Welcome to the Journey Behind the Scenes
Welcome to the third chapter of our behind-the-scenes journey. This month, I’m excited to share the launch of two pivotal platforms: our new website and podcast. These digital frontiers are designed to connect, inform, and inspire our community. The website will serve as a hub for all our content, providing easy access to articles, updates, and resources. Meanwhile, the podcast will offer a dynamic and engaging way to explore various topics, featuring insightful conversations with industry experts and thought leaders. Join me as we embark on this new phase, leveraging the power of digital media to broaden our reach and deepen our impact.
During this month, there were two major accomplishments in my portfolio career journey. They were:
- Launching of the podcast, Stories by Career Sistas
- Launching of our website, www.careersistas.com
Both these activities highlighted the variety of things that you need to get involved with when setting up your own initiatives, regardless of whether such is full-time or part-time.
Website Launch
Starting first with the website, as most endeavours will need such. I thought I was competent technology wise, but there is a huge gap between using websites and being able to competently design them (or just make the decisions about your website).
To begin, there were all the basics, like buying the domain name, choosing hosting and email providers, how much space I needed, what platform it should be built on, should we use a template, and more. Ultimately, I used AI to help make sense of the myriad of options and then I had to “phone a friend” to get some further advice and assistance. And all that is before you get into Search Engine Optimisation and fraud protection. Ultimately, I am sure I could have just found a freelancer and said build me something. However, while it might have taken a bit longer, I think taking the extra time to understand the choices being made ensured that I could more clearly distinguish between offerings and determine what was the best fit to my needs. Develop offers truly ranged from a couple hundred pounds to £10,000+.
I am sure there will be much more to learn, and my no means am I doing it all, but I definitely appreciate understanding more about how this area works which is fairly critical to any endeavour today as even if you are not selling through a website it is probably one of the main starting points of establishing credibility.
Podcast Launch
The next major accomplishment this month, was of course the podcast launch. This was personal for many reasons. I have always thought there were not enough platforms for diverse voices, so I love being able to create a platform for such. Additionally, I know when I was growing up and even well into my career, I did not see many women who looked like me doing a range of roles. Hence, that limitation of “you can’t be what you can’t see” is part of my driving force of wanting to share more diverse stories and hear from multiple perspectives, the choices they made, the lessons they learnt and then would pass on to others and the next generation. Accordingly, it is great that Stories by Career Sistas is now live. We have published five episodes at this point. And yes, there have been lots of learnings particularly technology wise, recording software, podcast platforms, lighting factors, editing considerations, all topics I knew nothing about six months ago, and of course I am still learning, but it is great to get something out there, and then evolve further.
Takeaways
Hence, the takeaways:
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help – Now I am never going to be a website designer but a few weeks in and I feel so much more knowledgeable thanks to the amazing network of friends who answered by silly questions, helped set things up and more. People can’t help if you don’t ask.
- Just get started – Even if you don’t know all the answers, just get started. Start small of course but just start and you will learn and evolve.
- Share your story – Finally, it is so important that we all share our stories so that there the stories that get told and remembered reflect the wonderful diversity of our world.
So, my final reflections this month. Even if things are not perfect, start small, keep learning, keep growing, keep sharing.
What have you started? What are proud of having done for the first time? What have you postponed doing that you do want to do this year?
