Almost 2 years ago I left tech and switched my focus to working with mission-driven organizations, communities, and practitioners to explore, design, and deliver better project and organization endings. My project is called The Wind Down and has evolved into a consultancy, a community of practice, and a newsletter. Along the way, I have to make a few decisions about how I was going to broadcast and drive forward my career shift.
Understanding that I am not the only person out there who might be boldly embarking on a big career change, I wanted to share a few minor — but meaningful! — things that I did to help me pluck myself out of my old world and into this new one.
Unfollow and Disconnect
I am old enough to remember when LinkedIn would show exactly how many connections you had and it was a badge of honor to finally hit the coveted 500+ zone. These days, connections are cheap and easy, and you sometimes don’t even remember how you acquired them all.
As part of my “rebranding”, I went through my connections and (as best as I could) unfollowed people who I was happy to stay in touch with but who were doing work that I no longer cared to hear about. I really didn’t care to see any more of those “We are excited to announce Feature X or Version Y” for companies I no longer cared about being affiliated with.
In the case that I couldn’t even remember who the person was or how we’d even ever become connected, I just removed the connection. I doubt anyone even noticed or cared, and it created a feed more focused on the connections who were doing more aligned work and participating in discussions I did want to take part in.
Un-Slack
As part of my professional development, I’d also joined many Slack communities where I could connect with my peers in tech. The one I was most engaged in was Support Driven, which was community for tech support professionals. I have gotten hired through that community, I hired many people from the community, I received invaluable support from the peers there, and I made some amazing lifelong IRL friends around the world.
HOWEVER, once I was out of tech, I found that I was still spending a TON of time in that community, and it was unfortunately becoming a colossal time suck. So, it was with a heavy heart that I stepped back.
In this case, I did it in phases. I first took a lengthy pause and broadcast it by changing my name in the Slack to something like “Camille Will Be Back In A Few Months”. Then I signed the community out of my Slack desktop app. I set myself a reminder to sign back in in a few months and determine whether I wanted to take it further.
After those few months were up, I signed back in, looked around, and decided I was ready to be gone. So I changed my name to “Camille Is Gone Forever” to ensure that anyone who was looking for me would know that that Slack was no longer a place to find me.
I still miss the folks there. They are some of the kindest and most helpful people on the planet, and they also delivered the kind of snark and camaraderie you can only get from beleaguered support people. However, I needed to move on. My work is rooted in endings and I think I handled that one quite well.
Find The Others
The process of reimagining myself wasn’t just a series of cuts and goodbyes. I also made a lot of new connections and reached out to deepen relationships with people I’d been wanting to get to know better. As I was introduced to new people, I would connect to them on LinkedIn, and to those people who I didn’t know (but would eventually like to!) I gave a follow. As I continued to do this, I grew a network that was more relevant to the direction I was trying to go, and I *also* started to get a better sense of the kind of conversations that were happening in the non-profit/civil society — a space that is still, in many ways, pretty new to me.
In addition to LinkedIn, I also signed up for podcasts and newsletters related to this work and sent a LOT of cold emails introducing myself to potential contacts and collaborators. Fortunately, many of the people I reached out to were kind and exceedingly generous with their time, knowledge, and guidance.
Build new community
For years before I formally left tech, I was already slowly starting to connect with people interested or already actively working in closure and other types of social change. As part of that, in early 2023, I was looped into a monthly accountability session called Sense and Respond. In January 2024, the person running that session reached out to tell me that she wanted to pull together some of the monthly attendees into a community called IMMA, where we could meet more regularly to share advice, commiserate, celebrate, and essentially grow our practices “separately but together”.
IMMA’s small but global, virtual community was instrumental in helping me get The Wind Down off the ground. I made dear friends and contacts there and marked some vital milestones. While I stepped away from the group earlier this year, I do genuinely question if I’d still be on this path if I hadn’t had those folks giving me so much encouragement and genuinely helping me structure my days. Working alone is not for everyone — heck, I don’t really love it! — but if you are going to be working alone, finding others to do it with (as contradictory as that may seem) can make a huge difference.
Shifting careers after you’ve built a strong network in one industry or profession is not an easy thing. People in your previous field know you and see you in a certain way and will often continue to reach out to you to discuss that work. Meanwhile, you are often unknown in the spaces where you’d like to establish a presence and generate a good living. It can be frustrating trying to uproot yourself and get stuck in in a new place.
I have found that what helps more than anything is time and consistency. The more that you can do and show good work in your new field, the more you will draw attention to what you are doing now and who you are now. And the more you are getting positive attention in this new space, the more the old career can fall into the past, as a meaningful time in your life that help propelled you into this new and better, post-pivot now.
Camille E. Acey 
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