Season 2, Episode #9: Bringing the Umbraco Community Together with the Team from Skrift

Welcome back, once more, to Happy Porch Radio. This is episode 9 of Season 2 which is all about Umbraco.

In the last few episodes we have had some really insightful conversations with agencies and in this episode we shift gears slightly to talk about the Umbraco community.

In this episode I speak to the inspiring team behind skrift.io: the monthly magazine for sharing knowledge in the Umbraco community.

We talk about how and why they put so much passion into Skrift and the role of the Umbraco community in their professional lives.

One of the most important parts of this conversation (I feel) is how valuable it is – as an agency leader – to allow and encourage your team to take part in the wider community. Local meet ups, conferences and relevant festivals are an important part of the continuous improvement of you, your team and therefore your agency.

Image of Erica Quessenberry, Kyle Weems and Janae Cram

Erica, Janae, and Kyle from Skrift

 

Skrift headquarters resides in Bellingham, WA, at whatever restaurant or coffee house of choice suits Erica, Janae, and Kyle for their weekly meetings. At its core, the magazine was contrived to bring the global Umbraco community together and find a localized place to promote uWestFest and other festivals around the world. Having worked together for seven years, each member of the team brings their own unique skills to Skrift’s management. As a freelance UX/UI designer, Erica is in charge of design, user testing, and statistics; Janae specializes in the C#, HTML, and CSS of the site as their resident code junkie; and Kyle puts his skills to use both as their Javascript guru and Editor In Chief (he’s an award-winning journalist and cartoonist, you know!*).
Passionate about the web and Umbraco with skills developed working together in an agency before going separate paths, Skrift is an endeavor defined for them in the same honest way they present: as a community, forged between bonds of strong friendship and a decent amount of beer.
* This happened in high school

Listen to the episode

Tune in to find out:

 

  • The story of Skrift being ‘born out of desperation’.
  • How travel, reciprocity, and sometimes being just a little selfish all help motivate the three of them to continue publishing a community magazine.
  • How people have reacted to Skrift thus far.
  • The importance of being part of the Umbraco community as an agency (no matter the agency size).
  • How stepping into the Umbraco community led to more partnerships and projects being taken on by their agency.
  • How networking can help you grow as a developer.
  • Why it’s important for your designers to understand Umbraco.
  • What the future looks like for Skrift.
Links mentioned in this episode: