This is the 105th and most likely, my final blog post for my Catalyze blog.
I have been the community manager with Catalyze since before it even had a name – starting with the initial strategy sessions in August 2006 to the selection of Mzinga as the community vendor in October 2006 to the beta launch in March 2007 and through the public launch in June 2007. Since then the community has grown to over 4,000 members, who have visited 75,000 times and looked at 320,000 pages.
Due to the current and unfortunate business environment, I was laid off last week by iRise (the Catalyze sponsor and my full-time employer). Let's just say that my departure from iRise had nothing to do with my performance as Catalyze Community Manager or as an employee.
The end was a very abrupt Web 1.0 way to what has become a Web 2.0 world for me – and I didn't get a chance to fully transfer my duties and community knowledge to a successor. This also means that I won't be updating the community content, you won't be receiving any more bi-weekly email updates from me and I will no longer be hosting the monthly webcasts.
I would like to thank iRise for sponsoring Catalyze, the many people who helped get Catalyze off the ground, the IIBA and the UPA, our vendor Mzinga (Jim Storer and Isaac Hazard) and most especially you, the members of Catalyze. Without your patronage, repeated visits, contributions to the discussions and content, Catalyze would not be where it is today.
You can still contact me at thumbarger@yahoo.com or follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Tom_Humbarger/773690552 or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomhumbarger. I also have a blog set up at http://tomhumbarger.wordpress.com/.
My plans are to stay in the social media/community space so chances are that we will cross paths again. I have learned a lot from this experience, had more than my share of fun and developed good friendships with some of you.
By the way, you can always send your Catalyze community comments and feedback to feedback@catalyze.org.
I have always said that Catalyze is your community –and it is up to you to drive the future. Speak up, make your desires known and keep building on the great foundation that we built together.