Transparency, Meet Community: Here’s What’s New for the Open blog

At Buffer, our journey has been full of experiments, pivot points, reflection and transitions, and it is our privilege to share them all with you here.

Today, we’re excited to update you on a few changes here on the Open blog!

For a while now, Courtney has been the incredible shepherd and heart of the Open blog, reporting on the lessons we’re learning at Buffer and sharing insights on happier, more productive, more creative work from all kinds of smart folks.

Recently she has transitioned into a new full-time passion as Buffer’s first Inclusivity Catalyst. This created an opportunity for someone within the Buffer team to take the helm of the Open Blog (and my, what an amazing legacy to follow!)

Here’s the full story of what we have in store for the future of the Open blog!

Hello from your new Open blog editor!

When I learned Courtney was stepping into inclusivity full time, I was pulled toward the Open Blog as it has so much potential and ways to serve the larger Buffer community. But was it the best fit for me? Is having me in this role the best thing for Buffer?

To share a bit more about myself, I’ve been a part of the Buffer team for two years this April and I’ve been so honored to serve as the first Community Champion. I’m a journalism major and historical fiction writer, so writing and contributing the Open Blog has been a passion of mine throughout my tenure — as I’ve recently returned from ten weeks of family leave, I’ve been re-crafting what my role looks like as Community Lead.

Through discussions of the future of the Open Blog with Courtney stepping away, an idea came up to bring the Open Blog under the community umbrella.

This resonated with me — both for our internal team community and external community. Through the past two years of learning from our community, I’ve been so touched by how our friends and customers enjoy hearing what we’re up to at Buffer.

With our value of transparency, the Open Blog is vital to sharing data, challenges, new avenues and more! From my personal experience while I was on family leave, I turned often to the Open Blog to feel in the loop with all the latest in the company. Thus, as our team is growing (we’re nearing 90 teammates!), the need for more internal communications has arisen.

This brings us to where we are today! After considering so many options and ways that the Open blog might tie into my personal and team goals, it felt like this was a solid match!

So what changes for the Open blog?

What does this mean for you, our beloved Open blog community? Hopefully lots of cool things!

The Open Blog will begin posting more frequently and regularly, for one. The types of posts you might find will remain similar to what you’re used to in many respects, and we’ll also be testing out a few more types of posts (some shorter posts, more Buffer team member posts, perhaps more guest posts? The sky is the limit!)

I’m excited to share more stories about what we’re experimenting with and learning on the Buffer team, and I’m eager to learn from you as well.

Here are a few upcoming posts to look for:

• From startup to scaleup: How do you know when you stop being a startup? What does it look like to triple your team size in a short time? Joel shares a thoughtful reflection.
• Buffer’s new product structure: We’ve recalibrated yet again as we work to achieve the best results for our customers. We’ll share all the details of our current model.
• The editor/operator model: Some leaders are best at focusing on the executions of projects and processes. Others want to dive deep into a few projects and focus on creativity, vision, and problem-solving capabilities. How do the two work together? It’s our newest experiment!
• Diving into OKRs: We’ve been heavily inspired by Google’s model of OKRs, which stands for stands for Objectives and Key Results. We experimented with them for the first time in the first quarter of 2016 and we’d love to share what we’ve learned so far.
• and so much more!

Here’s a glimpse of our ideas Trello board!

And though she’ll still make frequent appearances on the Open blog to reflect on insights around inclusivity and diversity, Courtney wanted to share a few words about her time at the helm of the Open blog.

From Courtney
Before I found my home at Buffer, I had never given a lot of thought to the culture of work.

I experienced environments both corporate and startup. I filled out intricate vacation forms months in advance at one job, and played darts and drank beer on the clock at another. Through each experience, I shrugged and thought, “I guess this is just how it works here.”

But at Buffer, culture is impossible to take for granted. Here, I finally came to understand that culture isn’t just “how it works”. Culture is made by people – every day, with every word and decision.

That’s why it’s been such a privilege to explore stories of workplace culture on the Open blog with you for the past year. Why we work is as important as what we make, and culture is a worthy – and fascinating – area to write about and think about.

As I dig deeper into a specific area of Buffer’ culture – inclusivity – I’m excited to leave the Open blog in fantastic hands and ready for a bright future.

It’s a huge honor to follow Courtney’s rockstar work here on the Open Blog, and I’m grateful to learn from her, Leo, Ash, Kevan and so many other content experts here on the team.

We are excited to be on this journey with you — to learn, grow and adjust as we try new things!

Turning it over to you!

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, or feel free to email me! What would you like to see more of here on the Open Blog?