Strongly agree that the timing is unfortunate

I have the same impression about seniority.

For EA Connect, I know there were two "tracks", one for people who are very new (pre-intro fellowship, I believe) and the other was the regular conference experience. Sounds like a good call.

No worries, trust me, there were plenty of times I had to go back and edit in similar circumstances! :))

I think sharing links for these are surely worth! I heard that during peak Covid, there was an online EA New Year's Eve Party on Gathertown with people literally dancing in the rooms - I haven't attended, but it sounds pretty wholesome:)

Thanks for checking! I believe no, people tend to book way more 1-1s at offline conferences.

The "areas of expertise" and, to a lesser extent, the "areas of interest" features seem off on Swapcard. Many people put 5+ areas as their expertise. This is not only unlikely, but dilutes the filtering feature. Some people also don't put in anything (I think?), which means they will be left out of my search, even if they would be relevant to talk to.

Suggested improvement: make it compulsory to add at least one area of expertise, but cap it at 3, so people don't just put in everything.

Praise for Sentient Futures

By now, I have had the chance to meet most staff at Sentient Futures, and I think they really capture the best that EA has to offer, both in terms of their organisational goals and culture. 

They are kind, compassionate, impartial, frugal - the things that I feel like the movement compromised on in the past years in pursuit of trying to save us from AI.

I really hope this kind of culture becomes more prominent in the 4th wave of EA^[1], with similar organisations popping up in the coming months and years.

PS.: I have friends at the org, so this obviously makes me biased:)

1. ^{^}

   3rd wave described here in Ben West's post. If you go with this one, then what I'm describing would be the 5th wave.

• Short-form vertical video (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts)
• Short-form text a.k.a. microblogging (Twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads)

Then I think it’s not true. I think investing in those mediums would just be good money chasing after bad.

I think this largely depends on your goal of creating this kind of content. If you are just blasting them to the ether, that's likely not useful, but such videos can serve as a "hook" for people to then go on and engage with long-form content or even to take an intro course about EA.

Great post, strongly agree. Here are 3 posts I share with people who are in a similar position to what you describe, but yours will be the 4th one from now on!

How Unofficial Work Gets You Hired: Building Your Surface Area for Serendipity
There is No EA Sorting Hat
Why experienced professionals fail to land high-impact roles (FBB #5)
 

I second the point about the EA Hotel, its a great place to get work done if you don't have a financial runway! (Though people should pay for at least part of their stay unless they absoluately can't)

Great post! Just FYI the link here is not publicly accessible:

Constance Li has put together a longer list of orgs