Taking Stock of My ChocolateLife | #PodSaveChocolate Ep87
Episode 87 of #PodSaveChocolate is a deep-dive look at my ChocolateLife from the early days of chocophile.com to the present.
When and Where to Watch
🔗 🔗 below to watch – or to view the archived episode.
Click on this (shareable) link to watch on YouTube. Please subscribe (free!) to the @PodSaveChocolate YouTube channel, like this video, comment, and share this episode to help grow the #PSC community.
Clay Gordon
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Episode 87 Overview
One of the questions I am asked most often is how I decided to become a chocolate critic in the first place. The answer is simple in one sense but extremely complex in many others.
In this episode, I am going to explain what I mean by that characterization, and the methods I use, including some very recent thinking I have been doing that will influence the future directions of TheChocolateLife community – in context.
My hope is that by narrating my journey I may help you navigate yours.
SWOT
A Visual Guide to Change
The images below are screen captures from the Wayback Machine at archive.org.
[L] 2001 – my OG. [C] DiscoverChocolate was a very short-lived attempt to update the look and feel of chocophile.com after the release of Discover Chocolate in October 2007. [R] TheChocolateLife on Ning – moving from a blog to a community.
[L] July 2015, shortly after migrating from Ning to Jamroom. [C] Jamroom in July 2017. [R] TCL on Maven Dec 2017.
The images below are screen captures of the live sites.
[L] The archive site on Jamroom. [R] The main TCL site on Ghost.
’Casts
Clay Gordon
I hosted 149 episodes over 29 weeks in 2021
Clay Gordon
I hosted 145 episodes between Nov 2021 and Nov 2023
Clay Gordon
This is episode 87
Unmet Challenges
I tried to replace the community component on Ning/Jamroom, which Ghost lacks, with an open-source version of Slack called Rocket Chat. Endlessly configurable and thus impossible to implement and manage at the scale of TheChocolateLife community, Rocket Chat had a negative ROI.
I attempted to address this challenge by implementing an SSO solution that was made extra challenging because Jamroom (on which the archive site is based) uses passwords and Ghost (the active site) does not.
Future Directions
In the closing part of the episode, I will share some ideas I have for TheChocolateLife in 2025 – and preview non-ChocolateLife initiatives I am collaborating on.
Questions?
If you have questions or want to comment, you can do so during the episode or, if you are a ChocolateLife member, you can add them in the Comments below at any time.
More Episode Hashtags (and Related Accounts to Follow)
#SWOT
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat #craftchocolate
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
Future Episodes
Nothing scheduled at publication time
#PodSaveChocolate and #TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archives
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Clay Gordon
Clay Gordon
Audio-only podcasts
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