🧵 69: It pains me to this day

“What is one thing you wish you’d done better in the early days of your community careers?” – Scott Baldwin

🔓 68: The real work begins

Erica and Brian discuss the actions and activities you need to engage in directly after launching your community.

• Community Industry News:

  • Aima Atigari joined Remotebase as Community Manager

  • Tom Norman joined Craft Docs as Community Manager

  • Lalitha Wemel joined TechStars as Global Director, Engagement and Community

  • Nofar Ben Dror Paecht joined AppsFlyer as Head of Customer Community

  • Margaux Miller was promoted to Director of Community at Toptal

  • Maria Perminova was promoted to Community Operations & Strategy Manager at Miro

  • Mark Pergola joined AWS as Sr. Community Content Manager

  • Kathryn Percy joined Workday as Manager, Community Operations 

  • Piper Wilson joined Higher Logic as Consultant, Strategic Services

  • Emma-Jade Whightman joined n8n as Sr. Community Manager 

  • Alexandria Fuertes joined Keepler as Director of Community

  • Sarah Connor joined Tackle.io as Community Manager

• Related episodes:

  • Episode 40: The unsexy reality of launch planning

  • Episode 36: The stress test

🧵 67: Stuck in a loop

“Growing into management is an exciting opportunity, however, the team still isn’t large enough for you to step away from the IC work (yet). How do you balance the player / coach model in Community?” — Krystal Wu

🔓 66: Like magic

Taking an integrated approach to building the dream customer community experience.

• Community Industry News:

  • Chitra HL joined Oracle as CX Community Manager 

  • Holly Schell joined Paper as Community Engagement Specialist

  • Madeline Johannsen was promoted to Team Lead, Multimedia Community Content at Alteryx 

  • Jodi Meier joined Juniper Networks as Community Engagement Lead

  • Cheryl Rasmussen was promoted to Manager of Community, Strategy, and Development at Palo Alto Networks

  • Joshua Brown was promoted to Senior Community Manager at FuturLab

  • Andreia Tulcidás was promoted to Community Advocacy and Engagement Team Lead at OutSystems

  • Erica Moss joined HubSpot as Principle Marketing Manager, Community

  • Sydney Sherman joined Tray.io as Community Manager

• Examples:

  • Intuit

  • Dataiku 

  • GoodData

🧵 65: Try a bunch of stuff

“How can I manage and set engagement expectations/goals when our community members don’t use our service/product everyday therefore may not interact daily/weekly with a community space?” — Hannah Rafter

🔓 64: Inception

How to persuade others through the use of an age old framework.

• Community Industry News:

  • Vincent Mayers joined Gradle as Director, Community Operations

  • Vinicius Camilo joined Distrito as Investor Community Manager

  • Ahmet Uysal joined Sunrise UPC as Community Manager

  • Tuvy Le was promoted to Senior Program Manager at Github

  • Nic Tolstoshev joined Gravitee as Senior Community Manager

  • Saumya Bagga was promoted to Senior Community Specialist at G2

  • Robert McIntosh joined beThirsty as Community Builder

  • Allison Able joined Automation Anywhere as Senior Manager, Community

  • Christie Fidura started a new role as Director, Salesforce Developer Community at Salesforce

• Persuasion

  • Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

  • Brian’s framework

🧵 63: Just two?

“What would be your strategy for a community that holds two distinct personas? In this case, HR managers / People Ops and then their employees? Essentially these two different audiences would be coming together into one community.” — Lizzie LaCour

🔓 62: Read the room

Presenting your strategy to an executive audience.

• Community Industry News:

  • Sweta Shetty joined Hindustan Times as Community Manager

  • Amanda Martin was promoted to Head of Community at Unbounce

  • Kemi Kale was promoted to Head of Community Management, Community and Impact at Meta 

  • Jelena Zanko was promoted to Director, Community Management at Imply

  • Commsor raises $50M in a Series B round

  • Brian joined Commsor as SVP, New Products

    • Community-Led Product Ideas Survey

• Executive readouts and alignment:

  • 23: Be bold. Be brief. Be gone.

  • Elements we discussed:

    • Opportunity Statement/Why

    • Scope

    • Research

    • Company/Community Goals

    • Business ROI

    • Health Metrics/Benchmarks

    • Integrated Approach/Collaboration

    • Strategy Components

    • Personas

    • Programs

    • Staffing Plans/Resources Required

    • Platforms

    • Milestones & Roadmap

    • Next Steps

• Aftershow:

  • Jada on the process

🧵 61: We have a couple

“What are the top reasons you see new communities fail?” — Vishwas Katti

Brought to you by Commsor.

