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  • Blog

The Day(s) the Community Died

April 27, 2020 By Rachel Happe

After six weeks of self-isolation, even those of us who are introverts are realizing we may not be as introverted as we think.

Like the phases of grief, this crisis has sent me through stages of emotion. At first, it was novel and even a bit fun – our morning routine was calmer, our daughter was released from normal school obligations, and we got to see more of each other and do more together. After a few weeks, we settled into acceptance with a new routine that included new experiences like FaceTime playdates, midweek movie and game nights, distance learning, and sleeping in on a regular basis.

Recently, however, many of us are feeling unsettled – not about anyone one specific thing but by the swirl of competing emotions. Sadness, worry, gratitude, boredom, and anger all mixed together suspending our ability to make sense of things and move forward. Nothing is normal even if nothing is specifically wrong.

The other day, driving through my bucolic New England town, it hit me. It’s the loss of community – the myriad interactions we have every day that we don’t even notice but play a huge role in giving us a sense of predictability, optimism, and security. It’s the other regulars at the coffee shop, the neighbors and their dogs, watching people greet each other as they cross the street, and seeing the town personalities in their predictable spots.

What’s interesting is it’s not my local friends or even people I know that give my days their predictable comfort.

It’s the older man, who walks the same loop every day, always wearing a Yankees shirt in the heart of Red Sox Nation who prompts me to smile at his bold defiance. It’s the staff at my daughter’s school who help ensure that drop-off and pick-up go smoothly. It’s my daughter and her friends who run to catch up with each other as they walk into school. For a while, it was the young man who rode his bike up and down the street, always riding only on his back tire. It’s the groups of kids from the neighborhood middle school and high school who have no sense of other people’s space. It’s the cashiers and shop owners at the local stores. It is all the people that give your days shape, routine, and color – and help you focus on something outside of yourself.

Often community is something you don’t know you’ve got until it’s gone.

The global COVID crisis has ripped it all away, leaving us unmoored but not quite rationally understanding why. The loss of loose ties seems insignificant until the compounding isolation creates an emotional shadow where unexpected joy, serendipity, and light connection once lived.

While digital spaces will never replace our physical communities, it is one reason to join and participate in more online communities – they are the places I bump into and interact with people I don’t know but share similar interests, where I sometimes see and chat with friends, and where I find things that make me smile or give me ideas.

And hopefully, when the self-isolation is over, we will go back to finding serendipity in the smile of a bartender, the helpfulness of a salesperson, or the greeting of a neighbor.

Alex Blanton on Supporting Technical Audiences and Identifying SMEs

March 20, 2020 By Jim Storer

Conversations with Community Managers - Alex Blanton
Conversations with Community Managers – Alex Blanton

Join the community experts at The Community Roundtable as they chat about online community management best practices with a wide range of global community professionals. Topics include increasing online audience engagement, finding and leveraging executive stakeholders, defining and calculating online community ROI and more. 

Find more episodes.

Episode #66 features Alex Blanton, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft.

In this episode of the podcast, Alex shares best practices for creating synergy between online and offline events, how community managers can support technical audiences if they aren’t technical experts, identifying SMEs in your audience, and how to support other community programs in tandem with your own.

Listen Now:

https://media.blubrry.com/608862/thecr-podcasts.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/TheCRPodcast_AlexBlanton.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

Peter Broadley on Effective Community Programs

February 4, 2019 By Jim Storer

Conversations with Community Managers – Peter Broadley

Welcome to the latest episode in our community management podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.”

Join TheCR’s Jim Storer and Shannon Abram as they chat with community managers from a variety of industries about their community journey. They ask the community questions you want to know the answers to, including:

  1. What’s your best advice for someone just starting out in Community Management?
  2. What are your best practices for increasing community engagement?
  3. How to start a running club wherever you go!

Episode #52 features Peter Broadley, Manager, Community Development and Engagement at CSA Group.

Podcast: Conversations with Community Managers – Peter Broadley
Podcast: Conversations with Community Managers – Peter Broadley
Peter + TheCR Connect Run Club

Listen in as we chat about how Peter uses in-person events to drive online participation, how joining a working group has impacted his community and the innate ability of community managers to create meaningful interactions wherever they go. Oh, and if you’re in the Toronto area drop Peter a line and join his co-working group!

https://media.blubrry.com/608862/thecr-podcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/PeterBroadley_Podcast_2019.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

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