Category Archives: community

Users Are People Too

Just ran across my new favorite #loveyourcustomer hack! Back in the video days of Seesmic it was very easy to ‘humanize’ our users. They were real talking faces streaming down our screens all day long. I got to know many of them very well. Literally watching them laugh and cry, some at their lowest moments without [...]
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Three-minute Rule is a Great first step into Customer Development

Most companies I have spoken with–who are reluctant to explore the customer development process–feel that talking to customers is too hard and don’t even know where to begin. The secret (there is no secret) is to just start. It is much easier to have done something, than to think about doing something. In other words, [...]
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Tweets inspired by morning sessions at DreamForce

I would love to come back to these tweets and dig in a little further under the surface. But, I wanted to at least quickly capture some of the thoughts inspired by this morning’s sessions at DreamForce. (The #’s link out to the original tweet.) Do you have a visual, defined, roadmap for customer success that [...]
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Sustainable Community – Over Eager Greeter

Ricardo Nunez made a comment in a previous post, that got me thinking about the transition from “engage and help everybody” to “the community maintaining itself”? A noble goal for cultivating a community. Though, like infinity, it is a goal you can never really reach. But, I wanted to share a few observations I’ve made [...]
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books on community

Brainstorming titles of books on community with @communitygirl: “Community: All is Fair in Love and War” “Community: These People Kill Me” “Community: Love Scales” [ via tweeeet ] Community: All is Fair in Love and War Community is not all peaches and ponies. It is hard work and messy and beautiful and creative and draining. People are mean. And people are [...]
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I hate Community Management

People’s “relationships” are emergent and thus can’t be managed. That is, they can be influenced but not controlled. [ via Charlie Ehin ] a.k.a. Why I Think ‘manager’ is the worst word to follow the word ‘community’ I prefer the phrase Community Cultivation and try to map all tasks and skills against gardening metaphors: planting seeds mindfulness about environmental [...]
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say my name, say my name

I saw this float down my screen today, and it struck a nerve, because I have the same problem: At least 12 times yesterday someone asked me, “Do you know [name]?” or, “I was talking to [name] earlier, you know them right?” I had to shrug my shoulders and timidly reply, “I think so?” or, “They [...]
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the fewer rules, the better

Really, the fewer rules, the better. The concept is just if [a customer] calls and there’s an issue, do whatever is necessary to make her happy and really wow her. [ via The Way I Work ]
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Courting Customers Instead of VCs

If you invest in your customers now, you might find VCs anxious to invest in you.” After 6 years of trying to raise funding for 3 of my startups over the years with zero success I decided to let the market decide and court customers now rather then VC. it’s been a turning point for me [...]
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Opening a New Chapter

Entrepreneurs tend to be really good at thinking about their product, employees, VCs, term sheets, bottom-line’s and their someday-IPOs. Sometimes, they become so focused on those things that they forget to think about their customers. In the shuffle, customers (who make all the rest possible) are reduced to spreadsheets, or clicks, or eyes-on-page, or some [...]
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