Only connect!

Other than Twitter/X, where I mosey around, occasionally commenting but rarely tweeting, I'm not really part of any online "community." But I think if I were still working, I'd be inclined to join - and actively participate in - a high-tech marketing community. 

Pre social media, I was, after all, something of a half-baked expert on core messaging, product positioning, product marketing, etc. I wrote a series of articles for Pragmatic Marketing, the mag of the Pragmatic Marketing Institute (now renamed the Pragmatic Institute) which were turned into a eBook. And damned if it's still out there. The overarching theme was that there was a set of timeless rules that product marketers live by. The cover design of the ebook showed the title carved in stone. I never liked it, but given how old - and old-school - that ebook is, the ancient look is kind of appropriate.

On occasion, someone reaches out to me on LinkedIn because they just read my book. At least one marketing professor out there used it in his class at one point.

So, yeah, I do like to share what I know, and if I were still a marketing professional, I might take part in an online community. 

But since I'm no longer a professional anything, there's no need and little interest in my doing so.

Nevertheless, I do have a residual, teensy-weensy bit of interest in reading about online communities. 

So I was residually, teensy-weensy-ly interested in an article by Scott Kirsner I saw in the Boston Globe last month. 

The article centered on HubSpot, a local marketing software company which I have long thought would be an interesting place to work. If I were a professional anything interested in any place to work. (Among other attractions, one of the cofounders is a fellow MIT Sloan School alum, although way, way, way after my time.)

HubSpot owns an outfit called Connect.com, which provides a forum where marketing pros are invited to:

Grow your career by joining communities of like-minded professionals where you can connect with others, all on a network that lets your expertise and personality shine.

I might not have been drawn to a forum that explicitly said that I could let my personality shine there, but, come to think of it, why not. If I were going to join, sure, let that shining personality rip. And, of course, my expertise. What's not to to like about "spend[ing] time chatting and answering each others' questions."

Turns out that getting Connect.com to actually start connecting folks hasn't been all that easy. 

Most of the forums on Connect.com are as quiet as the halls of the convention center on Christmas morning. The bulk of the messages are written by HubSpot employees, except for one forum, “Talent Match,” where people post in search of jobs or freelance work.

Connect.com has about 30,000 members, but hopes to grow that number by an order of magnitude in 2024. (Order of magnitude? Let that MIT freak flag fly!) 

There are doubters out there - one who posits that Connect.com is too generic, and that the communities that take off tend to be more niche focused. 

Case in point: the most active forum on Connect.com is niche-y: focused on using AI. 

Hmmmm.

As I said, if I were still a professional, I'd be inclined to take a look. And I'd be inclined to take a look at what's going on with AI.

Over the next decade, AI is going to upend a lot of professional, knowledge-worker jobs. I do believe the survivors will be those who don't resist AI, but learn how to exploit it.

Just sayin'.

And if I were still a professional, I just might be over on Connect.com just sayin'. After all, wasn't that what E.M. Forster advised us to do? Only connect?