Motivation
The road to achieving goals can be rocky and often requires hard work, determination, and persistence. Many people have made numerous attempts before finally achieving their breakthrough. It’s important to remember that failures and setbacks are part of the process and that it’s normal to need several attempts to achieve the desired goal. The ability to learn from mistakes and keep going is an important part of the journey to success. Or you are lucky to use a not foreseeable situation as an opportunity. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
The journey
My first attempt to create a community of UX people was in 2018 via a Discord server. The problem was that I only knew one other UX designer from my company back then who I invited to join the server. We didn’t really use the platform because we saw each other every day at work and he wasn’t online as much as I was, so at the end we didn’t really use it and it became obsolete.
Next attempt
2020: The emergence of Covid-19 required everyone to work remotely from home. So we had to set up a chat group to keep the communication going, since then our UX Team had grown. We also arrange private lunch gatherings through Zoom to discuss the UX-related challenges that each of us faces.
When I switched jobs, we needed a new communication channel that was independent of the company to keep in touch. A new Discord server aka UX Freiburg was created. Furthermore, we have also organized regular meetings in person. Especially in the summertime, when the Covid-19 restrictions were eased. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was also a notable increase in job transitions in our group. Consequently, we would come across other UX designers and extend an invitation to join the Discord server. As the number of people increased, so did the level of activity, resulting in a feedback loop that attracted even more individuals. What therefore led to the founding of the German UPA regional group Freiburg with a total number of 19 people (28.02.2023). Side note: We used ChatGPT to create the email to request the registration of our UX community.
Besides our Discord server we have an official website and we also have a wiki to make our sources and topics accessible to us and others in a structured way.
Conclusion
In summary, the road to success sometimes happens when you least expect it. The Covid 19 epidemic and the increase in job transitions led to an increase in online activities and people, which resulted in the founding of the German UPA regional group Freiburg. With an official website, wiki, and Discord server, our group has developed a platform where people can exchange ideas, share knowledge, and support each other on their path to UX success. This demonstrates the value of teamwork and the power of a community to achieve goals. Kudos to my co-founders Laura and Miri, with whom we could not have made the Discord server scale up to this size.