Beste Roamlers,
Gezellig dat jullie meelezen! Don’t worry, that’s all the Dutch you’ll be confronted with 
. But like Roamler itself, I am from The Netherlands so it seemed appropriate to give you a warm Dutch welcome.
As a student interested in social media, advertising and communication, from that first moment last summer that I discovered Roamler I was intrigued by the concept and knew I wanted in on this! Unfortunately, Roamler-fever had hit the Netherlands hard and my invite got lost in the post. But knowing I was moving to London and Roamler expansion to the UK was on the cards, I didn’t give up hope. So here I am, now living in London and happily ‘Roamlering’ (I’m sure that would be the correct verb if we had one).
But enough about me, let’s talk about us. Yes us, the Roamler community in the UK that is rapidly growing as we speak. And what better way to build up a lively community, than to give members of said community the chance to share their experiences with each other? A couple of us had the opportunity to do this in person a while back when Merel and Wiggert were in London, which proved a great success. It can be interesting and even inspiring to know how other approach the tasks or how they feel about Roamler.
[Me and Merel at the meet up!]
My personal experiences with Roamler? Well, sometimes I know how to complete a task straight away, sometimes it takes me a week to think of an entry I find satisfying. Take for instance the iCity app idea task that has been running for the last couple of weeks. This, in essence, shows what Roamler is all about and could be about in the future. In my opinion it shows Roamler’s amazing potential to be put to great use to outsource creative thinking to a widespread community. Amongst all of our entries there are sure to be some amazing ideas that could definitely be put into practice. With this potential in mind, I found myself scouring the datasets for ages, racking my brain over personal experiences and annoyances and trying come up with an idea that I thought did justice to the task. This is probably why it took me a good week to come up with something I was happy with! On the other hand, some tasks seem to evoke an immediate reaction and an instant ‘lightbulb moment’ as to how to complete them. For me this was definitely the case for the recent ‘Every day should be a holiday’ task, or the Early Easter task. Finally, for some tasks you simply need to stumble upon something on your way to work or back home from the pub. Foxes of London, beware, I’m watching you!
[My hidden sunset spot on Ibiza]
[Waitrose can’t wait for Easter!]
That’s what I think one of the other great strengths of Roamler is: the diversity of the tasks. If you have trouble thinking of a way to fulfill the one, another is sure to pop up soon enough. Some get the creative juices flowing, some require a more thought through approach. There is something to suit everyone and it keeps the experience of completing the tasks interesting. In short: respect for those coming up with this varied array of tasks for us to get stuck into!
So fellow Roamlers, that’s about it from me. Remember, sharing is caring, so if you ever want to share your experiences or ideas with fellow Roamlers, don’t hesitate to send something in to Roamler HQ and who knows, those 5 minutes of fame on the blog could be yours!
All the best,
Sophie
This is the first UK Roamler reply. From now on we will post one here every other Friday. Like to share your Roamler experiences well? Please send an email to anneclaire@roamler.com!