2) Learning at Work

What do you want to learn, or do more of, at work?

Overview

Working at Arduino is great. Or moreover, working with Arduino is great. I believe in the product, and the open-source philosophy it's built on 100%. But it's a rather old fashioned business structure, that's very risk averse and not hugely ambitious. The heirarchy is quite rigid, and the prospects for developing the community (and a community team) are abruptly curtailed by that.

Arguably the founders have built an amazing range of products, so it's probably not for me to say that its community strategy needs to evolve. That being said, I really think it's community strategy needs to evolve! Especially if we want to engage the next generation(s) of makers. So my reasons for looking at positions elsewhere are actually born from a simple, but pervasive desire to do more. More creative experimentation; more dynamic community engagement campaigns; significantly more diverse and adventerous tactics; more community growth, and certainly more chances to fail. I'm more than happy to accept the responsibility for the results if the freedom to rapidly test, iterate and experiment is part of the bargain.

Social, Content & Community

While these three aspects of customer engagement do have a strong role to play individually, harnessing them all is, in my experience, the route to a thriving, healthy community. And content is changing. Not just the quintessential shift towards video, but also toward niche audience engagement. As Seth Godin likes to say, everything is niche these days (all hail the Godin!), so I want to be able to dedicate time, effort and resources to finding and reaching those niches, engaging them, and giving them a home in our community.

That will require a combination of social media, content creation and community management. Honestly, I don't know what shape that will take. It could be podcasts, webinars, AMAs, contests, design challenges, roadtests, content series (including rapidly deploying YouTube playlists - a very effective community building strategy). Whatever it takes to grow the community from being primarily a tech support channel to a place of experiential belonging and contribution.

Coding

I'm very technically minded, and good with hardware due to my previous incarnation as an electronics engineer. But I'm only okay with code. I can work with other people's code, but I'm not so hot with writing my own. Just like learning another language, or to play an instrument, it's been on my list for a long time. Were I to find a home at Vercel, I'd really love the opportunity to take advantage of the resources and people in a company like this, and finally learn to code in earnest. This would be a great new hobby for me, just as much as a work skill.

Production Skills

I mentioned podcasting and video content creation above. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in developing creative skills around that kind of multimedia content in a much more professional way. I'm an enthusiastic amateur right now, having taught myself about podcast production (oh, yes. I have a Star Trek podcast of my own... and I'm pretty good when it comes to creating video material such as interviews, case studies, ads and marketing campaigns.

But I'm just experienced enough to be aware of how little I know, despite how much I've experimented in these areas. So professional development of multimedia production skills would be very interesting and, I genuinely believe, valuable to my work.