Welcome to The Bureau Briefing, our community podcast. Be sure to find us on iTunes or Google Play!
Carl Smith, Builder of Community, Bureau of Digital
The year has just flown by and, suddenly, here we are: the final podcast of 2019! As we look back on the past year, we’re so thankful for everyone in the Bureau community. We continue to be amazed by the openness, generosity and willingness of 8,000+ digital leaders who devote their time, energy and expertise to help one another and make the industry better.
It’s incredible, and we want to thank you for supporting the community, and being a part of it. Also, thank you to all of our event attendees, speakers, facilitators and volunteers…to our alumni, special guests, members and Founder’s Club. We’re still basking in the glow of a year full of inspiration, ideas, connections and conversations.
And, of course, a heartfelt thank-you to our amazing partners who make the community possible: Mailchimp, InVision, VOGSY, Summit CPA Group, Smartsheet, Media Temple, Matchstick, Craft CMS and so many other organizations who are supporting digital leaders and redefining the industry.
We have many new events coming up in 2020, and are putting together new opportunities to engage and get the support you need. Check them out and take advantage of special early bird pricing. Plus, tune in to learn more about Bureau Bucks. Happy holidays everyone!
Bureau Bucks are here. Optimize your year-end budget and tax strategy, and enjoy special savings.
Carl: Hello, my friends and welcome to this, the final episode of The Bureau Briefing for 2019. Where did the year go? It has been crazy. I hope that you had a year full of success and support because that's what the Bureau's all about. It's about helping all of us to get better and allowing us to help others to get better as well. That's what community is. I am not going to kid you, it has been an insane year for us.
Carl: The community continued to grow. We continued to offer more. The team stayed roughly the same size until just a couple of weeks ago, but we got it all done and we got it all done with your help. I think my favorite part of this year is to see how many new people came into the community, how many new people get engaged with the Bureau. That's fun. They did not know what to expect. Every time I see somebody's eyes light up because they realize we're going to talk about real things, we're going to talk about real challenges, we're going to help each other. That realization and energy and excitement is what we need on the Bureau team to keep us going. Knowing that we're making a difference in helping people, that's everything to us.
Carl: Now, before I get around to thanking all of the people who made 2019 great, I want to share a few things about 2020. First of all, if you have not looked at the event schedule, please, in the show notes, we have a link to it. If you go to bureauofdigital.com and click on the events tab and all events, you'll get there.
Carl: We have got more events, we have got new events. We have got additional options for everyone in terms of how to engage and how to get the support that you need. Please take a look at the 2020 events. Also, we get asked all the time, if there's some way to do a season pass and there's never been a way to do it. Some people want to go ahead and prepay this year for what's going to happen next year. Part of that's taxes, part of that is just so they don't forget to put money away for it, that sort of stuff.
Carl: Well, we now have what we're calling Bureau Bucks, and this is the opportunity to go ahead and pay for whatever event you want to go to now and then use the Bureau Bucks then. Think of it as a gift certificate or a gift card, and between now and the end of the year, you'll get 10% in additional Bureau Bucks for every dollar that you spend. Spend $1,000, get 1100 Bureau Bucks, basically saving you 10% on any Bureau related purchase, if it's an event, if it's membership, whatever it might be. If you're interested in events next year, but you don't know which ones, but you have budget to spend this year, check out Bureau Bucks.
Carl: Now, I have got to thank some people, being that this is the end of the year episode of the Bureau Briefing. First, Mailchimp. You have been there from the beginning. You are constantly supporting us. You allow us to do amazing things for the community, so thank you. Your support is just unmatched and we appreciate it so much.
Carl: InVision, you helped us grow a brand new segment of this community with design leaders. Your insights into design and the return on investment and design maturity, the content that you helped create to make all of us smarter, thank you for that. Thank you for being a part of the Bureau and helping us to move things forward.
Carl: VOGSY, our friends from the Netherlands. They came in late last year and said, "We want to be part of the Bureau. We want to meet the Bureau." I'm so glad that you helped us this year, that you became part of what we were doing and that you really supported us as well. I will tell you this, we have friends that went to Olicamp in Banff, we truly appreciate you providing that ski day at the end. It was, in a word, magnificent. Thank you, VOGSY.
Carl: Summit CPA. Summit is friends. They help us out at the Bureau, make sure that we keep our finances going in the right way, and they also help out a huge part of the community and they've also been sponsors. Thank you so much, Summit.
