Since writing a post on Dungeons and Dragons back in May 2021, I've been asked to speak a couple times about this topic (and board games as educational tools more generally). The first presentation was Nerd Nite YEG (Edmonton) on May 14th, 2021. I recorded myself presenting to the group of nerds over Zoom, and I figured you nerds might also be interested in hearing it!

It took a while to get this out to you all, but I hope you enjoy it:

On the note of videos, please email me letting me know what you think of this and the idea of Nerdy Parenting Videos in general. Should I film and post more videos? Should I stick to a primarily written newsletter? Should I draw more graphs and diagrams?

Thanks for the feedback!

If you missed the post on D&D back in May, read the full post here:

Hello Nerdy Parents!

I started writing weekly posts for The Nerdy Parent on September 4, 2020. That means it's been an entire year, and amazingly, I haven't missed a week! Since I'm nerdy, I took a look at the stats and apparently I wrote a decent-sized book of more than 60,000 words in the past year!

Table of Contents

Why I Started The Nerdy Parent
New Features
All About You
Let's Grow The Nerdy Community
What I Need From You

Why I Started The Nerdy Parent

One year ago, I had a few reasons for starting this endeavour. The primary reason was and still is to become a better parent myself. I find that forcing myself to write each week forces me to think about what I do with my kids and how I do it. The act of researching and writing a post brings me to a deeper or nerdier level on that topic, then when I go back to parenting I'm even better at it. So in terms of evaluating the success of The Nerdy Parent over its first year, I believe I have achieved my primary goal. But this wasn't the only reason I invested into this project.

The second reason I started The Nerdy Parent was to document and share my techniques in an effort to help others. Whether or not I was successful in this is a bit trickier to nail down. The only way I'll know if I've helped anyone is if you tell me! So I implore you to please reply to this email and let me know if you have found anything useful in my writing over the past year, or anything that has helped you. Thanks to those who already have given feedback, and thank you in advance to those of you who do reply with this!

Finally, the third reason I started The Nerdy Parent was to experiment with a new business model that I didn't have much experience with previously (paid newsletters). I'm a full-time entrepreneur and the majority of our family's income comes from the business that I own and run (which mostly entails patent consulting and coaching). I thought it would be great if a portion of this income were to come from writing about parenting and education. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, at least not yet. In fact, to be completely honest, The Nerdy Parent still costs me a fair bit more to run than I bring in from it (and my annual hosting fees are due in a few days 😬 ). If you have been on the fence about subscribing and finishing reading all those nerdtastic premium posts, then please upgrade to a monthly or yearly paid membership! Thank you!!

In terms of the success of this third reason, I have certainly learned a tonne about newsletters and producing content. But, as I mentioned above, the experiment didn't end up resulting in augmenting my revenue at all...yet. So I'm looking for feedback from you on this too! What other modes or models would you be interested in supporting this project? Would you pay for a Nerdy Parent book? Would you donate? For example, recently a friend and subscriber let me know that she would be interested in paying a couple bucks from time to time to read premium posts as one-off purchases as opposed to the full monthly or annual subscription. I set up a button at the bottom of my most recent post to experiment with implementing this idea, but please let me know if there are any posts at all that you would be interested in paying $2 to read!

If there are, I will set up a more automated system on all the premium posts, so definitely tell me if that would be of interest.

New Features

Throughout the first year as I started sharing more posts, I realized that just having them all show up on the front page wasn't sustainable. Initially, I just added a 2nd and 3rd page, but then realized the categorization was also becoming more important.

So recently I adjusted the categories of the posts to include:

• Strategies
• Rules
• Books
• Board Games
• Active Games
• Video, and
• Pandemic

Let me know if these categories are useful to you and what other categories you would like to see here!

I also created a new page with links to all the posts by age! So if you're looking for posts applicable to babies, for example, you can click on "0.0 or less up to 1.0". If your kids are older, go for the 9-10 year-old category.

I'm also considering adding search functionality to the site. Please let me know if this would be useful. If I get at least five people interested, I'll put in the effort to figure it out.

All About You

I would love to learn more about you! Tell me more about yourself and what you're interested in, or what you hope to get out of reading The Nerdy Parent.

I always ask new subscribers a few questions, and appreciate those of you who have answered! If you haven't, if you forget whether or not you answered, or if you think the answers might have changed, let me know now:

1. How old are your kids (or your grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc.)?
2. What is your nerdiest parenting technique?

Also, and probably most importantly, going forward what would you most like me to write about? Are there any topics you wish you could hear The Nerdy Parent's perspective on? Do you wish I wrote the odd children's book in addition to all the parenting techniques (no promises on this, but I do have a few ideas)? What are your favourite posts?

Let's Grow The Nerdy Community

Most importantly, please share The Nerdy Parent with another parent and ask them to subscribe! It would be so awesome to double The Nerdy Parent's subscriber base! This will also definitely help me continue to justify the cost and time I invest into the project.

What I Need From You

So to summarize everything that it would be amazing to get your help on, and so that you have no excuse not to reply with at least some of this info, here's what I need from you:

1. Have any of The Nerdy Parent posts helped you become a better parent? Which posts and how?

2. If you have been on the fence about subscribing and finishing reading all those nerdtastic premium posts, then please upgrade to a monthly or yearly paid membership!

3. If the functionality existed, would you prefer paying a couple bucks as a one-time purchase for one of the premium posts (instead of a subscription)? Which post(s)?

4. Are there any other categories you would like to see on The Nerdy Parent's website navigation? Would you find a search tool useful?

5. What would you like me to write about going forward? What are your favourite posts?

6. Please ask at least one other parent to kindly subscribe to The Nerdy Parent's newsletter! Thank you so much!

And thank you immensely for subscribing!