Before we look forward, it’s always good to take stock of where we’ve been, how much progress we’ve made and where we may not have done so well. For The Community Roundtable this has been a very full year and I am very proud by all we have accomplished. Our goal is to advance the business of community and it feels like we have made some great progress. Some of the highlights for us have been:
- Welcoming new community and business teams into TheCR Network from Hitachi Data Systems, Resource, H&R Block, Ernst & Young, BarclayCard, BASF, Autodesk, IDG, Rackspace, Google, Marsh, Walgreens, CareerBuilder, Amica, Northwestern Mutual, Pegasystems, Grundfos, GovDelivery, GetSatisfaction, Yammer, Mercer, RSA, PWC, Best Doctors, Zumba and Purina. It is a privilege to get to know them and in turn, they allow us to understand the real opportunities and challenges of implementing social approaches in a wide variety of organizations.
- Seeing our members succeed. A lot of community management goes unnoticed and when community managers struggle it is typically in private which can be exceedingly tough. While we do a lot of cheering within TheCR Network it is so gratifying when others notice the great work of our members which includes our members speaking at events or winning awards. We are continually impressed by their intelligence, dedication and thoughtfulness and nothing makes us happier than when they do well.
- Making connections. One of our favorite things to do is connect smart people who don’t know each other and help to jump start relationships. We love seeing those relationships spill across the social web and to in-person events. One of the ways we do this for TheCR Network members is to bring in the smartest people we know from outside the network to lead small group discussions – people like Nilofer Merchant, Dion Hinchcliffe, Deb Lavoy, Gilad Lotan, Natanya Anderson, Michael Brito, Jake McKee and many others. We are grateful to all of them for sharing their time and wisdom with our members and know they get valuable feedback in return.
- Launching formal community management training. We partnered with WOMMA and ComBlu to develop an online training program for community teams, taught by experienced practitioners. These classes far exceeded our expectation in terms of attendance and they are now available on demand.
- Extending our research. The 2012 State of Community Management was groundbreaking in its articulation of the programs and initiatives that companies undertake at different levels of social business maturity, made possible by support from Protiviti, Ektron, Fleishman Hillard, and IBM. But there is clearly a need for more. We initiated a new research platform, The Social Executive and have had amazing interviews with a wide range of C-level executives. We also hired our first Future of Business Research Fellow (look for an announcement coming soon!). In 2013 we will be transitioning to more quantitative research and are very excited to be developing our research capacity.
- Transitioning Hillary Boucher from a Community Management Fellow to our full-time Community Manager. It has been a delight to watch Hillary grow in to the role and become a seasoned facilitator. Best of all, with all of our travel and events, she gives us peace of mind because she’s listening to members and proactively connecting and initiating the conversations they need to advance their communities.
- Broadening our reach. This year has been a year chock full of events and speaking opportunities; Lotus Connect and Lotusphere, Community Manager Appreciation Day, SXSW including a community strategist gathering, CSC’s Technology and Business Solutions Conference, Enterprise 2.0 including an unforgettable Powerpoint Karaoke event with Moxie Software and the Community BackChannel, HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Summit, a DC Senior Fellows and Friends event, JiveWorld, Women’s Leadership Summit on the Business of Social Media, joining Ari Lightman’s class at Carnegie Mellon along with Francois Gossieaux, Defrag, Social HR Camp, Gilbane, ASAE Technology Conference as well as ten or so client workshops or executive education sessions and many more TheCR Live lunches. Phew, no wonder we are tired and that does not include the reach that our members had, many of whom are recognized thought leaders themselves.
- Extending TheCRLive. We’ve always convened casual lunches for community leaders in the Boston area and have had a few ad hoc ones when a member of the team travels but this year we identified local hosts willing to take on regular events in Chicago and Austin. A big thank you to Jenny Weigle from CareerBuilder, Heather Strout from Lithium and Wesley Faulkner, an independent.
One of the things I am personally proud of this year as I’ve traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe is that I’ve been able to connect with and inspire audiences from the senior executive team of a large European-owned manufacturing company to small groups of IT professionals in Columbus, OH to the Defrag audience of technology strategists and architects. For me that is great feedback that we are doing something right.
I am also so grateful to see The Community Roundtable’s network thriving and attracting the smartest practitioners and executives in the market because we believe that by pushing the conversation with that group and documenting the things we are learning together with them, we will help communities and social business initiatives succeed. There are many, many individuals within the network who have contributed in small and large ways to make it the environment that it is – we hope that like any good community they all feel like they get more out of participating then they contribute. We are also thankful to them for taking leaps of faith with us to carve out new territory.
If you are interested in being a formal part of this network either as a practitioner and member or as a partner/sponsor I would love to hear from you.
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TheCR Network is a membership network that provides strategic, tactical and professional development programming for community and social business leaders. The network enables members to connect and form lasting relationships with experts and peers as well as get access to vetted content.
TheCR Network is the place to learn from social business practitioners. Join today
