🥳 The Switchboard Turns Three: You're Invited to 3 Celebrations

Sign up for Office Hours, Join a Limited Edition Club and Request New Templates

Three years ago, I started The Switchboard as my professional development side project. I began by reaching out to a few people I didn’t know to learn their career stories and decided to share those lessons with others. I’m forever thankful for the first few people who said yes, and the rest is newsletter history.

Since then, I’ve published over 100 interviews and articles on the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond. I’ve interviewed C-suite leaders — Chief Communications Officer Tracy Van Grack, CEO Candace Nelson and Chief Heart Officer Claude Silver. I’ve talked to Communications leaders with expertise in Executive, Internal and External Communications, including Emily Singer Mandel, Nathan Fisher and Cynthia Horiguchi. I’ve learned from Founders like Wes Kao, Jacob Bank and Victoria Young Idol and shared all my learnings with you.

I’ve covered topics from hospitality to failure and created resources to help you build an intranet, publish a newsletter and write for executives. I’ve drawn inspiration from my favorite characters — the muppets of Sesame Street, Wednesday Addams and Mary Poppins, and I’ve discovered powerful stories about women in history that have been under-reported — the Switchboard Soldiers of WWI — unknown to me when I started this project.

This third anniversary is truly because of you — the community. You’ve started smile files, championed kindness and committed to wrapping up your work days differently. We’ve celebrated laughter as a superpower, gained communications nourishment from chefs and grown in many ways. Thank you for your support. Below, I take a look back and ahead in three ways:

• 🎁 3 Celebrations: Sign up for live events

• ✂️ Poll for Templates and Toolkits

• ⏳ A 6th Lesson Learned

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🎁 3 Celebrations

To express my appreciation and celebrate with you, I’m hosting three opportunities to connect and also creating (at least) three more resources to support your success. In Switchboard style, they are offered complimentary to any subscriber.

1. 📅 Office Hours

I’m offering 3 hours of my time to support 12 people with 15-minute chats. Ask a question about an article, bounce an idea off of me or simply say hello. Sessions start tomorrow, Jan 24th and run for a limited time until February 7th. If there’s significant interest, I’ll open up additional slots.

2. ☎️ The Switchboard Newsletter Club

Similar to a book club, except we read and discuss articles published on The Switchboard. Meet each other, learn about a topic, share reflections and hopefully discover new strategies to take with you. We’ll meet virtually three times for one hour: 5-6pm PT / 8-9pm ET on these dates with the following topics.

• February 7th​ [Register]: How To Write for an Executive​

• ​February 28th​ [Register]:​ Work Hacks to Support Happiness & Success (read 1: Smile File, Wrap-Up Rituals, Annual Reports)​ 

• ​March 13th​ [Register] How to Transform Your Work Culture (read 1: Hotdog Hospitality, Mistakes)

​We'll draw from these topics to kick off a conversation and head in creative directions. You can also request a Switchboard article to discuss when you register, and I'll weave it into the session. Since this is an interactive experience, it won’t be recorded.

✅ Sign up: If you’re a subscriber, respond to this email. If you’re not, sign-up and reply to your welcome message or register via the links above. Look

Note: Seats are limited. You can join for one, two, or three sessions. If these dates/times don’t work, but you’re interested, let me know — I’ll do my best to offer it again.

3. ✂️ Toolkits and Templates

I want to support you in streamlining and simplifying projects for the ways we communicate and connect at work. Let me know what’s most helpful in the poll below. If a resource isn’t listed, reply or comment with a suggestion. The poll is open for one week from today’s emailing of the newsletter.

🍧 Bonus: What would you like to read, attend or discover? Respond with an idea, suggestion or question. I’ll review submissions and share in a future edition what else I’ll write, create or host to celebrate Year 3.  

⏳ 6 Lessons Learned

As I reflected for this edition, I re-read my 100 interviews milestone post that shared five lessons learned. I asked myself: are those still my learnings? Yes, except there’s one more to add to the list:

6. ⏳ Don’t Wait

Confession: I had the idea for this newsletter months before I started it. But, I waited. I won’t hesitate again, and I hope you won’t either to pursue your passions.

🎉 5 Lessons Learned

1. 🚪 Introduce Yourself: 96 of the 100 people I’ve interviewed, I didn’t know before I featured them.

2.  🎞️ Embrace the Past: I’ve learned a great deal from history’s iconic communications and past projects

3.  🔍 Follow Curiosity: Paths don’t have to be linear — a setback, professional pivot or uncertain moment can take you in unexpected and inspiring directions

4.  🍭 Have Fun: I simply have a lot of fun writing this newsletter and taking it in creative directions, and encourage all of us to “find the fun and snap! The job's a game,” said Mary Poppins

5. 📚 Create Your Own Learning Plan: There’s no syllabus to guide our careers. It’s up to each of us to identify opportunities. Let’s make the most of what we can discover and sometimes it will be together, like this newsletter

Read all of my reflections in the below article:

Cheers to Year Three: 2024! Thank you for being part of this community. And thank you to my family and friends for your support to create, write and build.

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My third-anniversary wish is to welcome new subscribers! If you enjoy reading The Switchboard, would you recommend it, share it with a friend or colleague or share an article on your favorite social network? Thank you for helping me celebrate and being a part of this community.

With appreciation,

Julia