Matt Haugen and Meredith Fisher joined our National Center team around April. This was about the time that we had completed the initial thinking about the center, including a brand strategy to communicate our vision. The fun was over; it was time to turn to the practical aspects of our work. We needed to begin building the technology platform to support our “coordination function.” These two team members bring a totally different perspective to our work. Matt has never worked in health care or in higher education. He came from Target Corporation and had previously worked in the corporate world and as a freelance web developer. He’s learning our culture and helping us approach our work in creative, forward-thinking ways.

Meredith, on the other hand, has been immersed in the Academic Health Center for the past eight years. She brings an exciting perspective in that she is completing a Master of Healthcare Administration and is deeply studying our care delivery system, particularly around new integrated models. She is pushing our thinking in multiple ways. She’s also getting ready to be a mom.

Our new team members have listened to us talk about practice, education and the Nexus, and have watched us interact with literally hundreds of people and organizations nationally. They are processing our interpretations about what we are hearing. They have read our proposal and our vision for building upon the University of Minnesota’s Digital Conservancy and world-wide dissemination of scholarship in other fields. One day, they came to us with their ideas for an interactive online technology to build a community around interprofessional practice and education. After we blessed the idea, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work. 

Over the past several months, I’ve watched the idea unfold and become a tangible platform for information dissemination with community sharing and plans for robust interaction over time.   After weeks of obsessing over every detail, fretting about content, and wanting it to be “perfect," I realized that I’ve been a part of a similar community that has fed my passion over the past few years.

Anyone who knows me well knows I am an avid knitter and crocheter. You will never see me without a project tucked in my briefcase. I even pull it out in the back of the room at meetings. “Real” knitters are members of and helped to build the online community Ravelry. Started by a group of young entrepreneurs who are passionate about fiber arts, Ravelry’s first foray was in beta testing for quite a while with the initial members providing feedback about its design to meet our collective needs. We had no idea where it was going, but webuilt it together. As a community, we upload pictures of our finished projects, share patterns, discuss frustrations about “frogged projects” and UFOs (unfinished objects, like the one pictured above) and participate in forums when we are stuck with certain patterns. Designers lead forums on their patterns and books, and we follow with intensity the coolest, latest, greatest projects being knitted world-wide. Ravelry just surpassed 3,000,000 users.

This resource is linked to YouTube with videos about various techniques. For example, I would never have the opportunity to learn the Portuguese technique which is more ergonomically suited for me without this resource.  I know all of these people and they are helping me gain more enjoyment out of my passion that keeps my life in balance. 

This week as we roll out our technology and knowledge platform, I compare it to my Ravelry experience. We have given this our best thinking based upon our experience over the past several months and on what we have heard from you.  Now, we are inviting you to help build our community. Let us know what you think about the new website—and what features you want to see in the future—by posting in our feedback forum. Share our website with your colleagues and encourage them to join the community. I look forward to charting our course together.