kind of try to communicate it. And then run up to it, we have the host on stage who also communicates it. So it's like we're trying to really embed this culture of like, we're all here to support each other, and we're all actually quite friendly, or we're all struggling a bit. And, you know, it's just like, yeah, for whatever reason, it's just like, it's become a big part of what Ministry of Testing and Test Bash is all about. And it's pretty, pretty amazing to see that, to be honest, because I do go to other conferences and like no one ever comes up to me, you know, like, you know, other tech conferences and it's just like, sometimes I just like wonder why, why am I even here?

15:10 So it's, um, yeah, I guess there's the, there's a Pac Man model as well, which is one way they talk about it, so it's like, um, it's like when you're having a conversation with other people, they always leave a gap like Pac Man's mouth. So that others can come in, stand in and listen, and maybe join in. So people have naturally started doing that as well, as like, you know, trying to, trying to welcome people in. Right. You, you want to leave windows and doors open so that people can feel, see entrances into the conversation. I've been part of groups like that before and it's like, you have no idea when these guys are going to stop talking.

15:53 It's like, hey, I don't know how to do this. Yeah, I, uh, one of my first employee resource group, uh, meetings that I ever went to, I, I remember walking in and I'd never done one of those and it was a whole bunch of executives and I just, I didn't know who to talk to, even though I'd worked for the company for over probably 15 years at that point, the majority of people from my division weren't usually the ones who attended those types of events, right? And so, um, I, I went in and I, I didn't know what to do. So I went to my table. Because we were assigned tables and I just kind of sat thinking that, you know, once dinner started, at least that way, it would be kind of natural. I'd have somebody on either side of me.

16:33 At least conversation would start to float the table and I just. sat there by myself. And this woman that I used to actually work for, she was my skip level. So my boss's boss, she saw me at the table and she came over and gave me this big hug and introduced me to people. And then people started rising at the table. So she started introducing me to people around the table. And honestly, without her breaking that ice, I was just, I was so grateful that it's like, Oh, okay. Now that I've been introduced, I feel better. And like, she just made me feel like I had a place there. Right. So, yeah. I can relate. I can relate. We've also done things like, um, for quite a few years now, we do lean coffee in the morning.

17:19 So there's like a few tables set aside. And lean coffee is basically like people writing down in post it notes things that they want to talk about. And then people float on them around the table and they just start talking about those things that they've written down. So it's like a small group thing. And so things like that really help, um, to give people, I guess, another option of meeting people and having conversations with people, perhaps without the small talk, because like a lot of people struggle. So do you run that around the world? So not just in Brighton, but like, because your community is global, right? Like, do you have like, the community is global?

18:01 Yeah, yeah, the conference is just in Brighton at the moment. But we do have like localized meetups, like kind of community volunteer led as well. I think it's about 40 of them at the moment. It was like 100 pre pandemic, but obviously. Pandemic does that. Yeah, we do a lot of stuff online. We do monthly virtual events as well. Again, people who speak on those all come from the community. So literally our source of voices is 100 percent from the community.

18:42 Very cool. And one thing I like about, um, the way you position your work, especially for Rosalind, um, is you are the source for all community. You research so, uh, you do all the research so that other people don't have to. So I think that's genius. Um, what, what trends are you seeing right now that you think are either helpful or hindering community? Uh, yeah, I guess like AI is an obvious one. I think it's probably hindering more at the moment. Yeah, I saw, I saw a post you wrote on that. Um, you know, it's a nightmare like with content and like, if you have a community where anyone can like submit content or write something, a lot of communities are really like struggling with how to deal with that because it's just like, um, so much, I guess I would call it AI spam.

19:40 It's like, we had spam before, but now it's like, you know, 100x like what we, what used to exist. And. It's, you know, 100x harder to spot it or to figure out how to, how to deal with it. Right. So are people like using it to post and comment or like both? Yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah. So what's the, what's the point of Using AI to comment, because, I mean, personally for me, comments are how I express my opinion, how I express my value, to share expertise. To filter that through AI, I don't know that I would get value from that, for me personally, right?

