Kinetic Council August 2025 Updates
Keeping you informed as we continue to build the community.
Well hello again. Whether you're here because you subscribed to my newsletter, attended a webinar, or were referred by a friend, you're part of a greater content community.
,
Hello, hello!
You're getting this email because you signed up - probably quite a while ago - either to keep in touch with what is happening at the Kinetic Council or because you wanted to get involved.
We had been doing a slow burn for a number of months because the original organizing body was made up of a small group of people, and it was hard to get the traction we needed to get lift off. Since then, a couple of people stepped forward who had just the skills we needed to start making progress.
What we've accomplished so far
We're official!
First and foremost, we're now an association! We're registered in Delaware, in the US, as a non-profit association. That's going to help a lot because until now, the organising group has been self-funding this association.
While we have 3 official board members, we have a wider steering group of founding members who have been working behind the scenes from the beginning. We have the beginnings of a mission charter and milestones plan drafted.
We’ve established Slack Channels for collaboration and set up email account for steering group members who need to be contactable:
- Deane, deane.baker@kineticcouncil.org
- Cruce, cruce.saunders@kineticcouncil.org
- Larry, larry.swanson@kineticcouncil.org
- Rahel, rahel.bailie@kineticcouncil.org
- Andrew, andrewnhem@gmail.com (we're still working on his email)
We want representation from the diverse practice communities so that we ventilate the professional silos we all operate in.
Getting the word out
Another thing that has been happening in the background is that we've been attending events to get the word out about our work and aspirations.
- Boye & Co event - Deane Barker, Cruce Saunders, and Larry Swanson attended an event in Montreal that focused on content management
- Lavacon - Larry Swanson and Rahel Bailie socialised the concept of kinetic information to conference attendees who mostly immediately got the concept and why this is important
- Content Design Leaders - Rahel Bailie met with content design leaders online and heard their concerns about understanding more about the content ecosystems being developed
We are always looking at events where we can share information about the work we're doing.
Most importantly, a volunteer stepped up who has such good project management skills that she's managed to corral us and get things moving. Many thanks, Marcia Volpe!
We've expanded our working group to get at least one person in each functional area: operations, community-building, education, sponsorship, and finance. (Personal admission: I lost track of who is on which team, but will track that down for our next newsletter.) If you're interested in participating on one of the teams, let Marcia know. She can put you in touch with the right person.
What we're working on now
We've got Cruce Saunders and Mike Markley on the organisational side - setup, finances, and admin-related activities.
Andrew Nhem and Sara Feldman took on community building.
Deane Barker, Cruce Saunders, and Carlos Evia are working on shaping what certifications programs might look like.
I have taken on communications - specifically the newsletter, with the help of Andrew Nhem. This includes fleshing out the website as we go. We have a draft mission charter and Cruce and I have committed to turning out a manifesto that will help explain the rationale behind what we're doing.
Next steps
We need to figure out what type of non-profit association we are, so we can change our status accordingly. If you have a background in non-profit management in the United States and want to help out in this area, we'd love your help.
Communications - I am aiming for a regular, if not frequent, cadence of letting you all know what is happening. I'm hoping to enlist someone to collaborate with me, as we will soon have more interesting IP to share.
Community Building - Andrew and Sara will start organising casual meetups of people who have a burning desire to talk about anything that falls into kinetic information, whether that is content, data, semantics, systems, or any other related topic.
We're putting the final touches on our first casual "Kinetic Coffee" event, so stay tuned for another email invitation soon.
Sincerely,
Rahel Bailie
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