The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

So What Type of Community Do You Need?

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As more companies, organizations, and individuals use social technologies and networks, a vast array of community structures are being used for various goals.  There are a number of great models for understanding the ecosystem in which every company is part. Bill Johnston built a Social Media … [Read more...]

The Fallacy of the Organic Community

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Over the years there has been the ongoing debate about whether you can create and build a community or whether you can't. The latest post in the camp of 'you can't do it' is from Spike Jones in a post titled The Fallacy of Community.  I agree with him that the word 'community' gets thrown around a … [Read more...]

Are You Measuring Social Media or Playing Bingo?

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Last week, Radian6 hosted its first user conference and I was impressed with the content, speakers, and the logistics of the event itself. One of the panels I attended was the ROI panel, in large part to support Ken Burbary and KD Paine but I realized while listening to the confusion and arguments … [Read more...]

Coverage of The 2011 State of Community Management

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We have been pleased that initial reaction to our annual report on The State of Community Management has been so positive and that so many people we respect have taken the time to cover the report and provide their perspective. One of the things I love is to see is what resonates with different … [Read more...]

Time to Comfort: How to Get People Engaged

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Thomas Vander Wal, who spoke with members of TheCR Network recently, likes to use the word comfort instead of trust when speaking about what encourages people to engage and participate in online social environments.  He does this because trust is both over-used and vague in its meaning. Thomas … [Read more...]

When Being Helpful Isn’t Helpful (to your community)

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Last week I had the opportunity to share how we're thinking about @TheCR with an undergrad class on eMarketing at Bentley University. It was a fun discussion and the questions that followed my presentation really got me thinking. While I focused on community management best practices for a good … [Read more...]

5 Risks of Having A Community Without Management

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Megan Smith, the community manager at Ovation TV, and I presented this week at the Online Marketing Summit on the fundamentals of community management. It gave me the chance to revisit and refresh my thinking. As part of the exercise, Megan and I identified the most common risks of having a … [Read more...]

10 Community Roundtable Member Predictions for 2011

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While it is probably interesting to make our own predictions about what will happen in community management in 2011, we thought it would be more interesting and realistic to tell you what we heard from Community Roundtable members. We recently chatted with Len Devanna of EMC, Eran Barak of Thomson … [Read more...]

Your Cultural Fingerprint

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I was speaking with Anne McCrossan of Visceral Business last week about socializing business processes and the cultural change management required to bring a more innovative, humane, and personal way of doing business to life.  We were talking about the difficulties in articulating culture that can … [Read more...]