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Welcome to Brazen Careerist!
Ryan Healy is using Brazen Careerist to share ideas. Join now to become a member and start networking with Ryan Healy and other professionals just like you. Learn more.
Ryan Healy is using Brazen Careerist to share ideas. Join now to become a member and start networking with Ryan Healy and other professionals just like you. Learn more.
Welcome to the new Brazen Careerist: user-generated profiles, color photos, and networking capabilities. It’s been a long time coming. There were plenty of conversations--arguments--behind the scenes, along the way to this point. So in case you were curious about what went down inside the minds and offices of team Brazen, here’s a sneak peak.
Why Profiles?
The obvious answer is because it was about time to get with it. If you want to compete in the web 2.0 sphere, you need user generated profiles and networking capabilities between community members. But, less obvious, was that as great as our community has become, we’ve always had the feeling that something was missing. To nobody’s surprise, we decided that a blue and white picture with a bio that’s controlled by some mysterious person in the Brazen Careerist office is simply not good enough.
Here’s how we do things: we get some feedback and roll out what we think people will like. We get more feedback. We adjust accordingly. That’s what we did with our terribly ugly first site design, and that’s what we did with profiles, and I’m glad we did.
How’d We Choose the Categories?
When user generated profiles were only an idea, we really didn’t know what categories to include with them. We knew that keeping it simple was good. So we had to look at what Brazen Careerist really stands for. We realized that Brazen is a place for young professionals to create or promote an online brand that is both personal and professional. Keeping work and life completely separate is an old paradigm, so a web 2.0 career site should have personal interests and goals, and professional specialties and goals.
Of course, because Brazen is about a building and promoting your online brand, and because other social networks are a major part of people’s lives, we included links to Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. We also left an optional place for a resume (we can debate how “old school” resumes are at another time). The final criteria was that the categories needed to be common and easy for users to think of.
The “Old Person” Issue
The most controversial decision we had to make was, “Do we let people over 30 into the network?” As recently as last Thursday when we did our private beta launch to the community, you still had to be less than 30 years old to join.
Brazen has become synonymous with Generation Y, and we love that. The working world recognizes that people in their twenties are often the hardest to reach and the pickiest demographic. They also know that people in their twenties define cool. We’re the trendsetters. So it’s important that our community be centered in that hard-to-reach demographic.
However, Generation Y is not a group of people with an “us versus them” mentality. We’re group oriented, we’re inclusive, and we’ll take advice anywhere we can get it. Secondly, telling our already-engaged readers that they can’t be part of a community because they are too old goes against what social networking and web 2.0 stands for--collaboration and conversation.
So, we compromised. Anyone can create a profile, read blog posts, comment, and fan people. But because we’re a community designed to help young professionals establish an online brand, Brazen bloggers must be 18 to 30.
What’s Next?
There are a million different directions we can go. Now that profiles are launched, Brazen is playing ball on a whole different level. And Team Brazen has a ton of ideas that are just waiting to be put into action. Profiles will be improved, the company section is due for a major facelift, and there will be new options for participating in the conversation. Whatever we do next, we want to be sure that we both improve your experience as a community member and get us closer to our ultimate business goals. So please, provide feedback, tell us we’re great, tell us we suck. Whatever it is, just tell us!
We hope you enjoy the new Brazen Careerist! We’re all looking forward to what comes next.
I'm loving this new functionality. It'll really help people like me, who aren't in your community of bloggers but are regular commentators, feel more involved in the overall community of the site. Looking forward to seeing where this takes BC.
All the updates sound and look great! I'm going to go create my profile now!
Congratulations on this latest revision to the BC site. It think it's the most substantial rev the BC team has done to date. You definitely have the right approach when you say - "Here’s how we do things: we get some feedback and roll out what we think people will like. We get more feedback. We adjust accordingly." I look forward to seeing the future developments of this site.
Congrats on the public launch. I love the new features and think they will enhance the personal relationships we have already started to build! As long as Gen-Y keeps innovating and improving communication and relations, we will be all right.
This. is. so. dope. (And yes, I could have found a more intelligent way to say it, but it wouldn't have properly articulated my feelings.)
I love being able to control my profile. Since our generation moves so quickly, it's important to add functionality that enables us to update our bios as life tosses us new projects, thoughts, and challenges.
Keep up the good work!!
I have to admit...Brazen is becoming my new favorite website to keep checking all day. Looks awesome!
Love the new features, looking forward to seeing them in action.
One question on the "Old People" Issue.
You say bloggers must be between 18 and 30 to represent the Millenials. Is this window going to shift with the generation? Perhaps I'm looking too long term, but more of a question as to the eventual direction.
Keep up the great work!
Very neat additions. Great job guys : )
Now I just need to start posting more to make better use of it all, hehe.
As an "old person", I'm thrilled to be able to have a profile and stay as an active participant in the community. Great job with the profiles!
