Dear element14 Community,
A heart felt thank you to everyone who participated in our Bit by the Bug promotion which closed on January 20th. Its one of the coolest things I've been a part of at element14 and I'm grateful it came off as a success! Over the holiday season we had a limited supply of element14 swag bags that had to go as part of a promotion in support of the community as a whole and several areas in particular: Business of Engineering , Arduino ,BeagleBoard ,Raspberry Pi , and the STEM Academy. These are all areas of interest to the community and something to keep an eye on over the following year. I just want you to know that we read over each and every one of your stories and everyone here at element14 was ecstatic about the response we got.
The idea was pitched to me by element14Dave before he left to pursue his next opportunity and I was both humbled and honored I was being asked to take the lead on this. Before I worked for the element14 community I was on the transactional side of the company, working out of the Chicago office. I was asked to join the community at the same time as jlucas in Leeds, UK office. You might be familiar with jlucas from his work with Business of Engineering and STEM Academy. element14Dave was the ideal teammate and easy to work with, like me he was a friendly, laid back Midwesterner. Not only was he the guy who showed me the ropes over at element14 and made me feel comfortable, more importantly he was a friend and someone who helped me grow as a person. When I was asked to run the element14's The Ben Heck Show on behalf of the element14 community, element14Dave was my biggest supporter and cheerleader and helped me along until I knew how to swim.
Many of our Top Members know what a loss losing element14Dave on the community was for the element14 team and you can't simply replace one individual with another. I want to take this moment to assure everyone that you are in the hands of a passionate and dedicated team that will look after your needs. The people who ran the community before us left us with a great example and a path to follow as we push this forward to places we couldn't have gotten to without them. jwatson is running Raspberry Pi and Design Challenges with rscasny. rscasny is handlingRoadTests & Reviews ,Design Challenges , and has done a magnificent job with the essentials courses inEssentials and the Industrial Automation I worked on with him to get set up (but he's the expert). In addition to working with makerkaren , mstephens-e14 , cstanton, flyhaf1 , and Kelly (she get's enough messages) on the e14 side of element14's The Ben Heck Show , I'll be working on improving your Arduino experience and leaning heavily on cstanton to make sure the job gets done right, and I'm also working on improving video on e14 with Dudley. There's also spannerspencer who's a Jedi force ghost who's always around even when he isn't. spannerspencer was a tremendous help with 'Bit by the Bug' and designed the flyer as well as helped with the messaging along with everyone else. e14megan is the newest member of our team and I'll save the formal introduction until she's had time to get comfortable and settled. I will say that she's done some work I think you'll find interesting.... Hint: It happened in a galaxy far, far away.....
A lot of people work behind the scenes and do incredible work throughout our community: pchan and randogless are our designers that work tirelessly supporting all the different programs here on the community and make us look good ; cstanton , plowe , andSarribas bring new friends into the community with their outstanding job on social; summerella ,ChristyZ , oadesida , and Dudley make sense of our insane requests; and those in charge have done an outstanding job taking the talent they have and putting them in opportunities where they have a chance to succeed. More names than I've mentioned make the community possible and everyone here more than carries their weight to make things possible.
Bit by the Bug was an idea that we all came up with as a group at element14 because we wanted to do something special for our community members.
This was my first year working as a member of the element14 team and I'm grateful to be a part of such a hard working, smart, talented, and diverse crew!
Tariq
