tangentalizingly delicious

Thursday December 14, 2006

For a long time I have been considering a membership with Communitech, a high tech association in Canada. The real sticking point for me was the membership fee.

$300 really isn’t a very large amount of money, but it took some convincing for me to spend it. There are a lot of things one can spend $300 on and membership in a tech organization is completely unproven to me.

Ultimately what swayed my decision is the fact that I have been participating in events that Communitech is ultimately responsible for for over a year now, and have easily gotten $300 worth of value from them, combined with the fact that the majority of the money I’ve currently made as The Miscellanean has resulted directly from people I’ve met through these events. Theoretically, my membership helps keep them going which in turn provides more such opportunities.

I like to think I do know some things about business and I think my gut is my biggest advantage, but my biggest disadvantage is related to networking. I am a pretty unskilled conversationalist. I vacillate between two extremes: nodding in agreement until the other person interprets my clamped-shut mouth as disinterest and wanders off, or locking on to some small facet of what they’ve been talking about and ramble on over-passionately for minutes about something they actually couldn’t care less about.

The various WatStart events have provided a place to practice talking to people about what it is I hope to do, and that has helped me feel more comfortable (though still far from at ease) talking to strange new people, and also has helped me clarify my goals and learn what sorts of people are interested in what sorts of projects.

Finally, one of the things I’ve complained about here the most is that I have no idea what to do next. And even though that’s not entirely true (I have all sorts of ideas about what to do next!) Communitech has people whose very purpose is to help people like me figure out next steps.

It would also be nice to talk about my ideas (not just CHORE.tl, but things like Second Space and the wider goals of Rob’s Dream Company) with someone who actually has experience helping people get there.