Congratulations to everyone at BC! I'm resolving to get involved here over the next 3 years while I am still a full-blown young professional.
@Anna glad you like the new site. I'm officially your fan..Now you just need a picture!
@MarkW I appreciate that you think we're on the right track with our processes. We've been working hard on getting them all down to a science.
@Adam I can't give you a perfect answer for what we end up doing with the age issue, but I do know we will NOT be kicking anyone out of the network because they get a year older!
Thanks to all for the great comments. Please don't hesitate to provide us any feedback.
-Ryan
I'm just glad we're all in color now.
This looks so much better - now, if only I can edit my banner blog...
Looks great! Good job, Ryan and team.
@BC
Some constructive criticism: the pics in the "recent comments" section are kind of distracting and look weird when not everyone has one.
I'm very impressed and it takes a lot to impress me. Great job!
@officenewb I'm glad we're in color too! Thanks for the tip on the recent comment photos, that was another one of those issues we had a lot of debate over. Maybe we got it wrong.
@Rachel Robbins Thanks, we're always trying to impress you guys, happy to see we did it.
@Boon Thanks
Congratulations on the new site. It looks great and the profiles are a great addition.
Have to say I disagree with your decision about the "old" people bloggers though. The older end of the Gen Y generation is quickly approaching 30 - how is it going to work when current under-30 bloggers pass that threshold?
Also, it occurs to me that not all "young" people start off in their careers right away, and some, as they approach their later twenties and early thirties may be still very new to their careers and looking for help establishing their online brand.
I know you've already made the decision, and must have had some very active discussions on the topic, but I find your decision disappointing.
Oh no! I too am approaching that threshold! Don't fret guys, it's an evolving decision and I'm sure the BCer's will figure something out. Props to the developers in the back end. You guys did some slick work.
When I turn on my browser in the morning, I automatically open up four tabs:
(1) Gmail
(2) Twitter
(3) Brazen Careerist
(4) Lifehacker
Such exciting changes!
I like it. It's Brazen Careerist 2.0 :)
Good job guys.
I miss the black and white photos, but I'll get over it ;)
I love the "In the news section". Have you thought about expanding this bit and allowing the community users to post links of interesting career/gen-y news articles they've found in a kinda 'see what news ours bloggers have been reading' section?
(Could be moderated first if you have time for someone to do that)
Oh and what if an "old" person blogs about Gen Y only, rather than just general work stuff. It's relevant to us, so I say allow them in (well some of the 'oldies' perhaps anyway, just have a tougher process of acceptance).
@Irina Thank you so much, that's a HUGE compliment! I do the same thing with my browser every morning :) well, if you replace lifehacker with TechCrunch.
@Kat I definitely do not miss the blue and white photos, glad you will get over it. That's an interesting thought about in the news. People could bookmark their stuff to our page maybe?? As far as "old" person blogs go, we actually do allow anyone of any age to submit gueset posts and work with our editor to get it posted. And we will definitely continue to do that.
@Daniel Thanks for acknowledging it. Our Dev team did an absolutely amazing job with profiles - especially considering how small of a team we have.
@Megan don't worry about the age range, no one will be kicking you out of the network for having a birthday. Like Daniel mentioned, its an evolving decison and we're open to all ideas.
Ignoring the "old person" comment...
Looks great - those blue photos were pretty drab! I love the approach - try it, get feedback and adjust accordingly. It's a good plan for life in general.
@Megan - I agree 100%...
And so this is how it feels to be labelled "old"...ouch! If you ever reconsider your decision to kick us oldies out, please (please) consider that I still get carded to get into bars...I'd be so so sad to get kicked out of such an awesome community.
And as I already let Jay know - I think the new site ROCKS!
"Last week's favorite posts" always confuses me. Isn't it really the posts that got the most comments? (Which to me is not the most favorite posts, just the ones that people felt strongly enough about to comment, which could mean the post was ridiculous, not that there's any of that here ... I do remember some post about marriage that just got bombarded with hundreds of comments, and the whole thing seemed silly, to me.)
Anyway, can I request a section called "Last week's Posts" or at least some way I can scan back over the past couple weeks? Maybe it's an intended creative format? I find can't remember who wrote a post I read a couple weeks ago, and there's not an easy way to "scroll back" through time.
(feeling like a luddite tonite) Cheers.
Hi Yvette. If you go to the "View More Featured Posts" on the bottom left below the final daily featured posts, you can find a listing of all the posts that have been featured since March. Hope this helps :)
Looks like I joined at the right time, with all these exciting new changes.
I have to admit, Brazen has quickly become a regular for me when surfing the web. I noticed that I started opening it right after I have opened my Gmail and my Facebook! It's a great website, with enriching content, and a community of young intelligent people. No wonder I keep coming back.
Good job, guys! I'm excited to be a part of this. :)
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