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  • Author Author: dougw
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2020 - a good year for hindsight

dougw

Somewhere in the last 2 years I lost the plot. I thought I would share my experience in case it benefits other members. One of my goals in the past 2 years has been to get nominated for member of the year, but I have not been able to figure out what it takes.

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The first metric I thought was important was participation. I addressed this by reading virtually everything that was published on the forum and commenting whenever I could contribute something useful. It definitely takes a lot of time to wade through all the material generated on the site. I also participated in the badges program and so far I have 115 badges. All this participation resulted in well over 100,000 points per year. 8 of my blogs in the last 2 years have exceeded 10,000 views.

Another metric I thought would count is participation in design challenges, which take a huge amount of time and require lots of blogs. I successfully completed 5 design challenges in the last 2 years, winning 2 of them.

A third metric I figured would count is Project14 participation. In the past couple of years I have participated in about 14 Project14 contests, winning about 3 of them. I don't really try to win all these contests, because I don't think that would look good, but I like to boost the activity in this corner of the forum.

A fourth metric I thought would count is road tests. In the past couple of years I have won about 9 road tests. (which is every one that I applied for) I have been refraining from applying for more, especially high-end instrumentation because I don't want to hog all the great free equipment.

Another metric which I like a lot, although I don't think it carries any weight, is circuit design. In the past 2 years my blogs have featured at least 27 custom PCBs that I designed.

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It is clear that this level of participation is not adequate to get nominated, so either:

  • I am not doing the right things
  • I am not doing enough of the right things
  • I am not doing the right things with sufficient quality
  • What I do is not popular enough
  • I am doing something that is frowned upon

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I have not received any feedback that I am doing something wrong and I cannot spend more time and effort on element14 - there just aren't any more hours available. Basically my current approach is not working, and I cannot do more, so I need to stop expecting better results. Which means I can stop doing what I was doing and how I was doing it.

It has already been quite liberating. I no longer feel obligated to read all content on the forum and I will be spending a lot less time generating videos and blogs, which will leave a lot more time to work on projects, even if they go unpublished. Imagine how much time it took to edit and publish 165 videos in the last 2 years.

I don't want to give the impression I have a complaint with element14 - it is the greatest forum, with a superb staff who do all the right things and I have enjoyed lots of success on the forum in the last 2 years. Really enjoyed it. It is just this one little goal where I screwed up, so if you have any insight into what it takes to get nominated for MotY, articulate them in the comments below.

  • in reply to tariq.ahmad

    Tariq, my awards were the challenge, all the times I tried to create something original and receiving appreciation from the users, as well as good suggestions, the contributions of all the community managers I know writing a couple of books, as well as the nice gifts that E14 friends sent me with their creations.

     

    • I mention here gifter of the year
    • that come to see the third round of the Art-a-tronic exhibition win the closer community friend of the year (he lives 50 Km far from me image) prize
    • that supported me more and more than what expected in sponsoring the exhibition and contributed to the second book too; Phil also won the special mention as inviter of the year for the opportunity he got me to speak to the makers' community and not only at Electronica 2019.
    • Then the great critical, objective and positive contribution and the incredibly constructive and pleasant discussion we had on video about the sense of Project14 is to : he is prized with the honorable title of the positive critical view of the year.
    • We can't forget for his incredible patience in waiting my Pi 4 roadtest projects I had to delay as are also part of some chapters of the second book (but will come by the end of the month). He won the prizes of

     

     

     

    As many mentioned, more left but never forgotten.

     

    Cheers, Enrico

  • in reply to tariq.ahmad

    Thanks for the insight sounds like a great process. Let the team know we appreciate their excellent work and dedication.

  • in reply to balearicdynamics

    Agree.    Founder of the Year, a nominee for Influencer of the Year, and your R2D2 build is up for Project of the Year.  As far as projects and videos go you cleaned house with P14 . image

     

    also had a big year with P14 with a nomination for Influencer of the Year and Music Box up for Project of the Year.   If you guys have ideas of more awards we can give out then why not?    Maybe we should have more awards for next year?

  • in reply to dougw

    "As an engineer, when I set a goal, I tend to logically analyze how to achieve it"

    Except that there is not much engineering in here, no defined rules, criteria or anything. Society, or the community in this case, behave in a pretty unpredictable way. You can see this clearly in the world of politics, many times actions backfire in an impressive way, considering how much money is at stake you would think politicians would take enough precautions to avoid backfires, yet they still occur. My explanation is that they just can't predict the results of actions as social systems are too complex, random and chaotic. Lots of cognitive biases also play a huge role on people's decisions. For instance maybe rearranging the projects you released the last year could have gotten a  completely different result, for instance by releasing the best projects at the end of the year.

    I've also tried to understand the value system of the community, but at this point I've given up. I can't seem to be able to predict with enough accuracy how the community values different projects.

  • should I say something that is my absolute personal vision? Yes, but don't blame me if it is not too much inline with the common thinking. IMHO (and for me) you are an expert, a real expert, I mean; the point is that I think – repeat, this is MY personal opinion – you should not care of what are the formal nomination. You write in this note that you think you have done wrong this and that. I think that the only thing you maybe are wrong is giving the wrong value to these things. The member of the year is one (over a few active uers, not over half a million of users or more). And most of the path from internal E14 staff discussion up to the nomination and the "election" has a meaningful component of casuality, Or maybe caos-related. But one year is long, and what really count is what you have done during the past year. And you have done a lot, with the right orientation, trying to support and be helpful to many other members. So if I can give you an advice, donàt care too much, many of the guys I know here, personal friend too on someone, deserve to be member of the year, and no one deserve it in the meantime. The real value, the recognized, is what you (or we if I can say) have done, what was the return, the support of the community and the stuff you got, participating to the initiatives. I agree with the consideration of and others.

     

    This is what I think.