Today we are celebrating the third anniversary of TheCR and of #TheCRLive. Like many things, it seems both yesterday and forever ago. I never expected to be an entrepreneur, but when Jim and I started The Community Roundtable it was clear and obvious to me that the market needed an organization to champion the management needs of emerging social environments and that Jim and I had unique, complementary and significant experience to build that organization. We also both shared the support and encouragement of our families which was critical – Jennifer Storer and Ted McEnroe are our biggest investors and deserve much of the credit for where we are today. I wish all decisions in life were so easy.
Fast forward three years and interest in and demand for community managers and community management education has grown enormously and made us look downright prescient – although I’m not sure we deserve that credit. At the time, we thought it was a critical role, but also somewhat specialized. Today, almost every organization exploring social technologies is also looking for professionals that understand how the changing communications environment can be applied to businesses needs. In short, they’re looking for community professionals.
I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past three years:
- A customer base of 75+ companies including SAP, Aetna, Google, CSC, BASF, Dell, ASHA, AT&T, Hanover Insurance, RedHat, Fidelity, Isis Parenting, Babson, Autodesk, CA, Digitas, Rackspace, Humana, Johnson Controls, H&R Block, and many more.
- A rich set of partners including Fleishman-Hillard, Protiviti, IBM, Moxie Software, Acquia, WOMMA, ComBlue, UBM TechWeb, as well as many other marketing and content relationships.
- An amazing set of of individuals who have shared their expertise and perspective with TheCR Network members.
- Three annual State of Community Management reports, each with a unique focus that continue to make each relevant reading today: 2010, 2011, 2012
- A portfolio of products that serve the learning needs of an array of audiences: TheCR Network, TheCR Focus, TheCR Training in collaboration with WOMMA & ComBlu and TheCR Advisory
- A huge collection of free resources for community managers
- Presentations at an array of industry and client events including Enterprise 2.0, SXSW, PRSA, Social Media & Community 2.0, Social Media Week, Gilbane, Social Media Breakfast (Boston, NH, & NYC), Inbound Marketing Summit, LaunchCamp, FutureM, MassInno, Marketing Profs, Radian6 user conference, Online Marketing Summit, Front End of Innovation, Social Media in Government, ThoughtFarmer’s Social Intranet Summit, and Lotushpere/Lotus Connect.
- Over 50 TheCRLive lunches – including those in Boston, Austin, Washington D.C. and San Francisco.
- Webinars and social events with Protiviti, IBM, KickApps, NewsGator, Socious, Social Media Today, Constant Contact, Awareness, Acquia, Moxie Software, Communispace, Cisco, HCI, and BarclaysCard.
While we have been incredibly busy we have our community to thank for the opportunities to do all of the above. Within those events are hundreds of friends and advocates and we are constantly humbled by their support. The praise we get from clients and friends alike is truly gratifying and keeps us motivated to keep moving forward. We like to do business with friends and the shared value we get from that reinforces our passion for a community approach to both our products and our business model.
We have built a great foundation in three years, but there is plenty of opportunity to do more. In the coming months we’ll roll out a more comprehensive research agenda, extend our existing partnerships and working to build partnerships with other relevant organizations to help serve the needs of community and social business leaders, which includes:
- Executive engagement, education and leadership
- Data that frames the challenges and opportunities
- Methodologies that help to scale community and social business initiatives
We’re excited to celebrate with our friends in Boston today, but recognize the support we’ve felt from our global community of friends, partners, members and “cheeseheads” – we couldn’t have made it here without you!