20:24 Like, what's the point of even commenting? I don't get it. I don't know. I mean, there's tools now that will, like, auto Also create, uh, comments for you, like on social, isn't there? So it's like, you know, so you can leave so many comments and they look genuine, but they're not really genuine. Or they, they read the posts that you're commenting on to try to sound authentic. And it's just like, well, yeah, I just don't get it. It was like, what's the point? Right. And, you know, places like product don't have a lot of like AI spam. People always trying to play the game, always trying to, you know, you know, ends up becoming not really bad. community it ends up becoming about trying to get as many upvotes so that then that might somehow turn into um You know more click throughs or more sales or more awareness of the product Right and like sometimes comments can influence the algorithm Whether that's true or not, that's, you know, generally like what they say is that the more comments, you know, the more chance it has of being featured and stuff.

21:29 So people will play the game and they'll use AI to support that. Yeah. And it's just like, um, Yes, it's just not great and I did work at Indie Hackers I led the community there for a couple of years and that was kind of pre AI hype but like they suffered a ton from from spam in general and And I saw like as AI was becoming popular as like a lot of the comments on the posts were AI generated And it's hard to deal with, right? It's just like, as a community person, you don't want to have to deal with that. Right. But, um, and, and, yeah, I mean, it causes extra work for anyone who's trying to run it.

22:12 Right. Um, probably work that they don't want to do. So, how are you managing that? Like, are you, like, deleting posts that are obvious AI? I don't actually have that problem. It's just like, it's a problem like we see. Yeah. Okay. So we get minimal spam at Ministry of Testing, but there is some, but not a huge amount. Do you think that's actually because of the connection? Yeah. Cool. I love that. And because we don't, we don't go out trying to, uh, create fake games. We don't go out trying to create fake hype or, uh, there's no real motivation 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 fragging like suspicious behavior Okay, but you know, we make we get that maybe a couple times a week. It's no big deal to manage right? and A lot of that is because we don't really focus on that kind of external growth. We're not, we're not like stressed out about trying to, trying to get new people in and participate in. It's just like, the forum is just like one part of our community strategy. It's not the community. It's like, um, I call it like the 80 20 rule of conversations and community. A lot, a lot of people think of community as community.

23:47 It's all about the conversation. It's like, let's talk and have fun and blah, blah, blah. Right. But actually, constant conversation is like really, really tiring and exhausting and people don't have time for that. Right. Um, so, um, the idea of like the 80 20 rule is like, well, 20 percent of community, um, should be conversations. And then the other 80% Is other stuff. So like our forum is maybe 20 percent of our efforts and the other 80 percent are articles we publish, the conference we run, courses we produce, you know, there's a whole list of other things that we do that counts up for like the other 80%.

24:31 Right. So there's actually action in addition to conversation. Yeah. Right. Action. And that, that, that combination, like people often join community because they're looking for, uh, not just support, but they're actually looking for transformation of some sort. Yeah. Right. So if you're helping people achieve goals that they have personally and professionally, then that's, is that the key to, to really having community stick? Do you think? I think so. I really do. And like, It's, it's definitely easier said than done, right? But like, at Ministry of Testing, like, the goal is, uh, perhaps they want to stay on top of trends that are happening, so that's something we're giving more focus on, and making it easier for, for the community to, um, learn about trends that are happening.

25:23 But like, another thing is, a lot of people have a goal of being a speaker, right? Getting up on that stage. So we then design things in to enable that. You know, whether it's a simple encouragement of submitting to speak, you know, that's always like a good first step, right? Right. Um, but then like another thing is like a test, a test bash, which is our conference. Um, we've, we've done it since our second ever conference, but like, I came up with this idea that like, wouldn't it be great if anybody had 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 the end of a conference day. So anyone can stand in the queue, get up on stage, talk about absolutely anything for 99 seconds. We have a buzzer, we set the timer, they go, they talk, we buzz them if they go over the limit and then the next person comes on. Okay, so you're on stage, you take the action, you're fighting your like, you know, imposter syndrome, and you actually get a sense of achievement, right? And do you get feedback? 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 everyone's like cheering them on. Okay. So there's that aspect, we record all the talks, then it goes on to our website. So they can show it to other people. They have proof of their contribution. Um, and like, now at the moment, as we're building our Ministry of Testing further, and we're kind of going increasingly down the route of, um, just, Custom building everything pretty much apart from the forum and then, you know, they get that talk on their profile page So now we're introducing profile pages which kind of becomes a portfolio and it becomes something more It gives you know, the sense of they are contributing to the community right and here's here's a proof of it and Not quite like a Facebook page or LinkedIn page, but you know, eventually one day it'll get there, but right.

