Hello! I'm Greg Bloom from the Open Referral Initiative

Hi folks – I lead the Open Referral Initiative.

I’ve met several of you over the past few years, and I’m very excited to see all of this activity in the UK network :slight_smile:

Among other topics, I am eager to find ways to support localization of Open Referral’s common data model, and evolve polycentric governance processes, while preserving some core interoperability and leveraging common assets across our efforts. For example, we’ve long had a Google Group that includes members of many different sub-networks, and we have a Slack team – and I encourage y’all to join both – though I’m also wondering how we might federate these communications channels, so that they don’t evolve as siloed networks. A lot of the work I’ve already seen in the UK seems like it might be worth replicating in the US, and perhaps vice versa.

So I’d welcome opportunities to consider how these networks can best align moving forward. Feel free to reach out to discuss! In the meantime, I’ll make sure to share key updates and resources here.

Onward,
greg

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It’s great to have you here Greg as you have led the international Open Referral community from the USA for so long.

I think that you and others in the USA, Like @devin, see lots of opportunity for greater alignment and sharing of resources across the Atlantic - as do I. Your recent adoption of many of the extensions to the standard first introduced in the UK was good to see.

Whilst this forum provides a chance for UK people to communicate directly with their peers here, many issues raised will apply equally to us all and we’ll feed relevant information through your channels.