In Before The Lock is a podcast from Erica Kuhl and Brian Oblinger about community, customer experience, and leadership at scale. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and everywhere that podcasts are found.
🔓 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
Getting Started:
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.
🔓 40: The unsexy reality of launch planning
Erica and Brian dive deep into the tasks required to get a community off of the ground.
Community Industry News
Rich Millington’s new book: Build Your Community: Turn your connections into a powerful online community
Emily Dunn joined ServiceTitan as Senior Customer Community Manager
Alex Pisani was promoted to Senior Manager, Trailblazer Community at Salesforce
Nic Tolstoshev joined StackHawk as Community Management Lead
Maria Ogneva joined Invoca as Director of Community and Customer Marketing
Philippe Beaudette was promoted to VP, Community at StackOverflow
Launch Planning:
Sponsored By:
Commsor integrates with all the tools you already use, tying your community data together and enabling you to unlock insights, measure impact, and build a community-led company.
Khoros Engage has it all — dynamic general sessions, thought-provoking breakout discussions, practical tips, and virtual networking.
🔓 36: The stress test
Soft Launch — the who, what, when, where, and why. Erica and Brian talk through how you can use it to set your new community up for success.
Community Industry News:
Willa Tellekson-Flash was promoted to Director of Community at Public.com
Austin Grimes joined Flexera as Senior Digital Community Manager
Joe Miller joined Incorta as Sr. Director, Community & Customer Enablement
Shannon Emery joined Alteryx as Manager, Community Recognition
Kristie Preston joined Inherit Learning Company as Digital Community Manager
Soft Launch:
Sponsored By:
Higher Logic partnered with Community Roundtable on this year's State of Community Management report. Go download the report today!
Commsor knows that no two communities look the same, function in the same way, or have the same needs. Which is why they announced new integrations to enable Community Managers to bring all their members together in a single dashboard — no matter which platform those members engage on — and connect the dots between them.
🔓 17: Minimum Viable Community
In this very special episode of the pod recorded live at CMX Summit 2020, Erica and Brian walk through the finer points of launching a new community using their free Community Launch Guide.