Dear English speakers,

Interacting with a bilingual community is often a delicate balance, especially on social media, but it is something that is really important to me. I usually try to post mostly in French from morning to mid-afternoon Paris time (when the ‘mericans aren’t all awake yet), and in English in late afternoon and at night. This isn’t a hard rule, just one I try to follow more often than not, usually erring on the side of the more universal “burger speak” (sorry Brits, I couldn’t find a cutely offensive image for you guys. They were all just offensive. That’s right, I haven’t forgotten Waterloo).

Anyway! In the past couple of weeks, the French/English balance has been a bit out of whack, and I wanted to take a few minutes to explain what’s been happening, in case you’re not aware.

The core of it is that I am soon going to be leaving my day job (or, as people sometimes call it, my “real” job) to dedicate myself to the noble art of Podcasting and independent media. As you can imagine, it was a really tough decision (my job was really cool), but I am beyond excited about what’s coming next.

Still, excitement makes for poor sustenance.

And so we’re back to the overload of French-space-language on social media: part one of my 12-step plan to take over the world involves getting the audience to rally behind the crowdfunding effort for my French tech news show, “Le Rendez-vous Tech”. So in early September, I launched a renewed Patreon campaign, and tried to generate a bit of excitement. The initial Patreon effort had started a few months ago in a more modest form, but this second one has a clear goal of fully supporting the show and myself (“Patrick can eat” was the first of the two new goals I set). Needless to say, I have been more active than usual on my various accounts, trying to gain awareness for this whole thing, and obviously doing so in French.

On top of that, the expressions of support and encouragements I have received have been absolutely overwhelming; hundreds of messages, comments and replies have been flowing in, which I certainly didn’t expect on that scale. And even more significant for my ability to eat, the campaign has been successful beyond my wildest expectations, reaching my initial “hopefully-we’ll-get-there-before-I-leave-my-job-in-two-months” goal in just under a week. That implied even more communication, thanks, emotion and general French speaking.

I can’t really put into words how much all of this has meant to me. The financial support is an incredible thing of course, but possibly more importantly, the amount of personal support has been very emotional. It’s like getting ready for a marathon, and finding out that you have a ton of people rooting for you as you’re about to start. And by the way, this also includes the reactions to the announcement I am joining Tom Merritt as a weekly co-host on the Daily Tech News Show. That was just a-mazing… But I digress!

So I guess that the most important thing I want to say is that if you’ve been part of that outpouring of support, either in French or English, I can’t express how thankful I am. Humbled, too, because until recently I had never really thought of what I do as more than a hobby I love, and that some people occasionally listen to. In the past few months and in the past couple of weeks, this perception has shifted a bit: a lot of the people who listen are actually rooting for the shows, and that’s incredible.

The second thing I want to say is this: I’m very mindful of the support and listenership I receive from both communities, and I really want to try my best to return it in kind, and equally. So if you’ll bear with me when I stray from the Path of Balance, things will soon get back to normal… and then they’ll likely go into overdrive, as I’ll have even more time to dedicate to content and “life online”. Good things are coming. 🙂

So again, thank you everyone for your kindness and patience with me. If you want to follow more of my daily antics, you can do so on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

And you enjoy funny sounding Google translated pages, here’s an article explaining why I made that choice.

French hugs to all (don’t ask). <3