Last month the SwapYourShop community really came to life. Unexpectedly, we gained the attention and interest of a few writers and thanks to their work we witnessed a significant spike in growth. We’re totally thrilled to see that the community is now comprised of nearly 500 members from all over the world. It’s a-buzz with destination desires and shop talk.

While the publicity was of course a great catalyst, myself and the rest of the team were taken aback by the way in which some writers framed the SwapYourShop concept, specifically Urban Daddy’s article. After reading it I had a bit of an epiphany – there must be hordes of men in the world aspiring to be the 21st century Don Draper.

Our reaction to the article was a bit of shock followed by an acknowledgement that publicity is publicity. However, I do want to clarify (and had the article had a comments section, I’d be writing this there) that the intention of the SwapYourShop community is to support creative professionals by helping them immerse in new cultures and creative environments all the while keeping their jobs. It’s an opportunity to escape the day to day routine, gain new experiences and come home more inspired and refreshed. If that involves sleeping with the receptionist, so be it, but that’s not really our message. The article also failed to clarify that SwapYourShop is intended for creative professionals only at this time. My apologies to all of the international diplomats out there who wanted to participate, but the Peggy Olsons of the creative industry have wised up in the last half century anyway.

One final note – amidst the growth madness, we transferred the community’s backend from Drupal to Wordpress’s BuddyPress to better serve our members. We’re really pleased with the new setup and with it, managed to overcome some issues we were previously faced with using Drupal. BuddyPress also provides the community with more user interaction opportunities. Unfortunately, we’re now lacking the functionality to upload photos of your home and office space, but it’s one of our high priorities and hopefully we’ll be adding that soon. Below are a few features we’re excited to have now:

1. Members can follow the activity of their friends and the entire community.

2. Members can create groups and connect with others that share similar interests, professions or live in the same city.

3. Ability to link from others’ profiles in order to narrow searches (ex. find other members located in Cozumel, Mexico)