A new path for #wjchat
The #wjchat crew has spent the past few months tackling a few issues:
- How do we reduce the amount of time the all-volunteer crew spends on prepping and running the chats? (It’s way more time than you think)
- What’s a possible solution that keeps our little community together, happy and represented? (We hear you, we aren’t going away)
- Is there any form of partnership that makes sense for us? (A few people reached out, hoping to partner or work with us in some way)
Most of these were laid out in an earlier post by crew member Andre Natta.
#wjchat, for me, has been a surprise love. It was a tiny project that has blossomed into one of my favorite things — an inclusive, supportive community that has led to new friends, jobs for people I care about, and more.
I’ve been vexing over this. I recognize that myself and others on the team are overtaxed. We run organizations, teach, volunteer AND run #wjchat when called to do so. We call it our “weekly miracle” for a reason.
After thinking, discussing, and a little bit of dreaming, here’s our current solution. Voice your support for it by hitting that little heart, and respond to give us feedback or constructive criticism.
The plan
#WJCHAT happens twice monthly
We’ll hold the chat the first and third Wednesday of every month.
The first Wednesday will be a hosted chat, with hopefully a transcript and/or blog post to go with it.
The third Wednesday will be what we usually call a grab bag, a mix of crew and submitted questions about hot topics in digital media.
We’ll actually update the web site more often
Pulling back on the number of chats and only having one hosted chat a month will give the crew a little space to pull together a transcript, or work with the host or attendees on a blog post we can share afterward. That means we also might be able to partner with some existing journalism resources or sites.
We’ll still ask you for your input
As always, we’re looking for potential hosts or volunteers to help out.
Also, for awhile there, we had a tool that used Twitter’s API to pull transcripts automatically, but with recent changes, that script stopped working. If you have development chops, we’d love help bringing transcripts back.
