Community Matters

When I started my consulting life 14 years ago, I was pretty delighted to detox from managing people, office politics, and cross-functional dynamics. I really loved jumping into project work without the “people” issues. If you knew me during those years, you would have heard me talk about how much I like only relying on mostly just myself.

But, as years and projects past, I found myself seeking other people and more human interactions. I started leaving the comforts of my home office to work in client sites more often. I started reaching out to colleagues and other consultants to have coffee and lunch when my days were more open.

In short, I missed working in a place with other smart people and found that the consulting life can be lonely.

This was and still is a primary reason we built the EM Marketing Community. We did it as a way for other freelance consultants to find their tribe and their cohorts. I am rewarded every day by the relationships we’ve built and continue to build with our community — either through collaboration, or knowledge sharing, or networking, or even emotional support. It’s a glue that binds our company.

We’ve attempted to build community with various events and get-togethers including Lunch & Learn sessions, webinars, parties, coffee talks, and peer groups. We’ll continue to do this. I still sense that something is missing and we haven’t quite figured out the best way to build and strengthen this community.

So, we need your help, and more exactly, we would like your participation.

We know people are busy, many of you working on EM projects. And for that, we are grateful. Two times a year, we’d like to have what we are calling Community Day. We’ll have the first one in a couple weeks — Friday, September 22nd. We want you to put this day on your calendar and come to our office in Redwood City. For some of you, we’ll have project meetings. But for others, please just come to work — we have rooms for private calls, wi-fi, coffee, and food.

It’s important to us to bring folks physically together. That’s what community is all about. If building a work community for yourself is important to you, please join us. We think you’ll benefit in ways you don’t even realize right now.