27:47 So is it externally accessible, the profile page? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. So you can build it out and use it sort of like as like a mini profile or portfolio. Yeah, more active you are in the community. I like that. That's really cool. Sorry, a phrase I said the other day is like, why should all the social networks have all the fun, right? So I'm trying to bring that in, but into like, A community that's ours and it's a community that's not owned by a big big tech company. We're just trying to build something like really special and we've got we've got we've got photos now we call them memories.

28:29 So now people can post photos. So our conference that just passed. We've, you know, started building a collection of photos that anyone can add. Um, And people can add memes as well, so we're kind of building up this, you know, knowledge base, community knowledge base, I would call it, and where everyone can contribute. Right. And, um, these ideas aren't new. Right. It's like, this memes, there's Instagram. Right. But it's like, actually, that's, that's. Let's do that within our community, let's own the data, let's not let the big socials like, you know, be forever in power, and let's, let's 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. Yeah, it's amazing how happy GIFs and memes can make people laugh. It's still true. It is still true. For all the people who try to tell us that it's not cool, um, Gen Z, um, it still makes people laugh. It's very cool. Exactly. It's very cool, yeah. Um, it's actually interesting to think about, The profile page in conjunction with AI, because one of the most interesting uses I've come across with AI when I'm testing AI at all. And when I say test, I'm just using it. I literally start with a question of tell me about an assignment and it pulls in anything that I've done on LinkedIn or anything on my website and whatnot.

30:04 Right? And if you don't recognize me, that means that I don't know what data you're crawling, but it's not. The data that are like, it's not the places that I am, right? So I like perplexity because perplexity knows really who I am. So I'm like, okay, like, they pick up my media, they pick up my podcast, they pick up LinkedIn, they pick up all of this stuff. Right? So to have a publicly profile, like a public profile page that that that's indexed by by search, that's actually helping building out, um, yeah. Personal branding, right? And that's the interesting thing about personal branding. Going forward is it's like, it's not just what's on Google. It's not just what's on LinkedIn. It's not what you put on your resume, but it's like, what is a I going to know about you and if you're not a public person and you're not in media, you don't have a podcast.

30:54 What does it know about you? And so that's kind of interesting. Like, For software developers who aren't necessarily public people, how does that publicize them in a way that is advantageous for the future of work? Yeah. And that's interesting, right? I think that's where AI can come. Yeah. Would be helpful in coming, rather than like AI creating content for people, it's like actually AI, you know, Making it easy to find information or data about people, right? Yeah, that discoverability, I think, is what's interesting, and how does it connect dots? That's, that's what I'm interested in, is because there's so much information in the world these days.

31:36 It's like, how can you filter it? And Google search is being weird lately, personally. Um, so AI is sort of interesting, too. But, anyways, that's just an aside. But I think, I think what you're doing Has a lot of potential, is what I'm saying. I'm excited about it. The first time in a few years, I'm actually like really excited about the work that we're doing again. It kind of felt like there was this lull and first pandemic and then like, there's like community hype and then like, and then like, it feels like everyone's now forgotten about community. It's no longer the hype anymore. And there's this lull in community, but like the deeper, like I go into like trying to explore how to build community.

32:21 Our way, from scratch, custom building it, you know, going through all the pains that, that are involved in that as well. I just, uh, it feels exciting again to be like, building something. Yeah. Um, yeah, something unique, I guess, and trying to, trying to do something different, trying not to be scared. With, you know, like, people kind of saying, oh, you're crazy for doing that stuff, you know, it'll never work, you know, social media, you know, whatever platform, they'll always like, um, have the advantage over yourself. 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 Fediverse, partly like open web stuff. I think, I have hope that, like, the trend is changing more towards that. Um, and I'm definitely seeing, um, a few more tech people just kind of disregarding the big socials. Um, Twitter is an obvious one that, like, people have just left en masse. To be honest, I think people feel the same with everything. Even like, Thread seems nice, or LinkedIn seems nice, and they'll play in your favor for a while, but then they own your data, right? Yeah. And they opt you in to the AI stuff without permission, but you 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. I've just, like, I've decided I've had enough. Um, yeah. So I'm part of generalist world. I know, I know you're considering yourself a generalist and, and I think you've consulted with Malik, uh, on, on how to build that community, right? Um, so it is the one group that I've been part of where we've done the in person meetup. So I actually went to Toronto, um, what, two weeks ago now? It took me two and a half hours each way. Certainly a full time commitment. Um, but it was fun. It was, it was neat to find something. It was actually Kind of interesting because a lot of the people who are actually there were potential community members.

