Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another.
Which might also mean, if there is no need for any forgiveness between people in your crowd, you do not truly have community.
forgiveness
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Tag Archives: community
What qualities make someone a good community manager?
Got a great question today in my inbox, “what qualities make someone a good community manager?“
First, I can not promote the title community manager, because I do not believe the role is to manage the community. I don’t think the title is fair to the professional or to the community.
So, I can only promote titles like,
Community Architect A product centric person who designs and creates the spaces for communities to gather in and go about their life and work together
Community Curator A content centric person who is a good story teller, and can draw out great stories and examples from the community to reflect back to itself.
Community Cultivator A person who cares about rules and procedures and knows when to break them… the person who plants questions and content, moderates conversations, and mediates relationships.
Some of the qualities necessary for these roles are:
- Compassion – you must love people in all their shapes and cultures and proclivities
- Empathy – able to step in the shoes and head of anyone within the community, or outside the community
- Strong Character – able to roll with the punches, dodge attacks, and defend community guidelines
- Decider – gotta just make decisions quickly, communicate clearly, and keep moving
I probably need to add a hundred more, but these keep floating to the top.
Community College
I had a thought the other day:
“I wonder how many college students are looking for #cmtymgmt #octribe internships? Thinking about creating “community college” =)”
I have not nailed down all the details yet, but I’m trying to live my life as a draft, so I’m thinking out loud here.
Essentially, I’m trying to collect a group of folks interested in community cultivation, but who might not have quite the amount of experience many companies are looking for. We would talk shop about community cultivation, and I would be available as a resource to both the company and the intern, but the intern would get a TON of hands on experience.
be part of folk’s lives in a meaniful way
“Ok, but, enough about me…. lets talk about what you think about me.”
Every time I hear a company, agency, or “social media guru” talk about getting something to go viral, I puke in my mouth. Just a little bit. (I won’t even get into the downside of being a virus right now.) I just wish more of these folks would use their energy and creativity to focus on being meaningful in the lives of the people they want to reach, by providing value to them.
“If there’s a formula, then you’re doing it wrong,” Glover says. “It really is a social dynamic, being part of folks’ lives in a meaningful way.”
[ via Funny or Die Relies on Social Networks and Wit in Winging Its Success | Fast Company ]
Bonus thought: The easiest way to get someone to like you, is to be interested in them.
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 hope, others during a wedding ceremony or the first moments with a new child. We flew from around the world to cram ourselves into a basement in the middle of winter, just to hang out with each other. So many of these people are still my good friends today.
For many companies, however, it is not that easy to see the people behind the usernames. Especially not on such a consistent and personal basis. But, no worries, Joe Heitzeberg came up with a wonderful solution:
How do you take a team that’s swamped with work and make them become incredibly customer focused overnight? … Every day, print out a few hundred new user photo thumbnails and post them on the walls.
[ via currentlyobsessed.com ]
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, JUMP IN!
Anythony Tjan has provided a great exercise that should make it easier get started:
You can learn a great deal about customers by studying the broader context in which they use your product or service. To do this, ask what your customer is doing three minutes immediately before and three minutes after he uses your product or service…
[ via The Three-Minute Rule - Anthony Tjan - Harvard Business Review ]
If you still need a little help, (i.e. want to wear a life jacket and an inner-tube before jumping in) then you need to learn how to ask your customers questions. The secret (there is not secret) is to just start. Pick one customer you have spoken to before (not so scary) and ask them those two questions: (1) What were you doing 3 minutes before you last used our product? (2) What were you doing 3 minutes after you last used our product?
Don’t create a form. Don’t send out a mass email. Don’t assign it to your sales team. Don’t make your intern do it. Pick up the phone and call one customer. You don’t need to promise them anything, and you better not try and defend yourself or your product. Just listen, learn, and share the love by saying thank you.
Now, you’re ready to swim in the deep end.
photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenneth_hynek / CC BY 2.0