Data Mesh Learning Slack Update - Mar 31, 2021 Edition

The most exciting info about our Slack of all time. Or this week...

This post is an update on what we’ve changed in the Data Mesh Learning Slack workspace since launch and the addition of our suggested forums.
We want to make sure people can navigate the Slack easily so we updated channels and created a channel directory
We want to produce more content and get people interacting live more so we launched “Topic Swarms”
Reddit (r/datamesh) - our new home for forums, AMAs, questions of the week, etc.

Channel Update

When we* launched this Slack with collaborators Zhamak Dehghani (the creator of data mesh) and Robert Sahlin in early February, we did not expect to hit over 1,500 signups in 45 days… I don’t think we expected that by the end of 2021 to be honest. Thus, the initial way we organized the Slack was lacking. We have added many channels to try to make things easier.

We have a listing of public channels here; we added default channels for asking beginner questions, discussing data mesh architecture, job postings, content + upcoming events (webinars, trainings, and meetups), etc.

We also added some non-default channels, like one highlighting and celebrating women and non-binary folks in data mesh, one for posting or finding speaking opportunities, and channels in French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Events Update - Topic Swarms

Our goal is to foster an environment where people feel like they can participate and be heard even if they aren’t an expert - great ideas can come from anywhere. We launched the concept of Topic Swarms, where people can just jump on a voice chat and discuss a topic, similar to the engineering concept of a swarm.

We are still working on finding a good time for topic swarms to happen. We anticipate they will be after work hours and have one that is appropriate for European and one that is appropriate for the Americas per week. If you have a topic you want for the next topic swarm or have a strong opinion on when they should happen, please email us community@datameshlearning.com.

Community Forums - Reddit at r/datamesh

Slack can be great but it can also be… not so great… for some people. So we want to offer a way for others to participate in the growing data mesh movement. Data Mesh Learning will be using the subreddit r/datamesh for things like our Question-of-the-(Bi)-Week and if we organize AMAs (Ask-Me-Anything). If you have content you find good or have questions that you want people to answer, feel free to post there. It will likely take a bit of time to build an audience, just FYI.

*we means Scott Hirleman in most aspects here but DML may become a bigger contingent