Mastering CiviCRM #7: Online community
Can you name anyone who got really good at what they do all by themselves?
I can't.
You'll hear of someone like that now and then, and when you do it's a great story.
That's because it's pretty rare.
And it's hard. Having a community of people around you is a huge advantage for learning.
Fortunately, you don't even have to change out of your pajamas these days to find an online community of people a lot like you who are making great things happen with CiviCRM.
The online CiviCRM community is active, communicative, and to my experience very supportive.
If you want to accelerate your journey in mastering cbcrm, I strongly recommend you check out these online community resources:
CiviCRM Stack Exchange
Have a question that you just can't seem to get answered? The CiviCRM Stack Exchange is a dedicated Q&A forum for exactly that: getting your questions answered.
It's not a general forum for open-ended conversation; it's specifically designed to get "the one best answer" to a specific answerable question.
Questions and answers are all provided by real people in the CiviCRM community — from complete noobs to seasoned experts. There's no guarantee that you'll get a perfect answer, but it's a great place to start, and often turns up exactly what you need to know.
Even if the answer is "sorry, what you want to do isn't possible yet," you'll be a lot better off than if you just spent hours trying to do the impossible on your own.
Since all the questions and answers are provided for free, by CiviCRM users just like you, you can (and should, if you ask me) jump in an answer questions yourself. Sharing what you've learned is a great way to reinforce your own learning, and you might even get some feedback that helps you refine your understanding of how it all works.
That's the beauty of learning together.
Community chat
CiviCRM’s online chat platform is the closest thing we have to an online forum, with separate channels for a wide variety of topics.
Need help with Mosaico, or something Drupal-specific, or financials, or general system administration? There are dedicated channels for those topics, and lots more. Just trying to figure out where you fit in with this new community?
Try the Town Square channel, where "all things CiviCRM" are on-topic; or even the Off Topic channel, for "Random chit-chat about anything at all".
It's sometimes just referred to as "MatterMost", the name of the software that powers the chat platform. It's about like Slack, in case you've used that elsewhere. If someone in the CiviCRM community suggests asking on MatterMost, they just mean chat.civicrm.org.
You can just use it easily in your browser, but dedicated desktop and mobile apps (look for "MatterMost") make it even easier.
Yep, it's still there. See latest tweets and the official @CiviCRM twitter feed.
Online meetups
Now and then you'll find an online meetup that's worth checking out. They're often listed in the Community channel at chat.civicrm.org, as well as at https://civicrm.org/events/.
The CiviCRM North East meetup has been running once every few months for a few years now. It's based in Newcastle, England, but it's been an online meetup (often only online) since the "bad old days" of pandemic lockdowns. Organizer William Mortada, is an active CivCRM contributor who says this is an "informal friendly meeting with plenty of opportunity to meet other people ... aimed at end users. No experience is assumed and technical language will be kept to a minimum. Everyone is welcome!"
Here's the thing:
Online documentation and personal experimentation are important, so don't neglect those. But something magical happens when people start sharing ideas.
Piping up with "Hi, I'm new here," can be a little intimidating (for some folks), but the boost you'll get to your your learning is worth it.
All the best,
A.