By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable – After a delay for the holidays, we’re getting into the process of interviewing candidates for the three TheCR Fellowships we are offering this year – in community management, research and sales and marketing. And an interesting question has emerged – people in community management get what a community management fellow would do, but they aren’t as clear on what we mean by “research” and “sales and marketing.”
To better explore the research fellowship, I talked with our own Maggie Tunning, who is not only has a lead role in all of our heavy-duty research projects, she’s also a former TheCR Future of Business Research Fellow.
Here are five reasons she gave me to apply as a research fellow:
A unique education in community management: “I saw the research fellowship as an opportunity to learn more about community management from employers dedicated to the field and from clients representing a variety community use cases. Working with TheCR’s Community Maturity Model gave me an understanding of the elements of a successful community that I could apply to research and client projects.”
Opportunity to create new research products: “Community management is still a developing field, but it’s rich with data, and someone really interested in data and data visualization has a great opportunity to create new tools and products that could move community research forward and could be applied to other disciplines.”
Work on the front lines of the future of business: “More and more, we see community management techniques as the future of business and management generally. Being able to research these key business trends is a great opportunity to be at the forefront of management – and that’s always a good place to be.”
TheCR mission to advance community management: “Community managers are leaders of change in their organizations, and I know from experience this job is not always easy. It’s rewarding to be part of a team dedicated to help these people succeed – and exciting to see when and how they do!”
A smart and supportive team: “Even though I “knew” and respected my colleagues when I applied, I was a little anxious about joining a virtual team. I quickly learned I had nothing to worry about and was impressed how well everyone collaborated in a virtual environment. I may wish I had the opportunity to meet up for coffee or after work drinks more frequently, but I appreciate and enjoy their company.”
Want to ask Maggie more questions? Submit an application and see if the role is the right fit for you!