Carl: Smartsheet. Smartsheet acquired 10,000ft who had been a big part of what the Bureau was doing and then they came in strong and we just appreciate you Smartsheet. You were there at the Digital PM Summit this year in Orlando, which happened to be, congratulations Brett Harned, the best digital PM summit ever. Not only was it the largest, but we had Mickey Mouse on stage. Okay. You just shut it down. Okay. Nope, let's do it again. We'll do it again next year.
Carl: I want to thank Media Temple. Media Temple has been with the Bureau for a long time as well. Last year in December of 2018, they wanted to donate to the Diversity Scholarship before we were even asking people to. I just want to thank Media Temple for that. They got us started on that role of getting people to contribute to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Scholarships. Thank you so much, Media Temple.
Carl: I also want to thank our friends at Matchstick, Gabe and Josh. They've helped us out with our legal needs. They help out a lot of people in the community with their legal needs. When it comes to just helping us understand what is going on in contracts, and legal and negotiations, there's no better group.
Carl: Then, finally, I want to thank Craft. Craft has been around for a while now. They've been around in the Bureau circles, but they are now coming strong and they are going to be sponsoring the tour at Owner Summit in February. We're doing a city tour and Kraft said, "Hey, we want to help. Let us be part of that." To our first sponsor in 2020, Craft, thank you. It's nice to have you on board and I can't wait to see you in New Orleans when we go on that city tour because I'm just going to sing your praises for helping us out.
Carl: Let's think all of the special guests that we had and the speakers. I want to thank the people who came to the Bureau Briefing Podcast and put up with me. I truly appreciate it. There were so many highlights this year for me personally, people that I got to speak with, things that I learned and if you listen to the show, you know that, generally, I am just inquisitive and want to understand what's going on. I don't know how it always is for the guests, but for me it's wonderful and I've heard great things from you. To all of the guests that we had on the podcast, thank you so much.
Carl: I want to thank everyone that we had speak at events or show up as a special guest to help us with events. We made so many friends this year and we've seen so many old friends that have come back this year. All of you, thank you so much. I need to thank the team. Right? The Bureau team is just the best. Over the past few years, Brett and Lori and I, just ran forward as fast as we could. We tried to anticipate what the community wanted. We listened to the community, we try to put all these things together and we weren't always able to do everything. We had to quickly shift from one thing to another and I will be honest, it was exhausting.
Carl: Then last year, Jen Hyde came on. Jen had been at a company with me earlier, my shop nGen and she started taking over some of the marketing, and the social, and she's super smart when it comes to figuring out how to position things, and she's a great writer and we got better. Now, we're looking to grow the team again. We just welcome somebody on board, Judith, who has all this experience with events and she's helping us get things done sooner, so we have more time to make things special when we get together. It's all because we're finally at a place where we can grow the team a little bit and that's because of you. That's the final thank you here, is thanks to you, the Bureau community. You support us, you lift us up.
Carl: The emails that we get, the things that people pull me aside and tell me the differences that we've made. We've seen layoffs avoided. We've seen people get amazing opportunities in their personal careers. We've seen companies work together. What I'd like to think of is Bureau babies where two companies have merged together. We've seen that happen a few times this year. It's absolutely true. You are the reason that we are here and there's nowhere else that I would rather be. I will speak for the team saying, I don't think there's anywhere else they would rather be. You are so gracious. You are so good at helping each other.
Carl: Our job is just to help create those spaces, to help create the opportunities for us to get real with each other. Because as a friend was telling me this morning, you can't scale intimacy and that's true. But what we can do is help get people together who can help each other and give them the spaces so that they can make that happen. That's what we do and that's what you do. That's why the community is growing so fast. That's why the team needs to grow now.
Carl: 2020, I see it as this opportunity for all of us to just help more. I know the calendar is flipping and now it's 2020 and they're going to be so many bad vision jokes, so many bad eyesight jokes over the next year that I hope it plays itself out super early. But nope, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to take the low-hanging fruit. I'm just going to say thank you. You've given me a place to be and you've given the Bureau team, a purpose, building community where it didn't exist, and giving people this opportunity to go further together. Thank you for that. Have a great holiday season. We can't wait to see you again, hear from you again, be inspired by you again. Stay in touch and as always, let us know what we can do for you. All the best.
SHOW NOTES
Bureau events are a place for digital professionals to connect with peers, explore ideas and learn from one another. See what we have planned for 2020, and join us! View calendar of events.
With Bureau Bucks, you can spend this year's budget on next year's events. Enjoy the flexibility of choosing which events, programs or opportunities you'd like to take advantage of in the future.
