David Berkowitz for Community Pros Yearbook 2025

Speakers: David Berkowitz, Chief Community Officer, Marketecture Media

David Berkowitz: I learned a lot about exploring exits for my communities and what to do next with them, and I've been building communities for really much of the past decade and an opportunity that came up that wasn't right, and then an opportunity came up that was, and a lot of it is just being able to go with the gut feeling cause, you know, ultimately like there's some things that seem so good on paper and yet you just know. Maybe it's a situation or offer you have to refuse, and then when you wind up finding the right move for you, it's also going with your gut and sometimes the lessons from what wasn't right help inform what is cause once I saw something that was right, I knew it right away and it all came together really quickly.

David Berkowitz: I think there's nothing more important for community professionals in 2026 and the rest of the decade, maybe the rest of our lives that we identify as community professionals to be real, be human. Add value as people connect real people to each other and yeah, I mean this was the year when "slop" was the word of the year and in one dictionary, and so, so much of this is like people really appreciate that human touch. And it goes a long way and having things that the community, when done right, it's the antidote to all the things that bother us about AI.