Re: Gut Feeling and Honoring My Intuition

I've been quiet about the Zaadz acquisition by Gaiam. Today I had the opportunity to share my views and break my silence on Enlightened.thinker's Blog. Here's what I posted on the comment thread.

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first of all, a BIG, BIG, thank you to all of you who took the time in expressing your views in the recent acquisition of Zaadz. this means a lot to us. it's obvious that you really care.

as for me, i've kept my silence on this issue, first, because i wanted to see the reaction of the community. second, i don't personally know the details of the acquisition so i don't want to mislead anyone. third, i felt that Brian already explained it from the heart. and fourth, because Siona is doing an amazing job of responding to all your concerns. isn't she awesome?

however, as a member of this community, and at the same time, as member of the Zaadz team, i feel that i have to say something. so allow me to share my concerns coming from these two perspectives.

as a member of the Zaadz community: the first things that came to my mind were, how will the community react? will they think that Zaadz sold us out? will people start leaving the site? will Zaadz start charging for memberships? how will the look and feel of the site change? will Zaadz be bombarded with in-your-face advertising? are we gonna be branded as more New Agey than we are already unfairly labeled as such? will community members have the same freedom of expressing their views?

as a member of the Zaadz team: my initial thoughts were, how will this impact the morale of the team? will the team stay in tact? will i be able to keep my cool job? will the values of the company that bought Zaadz be compatible with our original mission and vision? how do we explain the transition to the community members as transparently as we can?

so, as you can see, we all share common concerns regarding the future of Zaadz. however, being a member of the Zaadz team has an extra “burden” so to speak, because we have more time, energy, passion, compassion and livelihood invested in Zaadz. we breathe Zaadz day in and day out. we love our work. we love our growing community. what happens to you happens to us. we respect your feelings, intelligence and all your contributions. without you there is no Zaadz. we are each others' oxygen.

to be honest, i still don't know the details of what's going to happen as we integrate with Gaiam. we're in the process of ironing that out. i have lots of questions too. but like most you, i've learned to embrace change and impermanence. i choose to trust my teammates, our new mother company, Gaiam and all the wonderful people that we'll be working with, to make our community grow to its fullest potential.

so, are you still with us? i hope so. let's all see how deep this rabbit hole goes…

P.S. oh, about the new Zaadz logo. i put that together. please don't think of it as a loss of “seeds” mojo. it's actually a perfect metaphor. think of it as the seeds are now growing into flowers.

P.P.S. we love how this thread is going. but we also invite you to post your thoughts on the gaia pod where we can continue with the discussions and where you can ask questions :)