34:34 They weren't actually part of the community. So I was like, oh, okay. So I found myself pitching a lot of it, what the community was and what the potential was. But, um, what was interesting is you mentioned threads I posted, um, I took a picture of just. Toronto it's really just trying to prove that I was in Toronto because I don't go very often right because I'm north of the city and I took a picture I had Roy Thompson Hall in front of it and then Seattle Tower. It was just those are recognizable Toronto landmarks, right? And, uh, I post it on threads and I just put, every time I go to Toronto, I remember why I don't go to Toronto. Meaning that the keeming was awful, right? Traffic was just awful, right? And oh my God, people just jumped on me.

35:16 It, the whole thread went viral, but it was like for completely the wrong reason because they're like, well, if you don't want to come to Toronto, don't come to Toronto. And it was just like all of these negative people. They're like, what's your problem with Roy Thompson Hall? And I'm like, I don't have a problem with Roy Thompson Hall. It's a beautiful facility. I've been there once in my life. I don't care. It's just in the picture because that's where the CN Tower is, right? Oh my goodness. So yeah, it was interesting because I like threads, but I do find that it still gets that type of like viral negativity every so often that Twitter has. It's interesting how it's pages.

35:59 I've had a couple of viral threads. I didn't get the negativity though, so that's interesting. Block and mute. Yeah, I mean like, I basically posted about Twitter, and leaving Twitter, or something like that. What was it? I got kicked out of a group. On Twitter for some reason. Yeah, I can't remember what it was or something about Elon Musk blocking me or no, no, it was because I had blocked Elon Musk. It wouldn't let me join. Yeah, it wouldn't let me join their kind of Twitter moderation group or something.

36:45 Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, because you can be part of the group if you if you had actually blocked Elon Musk and you were like, yeah, yeah, I'm blocking him to be able to join. So I posted a screenshot of that, and it went viral. It was quite funny. But like, does it add value to my life in any kind of way? Is it? Absolutely not. Did it bring followers? Not really. So it's like, you know, I think it's like, I don't know, I'm getting older, I just don't care anymore about that kind of stuff. And to be honest, I've just, uh, whilst I still occasionally post, and I still will, but like There's a term, it's like, um, post once, 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 platform, on your own website. And then cross post to like, yeah. Um, but these days, I just like, I just post to either Ministry of Testing or Rosyland for my stuff. Right. And I barely bother anymore with social, I just, uh Yeah, I've seen you a lot less. Yeah, yeah, I just can't, I don't have the Uh, yeah, I don't know. I think there's a general amount of these, basically. People are just not enjoying it. Like, honestly, I gotta tell you, I love LinkedIn. I always did love LinkedIn.

38:13 But it's been less fun this year. Like, something is in the air. And I don't exactly, couldn't tell you what. Um, and maybe it's the focus on video. Because I really just don't love video. You can barely tell what platform you're on anymore, it's like sometimes I'm on LinkedIn and I think I'm on Facebook. Oh yeah, yeah. And if you scroll the video feed, like if you have the new video feed, it's like, oh my god, these are all the people that I know from TikTok. But it's like, I've never seen those people on LinkedIn before ever, right? So it's like, where does that come from? And it's like, I don't know. I just, I don't know that there's so much value.

38:54 You can share it. Like the videos have to be like under 60 seconds. And I tried, or is it 90, 90 seconds? I tried and I could only get like, do two minutes and 20 seconds. And that is like, I couldn't cut it down anymore because I'm like, I'm just, I'm not sharing anything useful. So it's like, I don't care if you don't like me, but that's how long I need to be able to actually craft a message. But I mean, honestly, maybe that's wrong because you do 99 seconds. So. You have to get better at speaking. That's funny. We'd love to, like one of the ideas I'd love to do is actually do really short form videos on MOT, like like Reels, like TikToks.

