Online Community - My Brief History and AHA Moments

There's a reason I tagged myself as "The Reluctant Blogger." In my experience, about 90% of blogging is non-information and really more about proselytizing than what I would call "true editorial content." I think we should leave the editorials to the trained or naturally gifted journalists. And there is a propensity for humans to believe anything that's in print (virtual or otherwise).

Therefore, I think blogging is problematic. In fact, many "blogs" are regurgitated versions of what someone else has already said somewhere else on the net. Those would be blog portals, wouldn't they?

Anyway, here's a brief history of what I do for a living and how I landed in the Online Community business - along with people I've met and admired along the way. I'm sure I've forgotten someone amazing - feel free to speak up. And please forgive me if my memory is not serving me correctly. There's a lot of information to keep up with and one only has so many hours in a day, gray cells, pens and notebooks, thunderbird "to do" lists, and the like.

IT ALL STARTED....
I was born in 1956 in Washington state and born again (virtually) in 1980 using Duke University's TUCC system and playing a computer TUCC system game about a Wizard (this one had wizards and elves and levels and magic wands and dungeons and was on a monochrome screen in text and ascii art). I was completely addicted to this game and spent 3 solid months, 4 hours a day playing it while I was allegedly a secretary in the Biochemistry and Physiology department at Duke University Medical Center. January 1980 through March 1980 - 4 hours a day or more, 5 days a week. It was my new job :) I don't remember the name of the game. Any takers? Surely someone remembers this game.

TUCC and DUCC
I forgot all about TUCC and BBSs and wizards until 1983, September, when I went to work at RTI International. Again, I had access to University system BBSs, gopher, the original I-Phone (anyone remember that? wow, I thought it ruled!), and computing was back in my life. I was at RTI International (survey and statistics, then computer application and design) officially until 1997, when I took a LOA to go work full-time at AOL Inc.

In 1992 or 1993 I was a beta tester for Mosaic while at RTI. In 1994 I was using Word Perfect1.0 on a PC using 10 floppy disks to create and print one document - I thought the revolution in communication had arrived. Little did we know what was to come.

DOS RULED MY WORLD
In 1995 I was kicking and screaming about beta testing Windows and using a mouse. It was the stupidist, slowest thing I'd seen, at the time. DOS worked perfectly fine for me and I could fly through documents and create very complicated characters and documents, styled, etc. using DOS and keystrokes and commands. "Why on earth would ANYONE want to use a mouse or windows??? It's slowing me down!" I whined, for weeks.

Windows 95 came out in like 1996 as I recall and I beta tested it as well. I was now a mouse convert and bitching about having to use MS Word. I was a Word Perfect supporter for years and thought Word was a pain. I also used Harvard Graphics for Gantt charts, Pie and Bar charts, and dBase and eventually FoxPro around 1995 or so. When Java came out it was the talk of the department. Then Visual FoxPro came out and this and that came out and DOS was for the ancestors and Netscape was born and Prodigy, e-world, AOL (previously Q-link), IRC, Dalnet, and BOOM it all started happening.

THE AOL YEARS
I found AOL in 1994 and thought I had died and gone to virtual heaven. I wasn't in there 5 minutes when I knew this was IT. This was the next big thing and this was where I was supposed to be. (I felt like that about Second Life in 1995 as well, by the way). I was at AOL from 1994 to Jan, 2000. As I mentioned, I went full-time with AOL in 1997. I did a variety of jobs at AOL - too many to mention. A few positions over the years included graphic design, forum development and management, and the big one was as Program Manager for the Community Leader Program (recruiting, training and managing thousands of volunteer members). AOL was the online education that brought me into the professional world of Online Community Management. I appreciated every long day I worked there - it was my online educational fringe benefit. The pay sucked, but I knew that going in. I left a decent paying job to go learn the online world via AOL - it was by choice and I have no regrets.

I learned gobs about the net, the online world, community, people, content, writing, web design, tech tool development, html, php, scripting, managing griefers/snerts/trolls, managing recruitment and training of thousands of volunteers and large groups of staff remotely, the list is endless.

I really really REALLY savored my time there. There were difficult co-workers and some rather challenging employees at the Dulles HQs. No need to name any names. It wasn't their fault. They thought they knew everything and that anyone remote didn't count, with a few exceptions. That's something that's rampant in this business, I've found. Plus, they were shoving warm bodies in positions as AOL was exploding with users. Every MBA this side of the Mississippi was at AOL. And you think lawyers are bad! JK - sort of. In those days, MBAs didn't have any practical experience. They're entire knowledge base was theoretical and academic. Thank God colleges are getting smart and actually making MBAs work :D

Anyway...I left AOL in early 2000, had a brief nightmare experience with a company in Massachusetts, went to work for a few different folks and then did consulting for awhile. Some of my favorite clients from that time include Marshall Brain, the Founder of HowStuffWorks.com, American University, I-Chat (early days), and Fowler's Food & Wine.

THE SULAKE YEARS
I left a lucrative job, once again, to work for Habbo UK Ltd. in 2002. Habbo UK was amazing and way ahead of the curve. Again, I thought I'd found the Holy Grail. I left RTI for AOL. I left AOL to consult. I left Fowler's for Habbo. I spent nearly 6 years at Habbo and worked with some amazing people. Sulake bought out Dee Edwards in October of 2002 (I think it was October) and began planning to open Habbo Hotels around the globe. By the time it was all said and done, Habbo was in 24 countries and we had 70 million users (or more, can't remember). It was an incredible learning experience and I was lucky enough to work with so many talented, dedicated, smart and creative people. I really loved the users as well. Working with young people is so rewarding and good for the soul. Working with people is good for the soul :D

MIND CANDY and THE PRESENT
I left Sulake/Habbo in October 2007 to join Mind Candy Inc. (moshimonsters.com). Again, I had that gut feeling - this is it. This is the next place for me to be. I knew within 5 minutes of my first phone conversation with Michael Acton-Smith, that I'd be joining Mind Candy. I flew over and met the team and they are just amazing people. Creative, talented, hard working, dedicated, really fantastic. I told Michael I felt like I'd won the job lottery. It's such a great feeling to know you're where you should be - to be in alignment with the Universe. We have our share of issues like any work place but the proof is in the pudding. And the pudding is looking damned tasty :D The userbase is growing at a fabulous rate. The features are cranking out and the users are heavily involved with how we build the product. We have a highly active community of all ages. They're creatives and early adopters, so they're hard core users for the most part.

My Other Lives
I do some consulting on the side for some major gaming industry companies and one major pharmaceutical company, even a few national sports sites - and I've been speaking at conferences about Web 2.0, Online Community, Online Safety and Kids, and Volunteer Management for several years. I really enjoy consulting and speaking because I'm passionate about online community, moderation, education and creativity, the online world, and being part of a team. I'm passionate about watching people find their talents and interests and building their lives with online tools as their catalyst. I have seen many young teens grow up, get MBAs (groan) and become VCs, Artists, Game Designers, Actors, Tech geniuses, and much more over the past 15 years. I wouldn't trade a second of it for thousands of shares in google :D (well, hmmm...let me rethink that).

I've met amazing people because of the web. People I would likely have never met otherwise. The moment I was online and saw several thousand others like me online, way back in the early 90s, my whole being knew "this is it!" It was my biggest AHA moment of my life and I was not young :D Those AHA moment are precious. I have been a musician since the 70s, professional and semi-professional. I know about AHA moments - they're spiritually moving. The web has the ability to give us all AHA moments as often as we can stand them.

That's what I love about the web.