🔓 60: Just a couple lines of code

Developer communities and working with DevRel.

• 🇺🇦

• Community Industry News:

  • Ashley Dodge promoted to VP, Community at Copado

  • Luiza Drăghicean joined AhoyConnect as Community & Growth Advisor

  • Michael Shillingford was promoted to Director of Community at Brandwatch

  • Delphin Miloudi-Druelle joined Lifestory as Community Sidekick

  • Michel Da Silva promoted to Senior Community Strategist at Khoros

  • Mattie Fairchild joined Manticore Games as Senior Director, Community and DevRel

  • Johnny Quirk joined Shares as Head of Community

  • Dani Weinstein is looking for his next gig

• Developer Communities / DevRel:

  • SalesForce Developer Forums

  • StackOverflow

  • Digital Ocean Tutorials

• Sponsored by:

  • Commsaur exists to provide education, empowerment, and experimentation for those exploring, learning, and building community in the world of web3. Check out Brian’s Commsaur.

🧵 59: A big difference

“What differentiating values, if any, do you see in having a new customer join a community versus one who has been using your product for a good amount of time?” — Avi Lekowsky

Brought to you by Commsor.

🔓 58: Be yourself

How to tell your story and build your personal brand.

• Community Industry News:

  • Linda Haviland was promoted to Lead Community Manager at DataRobot

  • Sara Leslie joined Katalon as Sr. Director, Online Communities

  • Daliya Spasova joined Kong as Community Manager

  • Logan Ouellette joined Pleo as Events and Community Manager

  • Sourav Das joined NimbleEdge as Community Manager

  • Sara Maloney joined Wellthy as Program Manager, Community

  • Jana Iris joined PlanetScale as Head of Community & Experiential Marketing

  • Elizabeth Kinsey was promoted to Director, Community at Slack

  • Marian Lemus joined Mulesoft as Community Events Associate Manager

  • Akash Sharma joined GitHub as Community Manager

  • Lisa Claridge joined Folloze as Head of Community

  • Rose Spitzer joined FourKites as Head of Community

  • Megan Speir joined Twilio Segment to lead DevRel

• Building Your Brand:

  • Say yes

• Sponsored by:

  • Take on inSided’s 8-week customer health challenge and go from red to green as you burn the churn.

  • Explore C School’s growing library of courses to help you master concrete community skills and specializations.

🧵 57: Don’t take the bait

“How do I deal with competitors in my community?” — Seth Wylie

Brought to you by Commsor.

🔓 56: I don’t want flowers

Why it’s time to leave CMAD behind and level-up as an industry.

• Community Industry News:

  • Kimberly Ndolo joined Wonder as Community Manager

  • Michelle Mathias was promoted to Manager, Community Experience and Programs at Esri

  • Christa Ellis joined Wix as Head of eCommerce Community

  • Jeffrey Steadman joined Cotopaxi as Community Engagement Director

• Let’s all move forward together:

  • Communicate the value you generating often

  • Reassess your personal value and have conversations with your leadership

  • Explore roles that are more aligned to your value

  • Help others tell your story and promote your value

  • Get mentorship from others in the space and learn from their experience

  • Take leadership and business courses to level up

  • Think about the ways you contribute to push the industry forward

• Sponsored by:

  • The Community-Led Report unpacks the now and future of the community industry, with trends, highlights to celebrate, and areas of opportunity for growth, with insights and resources to help.

  • Take on inSided’s 8-week customer health challenge and go from red to green as you burn the churn.

🧵 55: Fractions of fractions

“Do you think there is a minimum size of customers/users that you need to have to make a community successful?” — Yeori Hokken

Brought to you by Commsor.

🔓 54: A secret weapon

How motivating Partners to engage in your community can accelerate outcomes.

• Community Industry News:

  • Gainsight acquired inSided

  • Sofia Losada joined Sisense as Community Content Manager

  • Katie Bapple joined Building Brave as Chief Community Officer

  • Zoe Hartsfield joined Spekit as Community Manager

  • Christine Gritmon joined Agorpulse as Senior Editor, Community 

  • Kelly Schott joined Pragmatic Institute as Manager of Community Programs

  • Noele Flowers was promoted to Director of Community Education at Commsor

  • Chris Detzel was promoted to Director of Customer Community and Engagement at Reltio

  • Kannaa Chilla joins InVision as Community Manager

  • Celina Zamora joins Cypress.io as Director of Community

  • Sara Ott was promoted to Head of Community Experience at hound.vet

  • Jill Ross joined Fivetran as Director of Community

  • Lauren Hagerty joined PowerToFly Director of Marketing and Community

• Aftershow:

  • BJO Estes Park

• Sponsored by:

  • Commsor combines software, community, and strategic services to give your team the complete, integrated solution you need to succeed.