39:36 Yeah. I think that would be quite quite fun. Yeah. With us owning the data. Right. Obviously. Yeah. Not the social platforms. Yeah. I wanted to bring one thing up. Uh, you mentioned that, uh, people have been going away from community and is starting to come back. Before we started recording, I got an email from somebody that I follow that I like, um, and basically they, um, were talking about, like, how to facilitate return to office. And one of the themes was, So what's your theory? 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 like, All of a sudden springs, like, the answer is community. It feels just, just genuine. It doesn't feel real, right? It feels like another fad. It's like, we're doing back to office because we want to build community. Um, I think, like, most companies, if they really wanted to do community, they would have been doing it anyways. Right. Um, and maybe, maybe if there's a back to office thing, it's like, Considering the communities or the people's voices in that is like, do people really want to go back? Or are they, you know, have they really listened to people that, 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. It's like, you know, is the topic of whether going back or not off the table, because if that conversation isn't a conversation you're willing to have, then automatically it's not a genuine community, right? Because you're, you're limiting the, the conversation, right? So it's also a very ableist thing to do, right? It's like dismissing like the needs of so many people. And I think honestly, like a lot of good came from COVID from that perspective. Like, I've worked from home for like 15 years, but the fact that 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 know, it's just people with complicated lives or, you know, parents to care for. I almost have like all of that in my life at the moment. I've got my care for, I've got a new divergency, we homeschool, um, you know, I have five kids. It's like, there's no way I'd be able to go into an office, but it's like, can I still build community in a sense of work? And what we do is like, yeah, But it doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean going into the office and, um, I, you know, I definitely know, like, with, with Ministry of Testing, like, if we, if we force people into the office, it's like, everyone would leave, you know.

42:36 It's, it's, it's not community focused if you're not taken into consideration. what people need. And I know in my circumstance, it wouldn't be possible because, because of how people's lives have now adapted since COVID. It's like, there's been too much change to go back, in my opinion, to, um, and, and, you know, like, often, I think, you know, isn't that, like, illegal to, uh, force that? onto people, isn't that like discrimination, like disability, like discrimination? Well, this is where if you can work from home, yeah, this is really where the laws get interesting around the world, because like the UK is actually being pretty, um, thoughtful, I think, because isn't there a, uh, a law that where, you know, And then it's like, all companies have to at least consider the work from home request and actually assess it.

43:33 So everyone can believe. So yeah, I just don't know what that looks like in practice and whether it has any. And, you know, if you're denied what you're what you're what you're. What your rights are basically. So, you know, I think that that's a whole area of development that needs to really come into play to make sure that rights are respected. But, um, that whole aspect of, you know, does return to office impact, um, you know, women, people who are older, uh, you know, You know, uh, people who have, um, neurodivergence, like you mentioned, disabilities, physical disabilities as well, too, when you see systems in place that are targeting, um, those people, because those are the people who are said that their lives are impacted negatively by going back to the office.

44:21 Then that's a whole system of oppression, right? So basically systems are meant to continue, right? So they're built to continue. So my personal take is Return to Office is an example of systems of oppression thriving, and that's a conversation that not a lot of people are having. And then, and then from the community aspect. I guess what, what I get annoyed about and sometimes a bit, I wouldn't say angry, but um, protective with community is, you know, it's like using communities as an excuse to make it.

45:07 Other things happen because like when people say the word community everybody's oh, yeah, of course, that sounds great. Oh, we'd love more. Yeah Oh, yes, let's buy into it. Um, and like through the whole Pandemic is that it's like community hype and you know Yeah, oh my god, like crypto stuff and like people going into all this stuff Crypto's community and I, I kept pushing back and saying, it's not community, what, what the heck are you talking about? This is, this is not going to work and, but like, people kept slapping the name community on it saying this is community or it's like, you know, buy it, buy it, buy this, this token or buy this NFT and you'll automatically be part of this, uh, community and find belonging and, and you can make money and this 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 can achieve and people end up kind of what I feel is like people are disillusioned by the idea of community now they're like oh it's just hype. Right, because the focus isn't on the members, it's not on that connection, there's an agenda. Um, Before I actually was restructured in my work, I had founded like an employee resource group at my work family because I knew as soon as people were forced from home, the people who are going to be impacted were the people who had children who had caregiving, who had never worked from home before and didn't know how to manage, um, you know, how do you work when you've got like three kids?

