Squarespace Circle Day FOMO
Social media quotes often swirl around in my mushy TikTok brain. Lately, one that’s on repeat is this unintentionally satirical take about how the more niche someone’s interests are, the hotter it makes them. Well, I bring you here today to declare my love of corporate conferences — and I’m someone who hasn’t even actually worked at a large corporation.
Circle Day 2022!
Maybe it’s the sensation of looking out from my small business background, palms pressed to the window, but I really love a moment when everyone drinks the juice. My favorite conference in particular, stemming from an overwhelmingly obvious bias, is Squarespace’s Circle Day.
At this point, I want to reassure you that this post isn’t solely going to be about loving the cherry on top of a corporate world — it’s also about devastation that comes from having to sit one out. This year, I wasn’t able to attend, and I have been tasked with writing about my FOMO, something I luckily don’t suffer from much anymore (we can dive deeper into this in another installment).
The decision to sideline wasn’t an easy one to make. As I’ve alluded to in my other posts, I moved a lot this summer and didn’t have the capacity for another moment of uprooting, no matter how brief. Instead of sitting next to my peers, listening to the latest Squarespace innovations while we blah blah blah... I tucked into an empty office with a livestream tee’d up and sent the rest of my team off.
My biggest takeaway from the virtual experience is that it becomes much more my own. Last year when I attended, I was able to rely on the group and run around the room with the confidence and support of my team behind me. This time, I was able to log on and off, tap into the conversations I was most excited about and leave them as I needed. A tribute to the freedom of technology.
Candidly, this resulted in spending a lot less time immersed. It felt a lot less real, my own version of object impermanence. And I could see things a little more clearly. I realize that this is starting to sound dramatic, but what I love most about Circle Day is the team building. I love getting to meet new people, brag about the mightiness of my small team and feel like a bit of a micro-celebrity. Week of the Website works so hard, and getting to celebrate our successes is such a gift. Our asynchronistic team is able to exist in the same time zone and it feels special.
At the end of it, I realized that for me, drinking the juice isn't about Squarespace (though I do love it). It's about Week of the Website. I'm so proud of what this company has done and what it's about to do, and New York and Circle Day are a celebration of that. Even from the sidelines, I feel lucky to be part of it.
