I’m a Developer Advocate by day and Content Creator by night. I update GitHub repositories, I write articles, I create videos, I speak at events, I organize meetups...I do a lot of stuff!
I had been trying to compile everything in my own portfolio, but some things didn’t feel “as important” to actually add to my website. I still wanted to keep track of everything that I do, but I didn’t seem to find a good tool to keep this open to the public in an organized way. Until I discovered Polywork!
(You can check out my Polywork profile here.)
What is Polywork?
A lot of people are defining this social network as a mix between LinkedIn and Twitter. This is because you can share your professional achievements while also having a nice timeline of your latest activities. But Polywork is more than that. Let me show you the main reasons why I love it.
1. Badges to define who you are
I didn’t even think about this functionality before. In LinkedIn, you get to define yourself with a header. Mine is “Developer Advocate at MuleSoft | ProstDev Founder.” But this doesn’t say anything about me being a mentor, a content creator, a software engineer, a gamer, etc. It’s leaving so much behind!
Team Polywork
In Polywork, you get to choose the badges you want to show off in your profile. I hadn’t even thought about some of these until I saw they were an option. It lets you explore more about who you are and what you care about.
Badges on my Polywork Profile: devalexmartinez
2. List your positions
Just as you can do in LinkedIn, there’s an option to list your past/current positions so people can have an idea of where you currently work/have worked before. I personally chose to not list my past companies because I wanted to keep a clean design. When people visit my profile, I want them to see all my current positions, whether they’re professional or volunteering roles.
3. See a timeline of all your activities
This is the functionality I was looking for. This is what convinced me to continue using Polywork and share it with the world.
Each “post” that you add to your profile is called a highlight. The fun thing about highlights is that they’re written in a specific format: they have a verb (in past tense) and a noun. Here are some examples:
- Wrote a blog post
- Created a repository
- Attended a meetup
- Published a video
This is so helpful for me because it keeps me focused on what the highlight really is about.
4. Find more people like you!
Polywork has something called the “Space Station” - which is a place where you can find people to collaborate with!
I wasn’t too sure about this functionality at first. I thought, “well, it makes sense if you have a podcast and are looking to interview people within the same industry, or if you’re looking for investors for your startup, but I don’t think I’m gonna use this anytime soon.” Oh, how wrong I was.
Alexandra Cote
I’ve met so many new people and heard about many interesting projects thanks to this! In your profile’s preferences, you can choose which opportunities would you be open to participating in. I had selected some options like volunteering, writing, content creation, mentoring; but I wasn’t really waiting for anyone to contact me. It didn’t take long for people to start finding me and showing me their amazing projects.
Polywork is now one of my favorite social networks. These are my 4 favorite things about it:
- Badges. To give a bigger picture of who I am and what I do - my hobbies, my interests, and my roles.
- List of my current positions. I’m just listing my current professional and volunteering positions to have a cleaner profile, but you have the option to list your past roles as well.
- Highlights timeline. Which is exactly the functionality I was looking for before I discovered Polywork! This is my absolute favorite part. It is not only for the public - it’s super useful for me to keep track of my activities!
- Space Station. To find people to collaborate with! I’m so grateful for this functionality because it allowed me to meet with like-minded people and discover some awesome projects.
Oh, and did I mention that you can connect your own domain to your Polywork profile?
Disclosure: Sponsored by Polywork, but it reflects my own views.