Well it's hard to believe theSpoke turns one year old today. 

Just one year ago, I was in Singapore along with Morris and the earth9 team as theSpoke "officially" launched, moving it's address from beta.thespoke.net to www.thespoke.net.  At that time a group of 50 Student Ambassadors began to play with the site and blog.  We also launched a little coding promotion in partnership with the Lord of the Rings trilogy called the Quest to Mordor Challenge.

Now one year later, theSpoke is a global community localized into 13 languages (besides English), with one more (Polish) on the way.  We've added some new features, the Imagine Cup online competitions are taking place here, and the community has defined itself in ways I couldn't imagine 12 months ago.

So what's next?

Well we're putting together plans right now.  After collecting your feedback from the e-Survey, we're thinking through what the next version of theSpoke should be.  We've heard feedback that it's time for a UI refresh and we agree.  There are some feature enhancements and other things that people have requested consistently.  I'm putting these into a planning document and will begin working with the dev teams to make these happen in 2005.  In fact, when I finish the document, maybe I'll post it here for your feedback before we start moving towards the next version.  What do you think?

We're also working out how we can put together a student advisory board for theSpoke.  This would be a panel of students who would be elected by the community to take theSpoke into the future.  Stay tuned for more details about this.  

Anyway, Happy Birthday to theSpoke.  Thanks to everyone who has been with the community in its inaugural year.  You've made theSpoke what it is.  Here's looking forward to a great year 2.