Next Steps

It's been a week eh folks, sigh. So because it has been a week for me as well this is going to be a short post. 

I am working on something that I am excited about, but I am not ready to share in its totality yet for some of the reasons I mentioned in last week's blog. I have long had folk take my ideas and use them as their own, and I am very much about sharing and being in community, but these are not community people doing this. These are people who use the keywords and community knowledge to get the awards and the titles and publications.

Folk have asked me if I am moving to that elephant thing, and well honestly I am just not feeling it. I have put 11 years plus of my life into this space, I have met some fabulous people and made friendships that have spanned years. If you don't believe how much I love this place you can read this post I wrote earlier this year (opens in a new window) when nefarious forces were trying to get me off of this space. But I do have a bigger plan.

Those of you who know me know that I do a lot of things besides just work and yell at people to alt-text on Twitter. I organize and facilitate a disability reading group. I host twitter chats. I help support folk in disability community who are working on articles by reading over work and offering feedback. I go on podcasts. I create and am a part of different community spaces where people share barriers and we crowd source solutions or offer support. I have meetings with leaders of different associations and ask them nicely to stop being ableist (and sometimes they listen, but mostly they don't). I organize conferences. So basically my bigger plan will bring all those things I do together under one umbrella so I can stop feeling pulled in different places, but also so the folk who are in those different spaces could ideally come together in one place if they wanted to.

This is not about me, this is a space for folk. I am not turning into one of those HigherEd brand myself people, you know me better than that. This is also not a charge money for entry thing. You also know me better than that. I have people from around the world that I am going to work with on different parts of this to make it as inclusive as we can. I am going to value and amplify (and compensate) the knowledge these folk have in creating this space. 

Yes I know this sounds so very nebulous. I just wanted to put something out there cause folk are in my DMs asking me for like a whole business plan and I basically would like them to stop and let me do what I need to do on my end (which includes paperwork and a bunch of other outreach things). I also need time to do this. This whole switcharoo here kind of just happened and I have had no time to really process any of it. What I do want though is if you are interested in whatever it is I have just noted here that you give me something that I can use to keep in touch with you when I do have it in place (let's be honest it will probably be April 2023 but if I can get it done for February I would be happy actually). So please fill out this Google form (opens in a new window). It asks a few questions and helps me know who you are. 

I know everything is so hard right now everyone. I hope you have support in the places you are in- I have had such hard conversations with people this week. The people who don't acknowledge the shift that is happening are often folk who are privileged in other ways so they can readily find a new community. I am thinking of you all. You mean so much to me. I am not going to deactivate, unless it gets too unsafe. Thank you for all the great convos over the years.