Happy 2009, everyone!
I’m happy to announce that a new community for PMBA members has been created: The PMBA Community. The PMBA Community will make it easy for you to connect with other self-learners, entrepreneurs, and businesspeople via social networking features, discussion forums, chat, and local networking opportunities.
How do I join?
You can sign up for the PMBA Community here – membership is free.
Wait – I thought the PMBA already had forums! Why the change?
The PMBA Forums have a long history: originally, this site was a forum, not a blog. The original forums were nice and simple, but didn’t have many features, making it difficult for people to stay on top of new discussions. I love the idea of helping PMBA members connect with each other, and it was clear that a change was needed to make this happen more effectively.
Alongside the launch of the 2008 edition of the list, I changed the forum software in an effort to make it easier for people to follow the discussions. Unfortunately, this change introduced a host of issues – most notably, automated spam, which took a great deal of time to fight. I’d much rather spend my time researching and creating content for the PMBA community than deleting spam and continually trying to stay ahead of the spammers via software updates, so it quickly became clear that a new approach was needed.
Local Group Organization
Another thing I’ve been wanting to introduce for a long time now is better local group organization. It’s sometimes difficult to find people in your area to chat with about these topics, and I want to make it easy for people to connect with each other in a central place. With the introduction of the new PMBA Community, it’s easy to form local PMBA groups, create events (with RSVPs), and receive notification when new members in your area have joined. It’s also easier to search for members in your area, as well as members in areas you’re traveling to, making it easy to connect in person.
What will happen to the PMBA Forums?
I’ll keep the old forums up for 3-4 weeks to ease the transition. Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to import discussions from the old software into the new community platform, so if there’s anything you’d like to keep, a quick cut-and-paste is the best way to do it. I’ve started discussions on each of the books in the PMBA Recommended Reading List, so if you have notes, you can transition those immediately.
NEW: PMBA “Office Hours”
One of the things I’m very excited about on the new PMBA Community platform is the ability to host events. Since the community site has chat and event capability, I’ve decided to host a discussion this coming Saturday (1/10) at 12:00pm EST on all things PMBA and self-education. If you have a question about the PMBA, what to read first, or how to go about doing something business-related, I’ll be online offering as much help as I can. As with everything on the PMBA Community site, attendance is free, and if there’s a good turnout I’ll likely start doing this every week or so. If you’d like to attend, you can RSVP here.
I hope you enjoy this new experiment in learning together – see you in the PMBA Community!
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