Six Horizons Adds a Community Manager

Six Horizons is growing, of that there is no doubt. The word is spreading, there are more visitors to the site each month, and there are new followers and fans on social media outlets. We're in the process of adding a podcast and with that will come another contributing individual, Eric Schmidtberger, as a co-host.

Here is a graph of site traffic since launch. Definitely not terrible.It's an exciting time, and the trends are going nowhere but up. To that end, I felt it was an appropriate time to bring yet another person into the fold. My ultimate goals for Six Horizons are very ambitious, but all of them involve a strong community. I want to provide a place on the internet where people can come together, enjoy the content produced by the site and also enjoy each other's company. I want to have a welcoming environment that encourages discussion and people getting to know one another. I've said from day one that I wanted sixhorizons.com to be the central hub of all my digital aspirations.

Le Derek. Le Community Manager.It only makes sense then that Six Horizons bring in an individual who has a strong history and strong skill set in managing and growing a community to help with this process. I am very proud to introduce the latest addition to the Six Horizons team - Derek Romphf. Derek is another friend of mine from back in the day who will be assuming the duties of Community Manager. In this capacity it will be his responsibility (part time of course) to manage and engage existing visitors and to reach out and find more people who might be interested in what is going on at Six Horizons.

One of Derek's primary responsibilities will be to manage the newly enabled Discussion Boards. This area of the site will be a fantastic opportunity for frequent visitors to engage in discussion outside of the comments section. I strongly encourage anyone reading these words to head over to the Discussion Boards section of the site, sign up, and talk about whatever your heart desires.

The rules of the Discussion Boards are simple - don't be a jerk and you won't get banned. Be a jerk and you will no longer be able to participate. Please keep conversations appropriate for teenagers. Six Horizons was designed to fall somewhere between at PG-13 and R rating if we were using movie standards. The same expectation applies to all content on the message boards. While your words are your own, and you are entitled to say whatever you please, remember that it is my website. Any content that significantly violates the Code of Conduct will be removed with or without warning.

Before you all rush over and sign up to start discussing a burning topic, let me provide you some background info on Derek Romphf so you know who you are talking to. Derek is currently living in Calgary in Canada. I first met him when playing World of Warcraft probably five years ago. To be perfectly honest I was kinda afraid of the guy for awhile. I was under the impression that he and another friend of ours, Dustin, were actually the same person. I thought he had two World of Warcraft accounts and was talking to himself. After it was revealed that he wasn't a crazy we got along just fine. Derek and I were both members of the same guild for a number of years - a guild I led for awhile and was eventually succeeded by Derek. My wife and I took a trip to New England a couple of years ago and during that trip we drove seven hours to Niagra Falls to meet Derek and Dustin - let me tell you, in person he's an even cooler guy. His favorite movies are The Nines and Donnie Darko. His favorite video game is hands down The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - which is embarrassing because I've never played an Elder Scrolls game, and I'm not sure if Derek knows that <.< When asked to describe himself in one sentence he said that he was a mix of Gimpy from Undergrads and Brian Fontana from Anchorman. That's quite a mix, but it sure sounds interesting.

Derek will be in the boards all the time so make sure to stop by and say hi. He will also be posting from the Six Horizons Facebook account at facebook.com/sixhorizons so make sure to give him a hard time there as well. Since there are a number of people involved with Six Horizons these days the best way to contact one of us individually is by email. It's pretty cool to think that there are only three emails in the entire world that end with @sixhorizons.com. Mine of course is james@sixhorizons.com, Derek's is derek@sixhorizons.com, and my podcast co-host Eric is at eric@sixhorizons.com. Please feel free to use those and use them often. We would be excited to hear from you!

Welcome aboard Derek! Now get out there and discuss something!