46:38 Right? I knew that was going to be an issue because, well, I knew what it was like to, to try to manage that. Um, And I was really disappointed the other day, they posted that still community still exists, even though I'm not there anymore. And, um, they posted that it was all about teaching kids about, you know, financial, uh, literacy, but it's like, okay, that's great. That's a, it's a valid thing to teach kids about, but it's like, that is directly funneling into the products that you sell. So basically your community is not necessarily focused on family and the kids. Your community is really about. Building a potential new customers, and that's really what your focus is.

47:20 And I'm like five years later. You haven't actually learned what community is about, and the focus is not on the people that you actually serve. And I'm like, that's so sad. It made me so sad, because I'm like, that is not at all what I envisioned was the potential for the community. I, I visioned it as being a resource to help people with their lives, help people with their needs. People with their, their work and basically just be committed to like their, their belonging and wellbeing and, you know, make it a better place to work, not a funnel for potential new customers when they're 10 . I, I just, yeah. It becomes transactional at that point and it, it under undermines the trust I think that you have in the community organizers.

48:06 Yeah. It's also, you know, stuff like that, it's also a reason, like, um, why I don't, like, track our marketing efforts and stuff like that, it's like, we have systems in place, we send emails, we do social stuff, but I don't, I don't, like, I tend to keep an eye on, like, the graphs going upwards and whether it's trending in a positive way. Yeah. Um, but, like, I guess, like, if you open rates like crazy. No, and I don't track like sales that come in, like when did they first subscribe? How long, how long does it take them to become a customer and stuff like that? It's like, of course, you know, it's like, you know, in the ideal world, it'd be nice if they became a customer quicker rather than later, um, it would make our lives a lot easier.

48:55 We could probably grow quicker and stuff like that. But, um, I've come to the conclusion that it's just like too much work to even try to make sense of. You know, how people make decisions, where, where purchases come from and, and actually often like a lot, a lot of our purchases come from like training budgets. So there's no actual way to track it from an individual because it would be a word of mouth or an internal conversation that happens with the HR or training people to get budget sign off. And then that budget sign off team would then come to us. Separately and say, you know, buy something, but like trying to connect it to the original source is like impossible.

49:42 Um, so like the idea of like tech being able to track absolutely everything, I think, like for us, it's just like, it's just overkill, right? You can spend so much time, you know, time and money, I guess. Um, on all these things, or for me it's just like, or you can have fun along the way and just do your best to grow, do your best to get people to sign up, and keep your fingers crossed that people, people will like what you do. Well, how do you, how do you quantify like word of mouth and that connection right like if people are being drawn because of the community aspect and the support like all of that kind of stuff.

50:26 It's really hard to quantify. So you're probably even not going to get great data on the reality of why people join. So you're probably wise. Yeah, you know, and then there's like, in the community world, it's like, oh, what's a return on investment on community and stuff, and it's just like, I just cannot get, get involved. Yeah. It's, you know, it just feels like an impossible task, or, you know, pointless task, and it's like, I'd rather spend my time, like, trying to, trying to improve the industry, or trying to find or create better ways of building community. Right. 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 me is because I just tried to push forward with different ideas to get people to think differently. Yeah, about community because mostly because I'm just frustrated like with. I like your genuineness, your honesty. Honestly, that's like, I feel that you're a straight talker and I can trust your, your expertise and your advice and, uh, you come to things with what I feel is the right approach. putting people first. I do have one last thing that I'd like to bring up and that's the whole connection of the world loneliness epidemic, if you'd like to call it that, um, and how community can really help.

