By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable
Today we wrap up a three-part series on the community professionals whom we dubbed as Community Superheroes in the recently-published Community Manager Handbook: 20 Lessons from Community Superheroes – and the people in their work they consider superheroes.
Our first two installments (#1 and #2) included thoughts from 12 of our superheroes – Alex Blanton, Matt Brown, Charissa (Carnall) Cowart, Eileen Foran, Jerry Green, Patrick Hellen, Ted Hopton, Bill Johnston, Kirsten Laaspere, James LaCorte, J.J. Lovett and Lesley Lykins. Today we finish up, with the people our superheroes highlighted and the reasons why. If you go back through the three posts, you’ll have a great list of about 40 thoughtful leaders in the community space to follow as you wrestle with your own community challenges.
Here’s the final batch!
Superhero: Tracy Maurer, UBM
Her Superheroes: Claire Flanagan (Jive) and Ted Hopton (McGraw-Hill Education; formerly Tracy’s colleague at UBM)
Superhero: Maria Ogneva, Sidecar
Her Superheroes: “Other than Rachel (Happe)? I really look up to Doug Atkin (Airbnb). He’s done an amazing job of mobilizing and storytelling the story of his community, which is so huge and diverse. He’s a leader and the community team covers a vast space – to pull all that together is a nontrivial task in a hotly contested space.”
Superhero: Mike Pascucci, Autodesk
His Superhero: “The Unknown CM” – “Basically, anyone who manages a third party they doesn’t work for. They have to understand the culture of any place they moderate for – which isn’t easy, and they stay behind the scenes and don’t like people to know who they are – but they deserve recognition.”
Superhero: Jeff Ross, Humana
His superhero: Richard Millington (Feverbee): “I quote him all the time and point people to his resources. Most of what he talks about is not internal, but it still applies very well.”
Superhero: Christian Rubio, SERMO
His superhero: Rebecca Newton (Mind Candy): “She’s done an immense amount building a social internet experience that is safe for children.”
Superhero: Hillary Boucher, TheCR Network
Her Superhero: Maria Ogneva (Sidecar): “I admire how collaborative and generous she is with sharing her expertise with her peers. She does an excellent job of staying grounded in practical community management practices while working strategically and advocating for community internally.”
