Hi everyone, here’s hoping you’re all safe and well! Truth be told, I don’t have much in the way of insight to share this week, as my family and I returned from Colorado at the beginning of the week and I’ve been hair-on-fire getting caught up now that I’m back. That said, I have been thinking about a couple of things that might be worth sharing.

First, it’s this time of year when we would usually start planning the next Alternative Capital Summit - this one would be ACS3. Given the pandemic, I’m not sure exactly how we’ll approach that. I’m kind of zoomed out, if you will, and I suspect many of you are too, so I wonder whether an online event is something that people are interested in. At this point, I think the options are to do an online ACS3 in January or February of 2021, or to do an in-person event around the middle of the year. I’ll be sending out a survey to gauge your interest in that in the next couple of weeks, so keep your eyes peeled. I’ll definitely let this community guide the approach.

I also wanted to mention that we’re progressing toward getting a web site up and running where we’ll store all the content from past Speaker Series and newsletters and create a space where everyone can connect. I’m hoping that it’s up and running in the next couple of weeks. 

Finally, I wanted to share that I am at the end of my rope with Facebook, and I am definitely interested in finding a new way to host community discussions. If you have ideas on good collaboration websites or platforms that can host this community’s discussions about alternative capital, RBF, deal construction, etc.), I’m all ears. Just reply to this email and share your thoughts. So far, I’m considering Discourse.org pretty strongly, as that’s where a couple of my favorite online forums are hosted. Note that cost and ease of implementation are primary factors, as is the ease with which people can engage with each other.