The Community Roundtable

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

How do I thank just three people? Well, I don’t.

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Every year I sit down to think about three people that have impacted my year for #thankitforward and every time it’s impossible. I am so grateful to work on a team of fun, passionate, hard-working people. It truly makes my job a joy.

And beyond that, I get to spend my days interacting with awesome community managers around the world. People how are doing innovative, amazing work to improve their organizations.

Narrowing it down is hard, but for you, I tried.

For my three:

@Hillary Boucher is the work partner you dream of. She’s fun, funny and always tells me the

Bet you didn’t know she’s a DJ.

truth. She pushes me to be better, at work and not at work, and I am so, so happy to have her in my life.

@Jerry Green has handled every weird thing I’ve thrown at him this year with a smile. It appears that he’s good at everything (and so tall!) and we’re so lucky he’s part of our team.

I’m going to cheat for my third one and say: every single person I’ve met in real life at events over the past year. As I mentioned, working from home can be tough (and awesome, but lonely sometimes). My favorite part of my job is meeting all of you in real life, sharing drinks, stories, crab legs, late nights, early morning, and laughs.  There is no way I’ll remember everyone, but here’s a quick list:

@Lori Harrison-Smith 
@Lisa Allison
@Heather Ausmus
@Cy Jervis
@Ted Hopton
@Oonagh McQuarrie
@Jennifer Erzen
@Claire Flanagan
@J.J. Lovett
@Sam Creek
@Jeff Ross
@Monica Lluis
@Peter Broadley
@Helen Chen
@Mike Pascucci
@JoAnn Scanlon
@Luke Sinclair
@Karen Brent
@Jeff Glasson
@Monique van den Berg

Ok, I’m done. If I forgot your name, I apologize – please know that you made my year better, too!

Time to #thankitforward – Looking Back and Giving Thanks

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

snoopygratefulWe’re on our third year championing the idea of #thankitforward here on TheCR blog and in TheCR Network. This is our official kick off to our third year of looking back and giving thanks to those that helped us work, grow and thrive in the past year!

In the spirit of reflection and gratitude we encourage you to look back at 2015 and identify three (or more!) people who made a difference in your work and life this past year and send them a thank you via email, snail mail, or Twitter, snapchat, vine, flashmob or whatever medium works best for you. 

Think about:

  • Who inspired you? Brought on a “aha moment”?
  • Who was unwavering in their support of your work?
  • Which exec made a difference with their sponsorship or participation?
  • Which community member or advocate showed up in a big way?
  • Who covered you so you could unplug for a vacation — whether a day or a week?
  • Who talked you through a tough situation?
  • Whose blog posts or Twitter handle kept you well informed? Or laughing!

You get the idea! We’d love if you tag any social thanks #thankitforward so we can see the gratitude spread. Of course – some thanks yous are private and we 100% encourage those as well. Our goal is to inspire reflection on your journey this past year, and help identify those that helped make it possible.

So tell us. Who will you be thanking it forward to this year? We’ll be sharing our #thankitforward posts over the next three weeks and we can’t wait to see yours!

 

#thankitforward – On community, collaboration and creativity.

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By Maggie Tunning, Learning and Culture Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Thank you to Shannon for highlighting the #thankitforward series again this year! My three picks:

#thankitforward

  1. TheCR Network members. Their experience and insight improves our research and programs. This year I especially enjoyed watching the leaders of our community maturity assessment working group apply the Community Maturity Model to create a roadmap and for internal consulting. They later contributed to a pilot training program for new members learning to apply the model, and not only shared their experiences but helped others working on new ideas for applications.

  2. Co-working spaces that encourage creativity and community. Two of my favorite spots to camp out for a morning or afternoon are the Kaneko Library and the Pilgrimer. The Kaneko Library is a speciality library dedicated to creativity, and in addition to shelves of journals and books in fields that thrive on creative input – science, engineering, advertising, business, design, architecture, the humanities and the arts – they have other resources to fuel creative minds like coffee, Scrabble and Legos. The Pilgrimer is a gathering space supporting local entrepreneurs, makers, artists and non-profit organizations that hosts a retail store for handmade goods and serves amazing pour over coffee.

  3. TheCR team. I feel lucky to collaborate with smart and supportive colleagues every day. One of our traditions that I appreciate this time of year is a Secret Santa gift exchange – the gift of giving and surprising another team member is as much fun as being surprised and receiving gifts, too.

Who are you thankful for this year? We’d love to hear who made a difference in your work and life – just tag it #thankitforward!