I wanted to provide everyone with an update on what's been happening with Telligent and me since my Community Evangelist gig ended last Christmas. As I described in "No longer a Community Server Evangelist" back in January, my role at Telligent doing full-time work in support and evangelism ended a couple of days before Christmas. From that point my role was to provide two hours a day of Gold Forums Support and any additional hours in development on client projects. Cool! The problem was that the client projects were slow to get rolling and as an Independent Contractor I wasn't billing very many hours or making any money. It was quite a financial hit to be honest. After a few weeks I realized I had to view Telligent like any other client, and not as a full-time employer. That dog just didn't hunt anymore. So I hung up my Community Server Shingle and the rest, as they say, is in the Event Logs.
I informed Telligent I was no longer available for development work in mid-February when it was clear I didn't have enough time to work on both my client projects and Telligent projects, even though by that time Telligent projects were just starting to ramp up. I've got fantastic clients and interesting projects, so that was an easy decision to make. The hard decision--and the one I'm still wrestling with--is, do I continue to spend two hours a day doing Gold Forums support? Or do I instead spend those two hours on development work for my clients? If the decision came down to money, my last day in Gold Forums Support would have been last Tuesday, but it's not about money. It's about my relationships with some of the best developers on the planet, really great guys who I think the world of. The Wizard, for instance, who is the true star of Gold Forums (and most things CommunityServer.org), has become like a brother to me. Jose Lema, the Lead Developer on Community Server, is one of the warmest and most generous guys I've even known. Ken Robertson, another member of the CS Core Team, has been wonderful to me in every way. The list goes on, and is the reason why it's seriously difficult to cut my official Telligent ties.
But the reality is that from a business perspective, I'll probably have to leave Gold Forums and Telligent altogether and spend that time on client projects. And I suspect that will probably happen sooner rather than later, so if a post titled "Life After Telligent" finds its way to your RSS reader you'll know what I decided.