Welcome Maggie Tunning, the newest member of TheCR team and of course she has been peer pressured into blogging. Please make her feel welcome. She has great experience and enthusiasm that is already shining through in our The Social Executive Research. Here’s why:
One of the things that interests me most about The Community Roundtable’s research is the focus on exploring how people are really using social technology at work. Rachel and Jim work with people – not in theories – and their interactions help to tell a story and inform the discipline of community management. This approach attracted me to TheCR.
People and their work have long interested me, and I studied journalism because I enjoyed the process of interviewing someone and writing a personality profile. I can still remember some of my earliest articles featuring a local Santa Claus, an ice cream maker, an Italian purse designer and a political cartoonist. All of these people lived near me in Nebraska, a place that didn’t offer much excitement when I was growing up, but I appreciated the places these people carved out within the community.
One of the things I’ve most appreciated about the The Social Executive research we are doing is the opportunity to learn from a variety of professionals across industries. Because TheCR works directly with so many online community professionals, we have a unique perspective and access to leaders who are changing the way work gets done, as well as to traditionalists who are not as convinced that this change is the answer. We’ve interviewed over two dozen CEOs, CIOs and directors of social programs, and they have generously shared their business objectives, initiatives and the many challenges they face. I look forward to telling their individual stories and weaving them into the larger story of the executive’s journey to adopting social technologies.
Before joining TheCR, I was working on the knowledge team at the World Bank, where we were introducing internal social media. One of my first assignments – to my delight – was to interview a selection of people handpicked by my boss to learn about their work. I didn’t have to pitch the platform to them, all I had to do was understand what they were doing and what they cared about. Of course I soon understood the strategy behind this “fun” exercise and how it would shape the development and growth of that community. It also became clear to me during that time how personal social media adoption can be.
We’re taking this into account for this year’s State of Community Management. We’ve established an advisory board of members from TheCR Network for the report so that we can ensure our research reflects what our members’ priorities are. We are collaborating with these 
experienced professionals to prepare a quantitative survey, and I think their involvement will help us shape the research so that we answer the questions most important to our members/clients.
The Community Roundtable believes a community approach is good for businesses and so do our members. The point of our research is to tell their stories, highlight trends, help our members succeed and in the process educate all of you, too. Stay tuned for more updates and let us know what are the biggest challenges you face in your community initiatives…so we can factor them in!
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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.
Our research initiatives serve to assist members through their most pressing challenges and help them formulate long-term community strategy.