51:55 And it seems like it's a big, vast topic, but I personally think big, vast topics are best solved with, um, Small approaches on a regular basis. What's your take on that? Yeah, yeah, like, you know, a lot, a lot of people would look at me and I'd say, Oh, you've got a lot of followers, or you must be surrounded by people. But actually, like, day to day, it's like, a very small amount of people that I actually interact with closely, right? I think, I think there's a lot of people who, look at others and think, Oh, they must have it all together. But, you know, actually we don't. And, um, more recently I've, I've been going small and more intentional and I've like picked out a handful of people and we WhatsApp together and we just have 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 or I could share it in a WhatsApp. Right. Yeah. And the WhatsApp always gets a response or always gets a conversation going. Right. And it's always nice, nice to see, right? But it's not the same in Instagram. Well, WhatsApp doesn't have an algorithm, right? It doesn't have an algorithm. You know, it's more personal sometimes. Yeah. Depends how you use it. But, but I think like, you know, like startups, especially what, you know, the 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 find ways to properly connect one to one with people and have conversations and not rely on this spamming of groups or thinking like, you know, getting the attention or getting the virality is going to all of a sudden help our loneliness. It doesn't. It doesn't help at all. And I guess like if I was making recommendations to people, I would, I'd say, you know, think about your local community, think about the people around you. Those are really the people, most of the time, who you can, they will 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 people around you who are close to you who can actually like give you what you need, you know, if you need someone to go to the shop for you and you've got a broken leg, whatever it is, it's like local people can help you, right? You just need sugar. Let's go back to the old days. Ask your neighbor for sugar. It's so simple, right? But like people have forgotten it. Yes. That's, you know, that's my strategy. That's my intentional strategy at the moment is like, um, I'm guilty of falling into that loneliness trap as well. I'm guilty of just getting overwhelmed with life and everything around it and neglecting the people around me.

55:05 Um, but especially in the past couple of years, I've kind of like more intentionally reached, you know, reaching out to people, developing friendships. And, you know, kind of making that extra effort with people that, you know, I think would make a difference to my life with my family's life. Yeah, no, very nice. I agree. Um, yeah, I've always, um, I was, I was thinking the other day, like, I've always been a part of a community family, right? Like, I grew up. My parents would get up at like five o'clock, uh, leave by six o'clock in the morning, and they wouldn't get home until like six, seven o'clock at night. 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 know, if you need somebody to walk your dog, you can just go next door, right? You, you've built those connections with people, right? Because you have more time. To invest in the people around you, right? And to give that up to go back to commuting. So you have maybe like one hour a day with my kids. Um, that's a really big expectation. And I think that's honestly a big part of why people are, um, fighting it is because they've built community closer to where they live rather than community where they work in the office.

56:28 Right. How do you, how do you let that go? And like, you know, some people, you know, they, they, they look at me and say, Oh, you're crazy. You've got, you've got what, five kids? You've got a business, a couple of businesses, homeschool as well. It's like, Oh my God, that must be, that must be so much. But like. Actually, like, you know, like, there's certain aspects, for example, with homeschooling, homeschooling that actually makes life so much easier. Like, not doing the school run every day and not dealing with, like, all the things that come with school, all the messages, all the, you know. You don't have to sit in an auditorium and listen to 30 kids play recorders really badly.

57:12 Yeah. But, but, but like, instead, like, the flip side of that is like, we end up connecting with other home editors, and we end up supporting each other, right? So we're like, you know, we'll have, Uh, we say playdates, but it's also, playdates aren't playdates themselves, often they're a way of supporting each other, or, or, it's like, let's, let's share, um, car runs, or pick up times sometimes, we, we find people locally, and we try to, you know, encourage each other to, to help each other out, instead of like, You know, you know, it's good for the environment as well, obviously, but it's like trying to, trying to be efficient 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 say, Oh, I'll pick up your kid for you if you're stuck, right? Yeah. And, um, but yeah, just like, Not having that makes a really lonely world. So it's like homeschooling is naturally more community led and it's almost like it ends up becoming that, I wouldn't quite say second family, but it becomes that supportive network that, um, That we need and we, we, we recently went on a camping trip with some other home editors and it was amazing. It was just like, there's a way to get to know some of the other parents, 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. You don't have to schedule it around actual school time. Right. So yeah, literally we scheduled it during the week when it's nice and quiet. Yeah, you can take advantage of all of the benefits of that seniors have and people who, uh, who, who aren't bound by that, that school's school schedule. I like it. Very cool. All right. Was there anything else that you thought we missed in this discussion that you want to highlight? I don't think so. We managed to hit the high points of what we planned. Oh, that's perfect. 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? Uh, no. Just, uh, yeah, I guess websites to me are more important than socials these days, so. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I will make sure that's in there. All right. Well, thank you so much, Rosie. I've learned so much from you. This is a way of me saying thank you. When you, when you put out that post going, I want to be a podcast. I'm like, Hey, you want to do mine? Because, well, I had you on my list forever. And then you went back and you were so busy and I didn't want to, I didn't want to bother you. But then I'm like, Oh, if she's ready for it, then, you know, make this happen. Thank you for doing it.

1:00:10 All right, let me just hit stop. Uh, there we go. I'll see you next time.