A Klik is just a moment. The connection that comes after. That's where the real magic happens.
InstructureCon 2015 changed something in me. I was a co-admin and educator at a small school. Then I walked into a tent full of people who got it. They cared about the same weird, specific stuff I cared about, and they created this energy I couldn’t get enough of. The Community stopped being a login. It was suddenly live, and I remember thinking, I want to be part of this.
From 2015 until I joined the Community Team in 2022, every single InstructureCon I went to, I showed up wanting to meet more people, not fewer. More admins, more educators, and more people quietly holding their little corner of the world together, the same way I did. That's not really the point of this post, but it's the truth of where I'm coming from, and I wanted to share more about my journey.
Because here's the thing I still believe, all these years later: the people you meet at InstructureCon, and in the Community the rest of the year, are irreplaceable. The common threads you find with them are invaluable. You can't manufacture that anywhere else.
And now that I'm on the other side of it, as an employee, I'll be honest: InstructureCon still feels completely magical to me. Kudos to our Events and Creative team, truly, because they somehow make you forget you're at work for a week. It's a celebration, and in the middle of that celebration, you're meeting incredible people and picking up genuinely useful things to improve how you use our products or how effective you are in the classroom.
I still think about my first InstructureCon, seeing employees and other Community members in real life for the first time. It felt like meeting a rockstar. My CSM Kortney, @Renee Carney, @scottdennis, @rseilham, @kona: they were all on my list that first year, and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, I know who they are! That's the thing about this Community. The authenticity and kindness everyone brings makes even the newest person in the room feel like they already belong.
So here's what's been on my mind lately as I create my lists and prepare for Louisville.
This year (like past years) we've got the Klik SmartBadges which are great, don't get me wrong. Tap, trade info, done. But a klik is a moment. It's a name and an email. It's not the reason you stopped to talk to that person in the first place, and it's definitely not what happens next.
And that's the part I can't stop thinking about. What do we actually do next?
Because a klik shouldn't be the whole story. It should be the opening line. A follow-up, a shared idea, a "hey, I still think about what you said" six months later. Right now, we hand people the tool and kind of... leave them there.…
I've been thinking about this a lot, so instead of me proposing solutions, I want to ask: what if we challenged people to think creatively about how they share who they actually are? Not just your contact info, but your superpowers. The thing you're actually good at, the problems you love solving, what you bring to the table.
What would that look like for you?
If you had to design a way to share your contact info that also said something true about what you do (something unexpected, something creative), what would you come up with? A sticker you design yourself? A QR code to your LinkedIn profile on your phone’s lock screen? A business card that's completely you? Something we haven't even thought of yet?
But here's the real question: what makes a connection actually stick after you leave? How do you follow up once you're back home? And what would make that easier? What would actually help you nurture those relationships?
I’m asking all of these questions because I want to know what we can do, what the Community can be, to make staying connected feel less like work and more like something you actually want to do.
I don't have the answers. That's honestly the whole point of this post. I want to know what you'd create, and how you'd actually keep it going.
Share your thoughts in the comments! Let's see if we can turn this spark into something real before July 20.
