Celebrating 2,000 members and counting: Looking forward to 2021 with Asana Together
Last January, the Asana Together community celebrated 1,000 members. Less than a year later, the community has doubled in size and continues to grow around the globe.
If you’re not familiar with Asana Together, it’s a global community of people who are passionate about project management, productivity, and collaboration. Community members frequently share ideas on how to help their teams be more effective, either through our online forum or at Asana Together World Tour events.
Asana Together has provided me with a huge community of thought leaders, project managers, and innovators across the globe. As someone who works as a team of one, it’s critical for me to network with other people using Asana so I can bounce ideas and strategies against other experts. With the Asana Together community, I have direct access to diverse thinkers who help me succeed in my role. ”
Celebrating the 2,000 member milestone
Asana Together has grown tremendously since it launched in February of 2019 under the leadership of Joshua Zerkel, Certified Professional Organizer® and Head of Global Engagement Marketing at Asana. To celebrate and learn more about the program, we sat down with Josh to learn more about the Asana Together program in 2020 and what’s up next for the community in 2021.
[Download ebook: Asana Together World Tour: The power of planning]
Q: Asana Together just hit 2,000 members—congratulations! What do you think makes the community so special?
A: What makes our community program really special are the people who are part of it. Asana Together community members are folks who want to learn how to work together more effortlessly, wherever they happen to be working from.
As part of the Asana Together community, members connect with people who are sharing the same challenges, questions, and problems—then they co-create solutions together. Asana Together gives them a place to talk about how they’re overcoming their challenges and, of course, how they’re using Asana to help reach their team’s goals.
Being part of the Asana Together program has opened my eyes to the different ways that Asana can be leveraged. I enjoy the flexibility that Asana provides and look forward to working with others to help them figure out how Asana can be used to connect intentionally and get things done confidently. ”
Q: What was your favorite part of Asana Together in 2020?
A: My favorite part of the program was also the most challenging part. At the beginning of 2020, we had planned over 200 in-person events around the world, where we get to meet community members in their own cities, face to face.
Of course, everything changed in March, and we had to cancel all of our in-person plans. Although challenging, the shift to virtual events ended up being a great way to find new ways to connect with people. By hosting virtual events, we were able to build conversations in ways that we hadn’t previously and broaden the sheer number of people we were able to connect with.
While I miss seeing community members in person, and I hope to resume that at some future point, in the interim it’s been great to meet people from places that we wouldn’t normally visit. That’s been a nice, unexpected byproduct of all of this.
Q: Looking forward to 2021, what are you most excited about for the Asana Together program?
A: I’m excited to see us grow past 2,000 members and continue to reach more people. The number is just a marker of how many people are with us under our tent—I’m excited to see the tent get bigger.
I particularly love when we see community members collaborate and help each other, and that’s what I’m most excited about in 2021. Soon, we’re going to make it easier than ever for members to host their own events. By supporting our Event Leads, we’ll be able to democratize the sharing of knowledge and ideas about how to be productive, so we can help even more teams around the globe.
We have some big goals this year: Streamlining communication across departments AND growing our ecomm by 50%. These goals span a lot of initiatives, and I’ll of course be utilizing Asana for all of it. ”
In 2021, we have ambitious goals to make sure we have global representation in countries near and far. This past year, we hired teammates in Sydney and Tokyo who are tailoring the program to the needs of local communities in ways that we weren’t able to in the past. I’m excited to see us continue to make our program relevant to people in their own cultures and languages.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit more about the events community members will be hosting?
A: This year, we’re building a robust program and support system for our Event Leads. We’re making it easy for them to list the events they’re hosting right alongside Asana-hosted events on our Events page. We’re also giving them tools, templates, pre-formatted presentation decks, and guides on how to host different types of events—whether that’s a casual, informal meetup or a more formal Asana training for their team. We’re trying to make it really fun and easy for them to leverage the best of what we’ve created, and then make it theirs by tailoring the experience they want to foster for their own audience.
And of course, we’ll be helping Event Leads with swag and other fun surprises to help them make their events delightful and enjoyable experiences.
Q: What goes into the programming and planning for a year of Asana Together events? How far ahead do you plan?
A: Our planning process is pretty intense. We want to make sure we’re meeting people in lots of different cities and time zones—especially now that things are virtual, we’re trying to broaden where we “go” and who we can invite.
A big part of planning events is looking at where the community wants us to go. If people are showing a lot of interest in a particular city, we want to try and host an event there to let folks know that we see them and want to be with them. The most important thing for me as the community leader is to show folks that we recognize them, and they’re an important part of our Asana family.
We map our locations and dates for the entire year in a massive Timeline in Asana. We’re planning another 200 or so virtual events in 2021, though we are building in some flexibility for the second half of the year. If there’s a possibility to do even a couple of in-person events safely and within government and local recommendations, we’re going to try to make that happen. But if we can’t, we’re ready to leverage the virtual format with new tools and new ways to connect with attendees.
Q: Is there anything new community members should know before joining the program?
A: The Asana Together program is for everybody. If you’re interested in connecting with people who do similar work to you, if you want to talk about productivity and collaboration tips, if you’re looking for ways to help your team be more effective—both in and out of Asana—this program is designed for you. Our goal is to provide resources, connection, and tools to help you get more out of your workday, be more effective, and have more fun.
I started a community organization for freelancers last summer. My big goal for this year is to launch all the initiatives I have planned out—with Asana, of course. ”
We’ve created an array of activities for members, like private webinars where they can get a sneak peek of new Asana features before they’re available to the general public, along with Learning Talks where we hear from experts about topics like personal branding and other ways to be effective at work. In addition to tangible, actionable resources, we also give community members a lot of surprises and delightful moments with special members-only swag and other exclusives. I love that balance and I look forward to more people joining us in the program so they can experience it, too.
Join the Asana Together community
Interested in learning more? Curious to learn more about project management, productivity, and collaboration? Join the Asana Together community! Learn more about the community, or sign up to become an Ambassador or Certified Pro today.
I started a new planning process for the brand team last year using Asana Forms. In 2021, I’m hoping we’re properly resourced for most of the priority campaigns and product launches! ”
