Behind The Scenes

HFHPN Member-Only Page

It takes a village to raise… a village.

There’s a lot of decisions that get made in the process of creating a website… and encouraging a community to grow.

Now that you are directly contributing to supporting this site and community by becoming a member of HFHPN, I’d love to invite you into some of the behind-the-scenes workings so that you can offer your questions, thoughts, and feedback.

I’m not sure how to do this, frankly. And I expect that this process will change over time as we learn more together. It feels a bit awkward, and I’m afraid what I post won’t make sense… and… it’s also important to me to anchor this process of building a community, and this way of being, in transparency and collaboration.

So for now, I’ll start posting information about HFH or HFHPN-related projects that I’m working on… or perhaps related questions that I’m pondering… and I’m hoping you will chime in with your questions, thoughts, feedback, and insights if you would like!

But first…

New Membership Program Appreciations

Over the last half a year (or more) I’ve been working on building a Membership structure for HFHPN to help sustain the work of the website, directory, and community activities in the long run.

Many of you have been a part of this process with me… You helped me problem solve during a Newerish group or Last Tuesday consult group. You listened to me bounce ideas around one-on-one (and then a few weeks later… you listened again). You responded to my call for more brains last December. You encouraged me to keep going. You’ve been patient with me as this process has unfolded.

I would like to offer specific and deep thanks to the members of this community who Beta tested the system over this past month, slogged through all of my questions, provided guidance, (and still find me lobbing questions at them now and again).

Brad Osborn, Lara Okoloko, Meggan McEvoy, Melanie Ota, Dr. Heather Fulton, Debra O’Connor, Carey Rinke, Carol Rose, Laurie Healy, Jane Macky, Michelle Kuecker, Jill DiLoreto, Elizabeth Didlake, and Elliot Foote.

This path is so much smoother because you were willing to tromp through the weeds first.

Thank you. 💙

So what happens now?

Here’s a few things I have my sights on:

Video Gumbo: Dr. Heather Fulton has been working hard at pulling together a “Video Gumbo”… a list of videos, articles, etc. that can be helpful for illustrating CRAFT-based ideas within groups or individual work. (Yes… Nail in the Head is already on there!) This has been a ongoing discussion within the Last Tuesday Consult group… and I’m so excited that Heather is making it happen!!!!! My job will be to create the page for this, as well as a way to submit entries, so that you can help co-create this resource as well.
Internal Database: For the HFHPN Members who have made accounts so far there has been an overwhelming interest in having in Internal Database of Members. This will be different from the public facing Directory (especially since Membership Works only really allows for one directory), so it’s not going to be as pretty, but it will be functional.
Una página web en español: There are a few groups, a resource or two, and several HFHPN email group providers who offer this work to Spanish-speaking family members. I want to pull these resources together into one page, in Spanish, to increase the access for these families.
SEO & Analytics work: I had a company help me with SEO last year, but they were rather expensive, and not really great… and I didn’t really see a change through time. So.. I’d like to learn it myself. Boosting my technical knowledge here will create a more powerful megaphone for you and your work!
Guest blog: I checked in with providers at the beginning of July to see how many of us might be interested in participating in a guest blog, and received many enthusiastic responses! Awesome! Now that I know you are interested, I need to create the support within the site to do that.
Step by step instructions for creating a Directory Profile: This isn’t the most intuitive system.. and it would be really nice to be able to offer a little more support!

All of this will take a while to get to… so thank you for your collaboration, patience, and support!

Anything on this list that you have questions about or are interested in contributing to in some way? Let me know in the form below!