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Don’t Chase Badges — Build Real Connections Through Interviews

Don’t Chase Badges — Build Real Connections Through Interviews

AWS Builder Center badges can be a fun way to participate and stay motivated, but when engagement becomes the main goal, we can lose sight of what the community is really about. Instead of chasing likes and comments just to unlock badges, let’s focus on meaningful conversations, knowledge sharing, and learning from each other.

Series: AWS Community & Learning (2 articles)

  1. 1
    Don’t Chase Badges — Build Real Connections Through Interviews This article
  2. 2
    Building Event-Driven Applications with AWS Lambda and S3
Recently, AWS Builder Center introduced tasks that encourage community engagement, such as receiving a certain number of likes or comments and getting likes on your comments.
At first, this seems like a great way to encourage people to participate.
But there is another side to it.
I have started seeing people asking others to

“like my comment” ,“like my post”,

sometimes even exchanging likes with each other.
When engagement becomes something we collect just to complete a task, the meaning of community participation can get lost.

What if we focused on conversations instead?

Rather than targeting a badge, imagine using the same time to:
▪️Interview another AWS Builder about their learning journey.
▪️Ask someone how they built their project.
▪️Share your experience with a certification or AWS service.
▪️Discuss challenges you've faced while learning cloud or AI.
▪️Help a beginner solve a problem.
▪️Learn about how other builders are using AWS in real projects.
A 30-minute conversation with another builder could teach you more than collecting dozens of artificial likes.
Badges should be a result, not the goal
There is nothing wrong with enjoying badges. They can be a nice recognition of participation and can motivate people to become more active.
The problem starts when the badge becomes more important than the activity itself.
If I'm commenting only because I need another comment for a badge, or asking someone to like my comment only because I need to reach a target, I'm participating for the metric rather than for the community.
Instead, let's make the badge a by-product of genuine participation.

Let's interview each other

One idea I would love to see more of in the Builder community is informal builder-to-builder interviews.

Ask someone:
1️⃣What are you currently building?
2️⃣Why did you choose AWS?
3️⃣What was the hardest part of your project?
4️⃣Which AWS service did you learn recently?
5️⃣What advice would you give to someone starting with AWS?
These conversations can create genuine connections and potentially lead to collaboration, mentorship, project ideas, and new opportunities.
Ten meaningful conversations are more valuable than ten requested likes.
So, if you're participating in AWS Builder Center, don't worry too much about completing every engagement target just for the badge.
Build. Share. Ask. Help. Interview. Connect.
And let the badges come naturally from the value you create.
That, in my opinion, is what a builder community should be about.
# aws-community-builders# all-builders-welcome# aws-networking# career# builder-center

Series: AWS Community & Learning (2 articles)

  1. 1
    Don’t Chase Badges — Build Real Connections Through Interviews This article
  2. 2
    Building Event-Driven Applications with AWS Lambda and S3
Any opinions in this article are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.
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