Five years ago, give or take a day, Chris Anderson hit “submit” on a post about building an autopilot for an R/C plane out of a LEGO Mindstorms brick, and GeekDad in all its glory was begun. Five years later, Chris has turned that little hobby into a whole other company, and the little project blog he handed over to me a few months later is now one of the most popular blogs on Wired.com, and reaching geeky parents around the world. I truly think that it’s so much more about the readers out there than what we’re doing (right or wrong), and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our readers for helping make GeekDad what it is today.
You have to remember, all of us at GeekDad are pretty much just like you. Gamer geeks, and book geeks, gadget geeks and makers. We love science, and math, fiddling with electronics, and maybe even felting and crochet. We all love to hack, build, and create; and we all love to share it with our kids. So when you read what we’re doing with our kids, it’s probably not all that different than what you’re doing with yours.
And that brings us to something new.
We are very, very happy to announce the opening of the new GeekDad Community, which you can find at GeekDad/Hotwired.com. There are some special features that we are extremely excited to show off. For all its time, GeekDad has been about community. A community of writers sharing their experiences and interests as geeks and parents with each other, and the readers. And we get a lot of great feedback from all of you: emails, tweets, messages on Facebook, and comments on the posts. But it’s also been obvious for a long time that our relationship with you could be made so much better. We needed to build a true community around GeekDad.
First off is the new look, updating our dad and kid robots with a whole community of friends and family. Our current style has served us well, but this anniversary and community launch was the best time to do a little refresh. You’ll also be seeing this style brought over to the GeekDad.com side of things in the next few weeks.
Second, we now have proper forums where the entire GeekDad Community can come together and chat about all the things we love. The GeekDad Editors and Community Leaders will be adding new discussion topics every day based on posts over on the blog, or anything that comes to mind. You’ll be able to interact with other readers, and with the GeekDad contributors as well, in a friendly, moderated environment. Indeed, we’ll be looking to the GeekDad Community for outstanding members to promote to Moderator positions as well.
Third, we’ve added a Projects area. This is going to be prime space where parents doing cool and interesting projects with the kids can share them with the rest of the GeekDad Community, offer tips, and ask for help. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a community to build an Ewok treehouse for your kids. We hope you’ll consider adding your own projects to our Projects section, so parents can share the wonderful things they’re doing with their kids. And between now and March 21st, you should consider the projects you add to be pitches as well. Pitches for what, you ask? Well, for Wired magazine! Projects added to the GeekDad Community’s Projects area during this time will be reviewed by editors for Wired, and a few choice project creators may be offered the chance to write their projects up for the June (Father’s Day) edition of the magazine. Creators may be contracted as freelancers to the magazine, and compensated up to $250 for their work.
Fourth, and perhaps most exciting, are the Community blogs. Every member of the GeekDad community can have their own personal blog space to write about whatever it is they love. And here’s where things get good. The GeekDad Editors, Community Leaders, and Contributors will continuously scour the Community blogs for great posts. These posts may be featured and show up on the Community’s front page. Even better, some few posts may be promoted all the way to the GeekDad.com front page so all our readers can see them! We truly want our Community to be part of the whole GeekDad experience, and share your voices with us.
And lastly, we also have new photo and video sharing spaces, so no one ever has to go outside of the Community to upload and share media. And we will be adding even more cool features in the future, which will only improve the experience.
But for now, please come join us! Click this link to accept our invitation and create a GeekDad Community account. And then start truly being a part of the GeekDad family.
