I’ve been writing The Bamboo Project for almost a year and a half now.  In the past few months I’ve been aware of a feeling that there is certain work I love to do and other work that interests me less.  My recent posts on the social media helix have been helping me clarify a lot of my thoughts. My experiences last month with the Beyond the Glass Ceiling Career Retreat added additional grist to the mill. Ultimately where they've led me is to a new understanding of what I do and where I want to focus this blog and my work going forward.

After a few weeks of mulling things over, I’ve arrived at a new mission for The Bamboo Project, one that’s probably more evolutionary than anything else, but I still feel the need to be clear. Here it is:

This blog is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations use best practices and social media tools to construct life-long learning and career development systems. We are all knowledge workers who must continually respond to a rapidly-changing world. We cannot afford to remain professionally stagnant or isolated from others who could help us learn and grow.  New technologies empower us to take charge of our personal and professional growth in ways we've never experienced. I want to facilitate understanding about the role of social media in supporting career development and lifelong learning and empower people and organizations to develop the skills to use these resources.  I'm using this space to stimulate discussion on how social media transforms professional development and to share examples, tools and tips. In the process, I'm also modeling how I use social media for my own growth as a knowledge worker.

What I'm realizing is that while there's a lot to be discussed in terms of using a blog to market an organization or a wiki to collaborate on a project, that isn't my own personal passion. That stuff interests me, but I'm not passionate about it. What gets me going is helping individuals and organizations set up systems that support ongoing professional development and growth. This means using my background in career development and learning, as well as my knowledge and experiences with technology. These are my best skill sets and this is the work I enjoy the most.  I also love modeling this behavior because it forces me to practice what I preach. Writing about my personal learning experiments--forcing myself to engage in personal learning experiments even--this is exciting to me and helpful in ways that I think many people need.

You'll see that to better communicate this more refined direction, I've changed the look of the blog a little, as well as my tagline. You'll also see in the sidebar that I've added some new sections on services as I'm planning to focus my ongoing work more in these directions. If you know of anyone who's interested in what I'm selling, let me know.

So my path is changing a little here, but this isn't something completely different from what I've been doing. I'll continue to write about technology and learning and career and professional development best practices. What I won't be writing about anymore are ways to use technology tools to do other things, like marketing or fundraising or customer relations. I also will be broadening the context of my writing--this is stuff I think benefits everyone, not just people in the nonprofit sector. I hope that this is a path that most of you can relate to and that you'll continue with me in this journey of understanding. I really do feel like we're poised on the edge of an incredible new world and I'm excited to play a part in it.