  • Boulder County Wildfire Fund: On December 30th, 2021 the most destructive wildfire in the state's history, the Marshall fire, destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in Boulder County. Lend a helping hand with a donation of any size.

🧵 53: What’s in it for me?

“What is the best way to get stakeholders excited about getting involved and engaging in your company community?” — Tessa Kriesel

Brought to you by Commsor.

🔓 52: Out of scope

What is Community Operations, why is it so important, and why should you hire someone specifically to execute it? Erica and Brian give you the rundown.

• Boulder County Wildfires:

  • Boulder County Wildfire Fund 

  • Bethune Family GoFundMe

  • Osterman Family GoFundMe

• Community Industry News:

  • Chris Detzel’s tribute to Michael Sandoval

  • Molly Schreiber was promoted to Community Director at Savvy Cooperative

  • Ryan Arsenault joined DISYS (Intuit) as Online Community Manager

  • Sangeeta Gupta joined Dataiku as Community Manager

  • Carol Benovic-Bradley was promoted to Director of Community at Flickr

  • Rohit Bhaskar joined Trifacta as Community Enablement Manager

• Ops:

  • Sample community org charts

  • FIX IT

  • Lili McDonald

  • Jacques Canonge

  • Dan Menke

  • Matt DeSimone

  • Tiffany Oda, Cassie Mayes, and Opservations

• Sponsored by:

  • Vanilla Community Predictions 2022: Vanilla and Higher Logic sat down with 22 community management experts to discover what's coming for community in 2022. Together, they worked out ten key takeaways for the coming year. If you run a community, are part of a community, or are debating whether or not to launch one, check out their eBook is for you.

  • C School Coaching and Career Tracks: Taught by industry experts, these small cohort-based-courses combine real-time instruction, collaborative work with other talented professionals, work-applicable projects, and 1:1 coaching to help you go to the next level.

🔓 51: Top 10ish

We close out 2021 by talking about our favorite happenings in the community industry.

• Community Industry News:

  • Ashley Townsend joined JP Morgan Chase as Vice President Community Manager

  • Max Pete joined SuperHi as Communuty / Customer Support Lead

• Top Stuff:

  • Erica:

    • Zendesk home page

    • Slack leader videos and another one and another one

    • Nanit community launch countdown

    • Amanda Martin

  • Brian:

    • C School 201 Leadership Track

    • Sisense’s Ranks/Badges

    • Pledge 1% Community

    • MURAL Community

    • Tiffany Oda and Cassie Mayes bringing Ops to the fore

• Aftershow:

  • Grandma Oblinger’s Dream Bar recipe

• Sponsored by:

  • C School Coaching and Career Tracks: Taught by industry experts, these small cohort-based-courses combine real-time instruction, collaborative work with other talented professionals, work-applicable projects, and 1:1 coaching to help you go to the next level.

  • Vanilla Community Predictions 2022: Vanilla and Higher Logic sat down with 22 community management experts to discover what's coming for community in 2022. Together, they worked out ten key takeaways for the coming year. If you run a community, are part of a community, or are debating whether or not to launch one, check out their eBook is for you.

🔓 50: The cold start

What you should do in the first few months at a new company where you’re building community for the first time.

• Community Industry News

  • Molli Aronce joined Reality Labs at Meta as Community Manager

  • Molly Kipnis joined Gong as Community Manager

  • Louise Branscomb joined Strava as Senior Community Manager

  • Alex Williams joined Eightfold as Customer Community Manager

• Getting Started:

  • Community Launch Guide: People

  • Community Launch Guide: Cross-Functional Workstreams

• Sponsored by:

  • Vanilla Community Predictions 2022: Vanilla and Higher Logic sat down with 22 community management experts to discover what's coming for community in 2022. Together, they worked out ten key takeaways for the coming year. If you run a community, are part of a community, or are debating whether or not to launch one, check out their eBook is for you.

  • C School Coaching Track: Taught by industry expert Noele Flowers, this 12 week, small cohort-based-course combines real-time instruction, collaborative work with other talented professionals, work-applicable projects, and 1:1 coaching to help early-career community managers become top-notch industry experts.