Global Virtual Host?

Today I had a great interview with Gabriela Albescu and Simon Ulvund about becoming global virtual host for the network on both, the global platform and the practice platform. It would be a part-time position on top of the Hub Associate as an internal consultant for the network.

They made some very good questions and it was interesting to try to answer them, because of course it being a first approach to the different issues:

• What excites me about the position? For me its about taking what we do to the next level, the global level which many members and teams have been requesting for some time now. Its about serving two different "clients":
• Members from Hubs around the world:  Need to know what is going on in their field in different countries, search with suppliers or partners, connect with other people to have more impact or to find out better ways to address the issues they are addressing with their projects, etc.
• Teams from Hubs around the world: Need to have access to the knowledge and best practices in an easy way, hosted into the tools already there while also fostering new practices coming along. A space to unleash the learnings within the network
• Which are the projects you would work on?
• Connect, understand the dependencies and create the links with the Management Team, the Practice Coordinator, the HUBnet/Tech manager, and the Communications expert as well as this work needs to be aligned with all of them and the internal/external communications strategy.
• Also, identify the local representatives of Hub teams, generate the contact and the rhythm of engagement with them at different stages of the pipeline (once they are initiatives) but evaluate the needs from the imagination stage as well.
• A concrete project would be to map the members and the teams in Hubs around the world to understand what their needs are so that we can provide quality in the connections and content.
• Members have been wanting to meet physically in a gathering for some time now, it would be fantastic to create a members world gathering for 2013!
• What does success look like? I would need to know the exact needs, strategy and prioritization (its a part-time position so far!) that we agree on but I think that I will feel I have succeded if everything is flowing in the platform without me being everywhere or having to post everything. If people are hosting themselves and each other virtually, if there is less of me and more of others there.
• What are the challenges? Time availability of people, both members/entrepreneurs trying to run or develop their projects and team members. Also to respect myself the part-time commitment to this and not go over the top.
• In terms of practice, what are the practices that you see relevant for the next stages of the HUB? The two that are being mentioned more are: incubation and education. What I wonder is that there are so many programmes of this type and organizations that do them, that I´d like to explore how our offering would be different from others...