By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but Q1 of 2015 is basically over. It’s that time when community managers look at their strategic plan for the year, utter something that shouldn’t be typed in a blog post, and say to themselves, “Wow, I really need to dig in on those priorities!” But hey – no more snow, right? (Please?)

Here at TheCR, we are heading into the spring with some new and familiar faces back in then fold. Shannon Abram is returning, bringing her energy, positive attitude and strategic smarts back into our mix. We also welcome a new face onto our team. Georgina Cannie is joining us as our Community Management Fellow, working with Hillary Boucher to bolster TheCR Network and help us execute on a couple of major strategic priorities for the rest of the year.

Great conversation this week in TheCR Network with TheCR Champion Maddie Grant and Jamie Notter, the authors of “When Millennials Take Over,” about the book and the expectations of the new generation in the workplace. Savvy community professionals will recognize how well community approaches fit with this new generation. If you missed it, it won’t be the last you hear from them – they’ll be joining us for #ESNChat at 2pm on May 14, if you want a taste of their insight.

The end of the quarter is always a good time to raise the topic of metrics – this week, Shannon laid out three things you should be keeping in mind as you improve your community metrics and measurement strategy. We also put together the first of three posts planned on our Community Superheroes’ Superheroes. If you look on the back page of The Community Manager Handbook, you’ll see the list of the “superheroes” we worked with to develop the lessons in the Handbook, and who they had drawn from in their careers. In the posts, we’ll give you more on why our heroes have found these folks so valuable. If nothing else, our heroes’ heroes are another set of thought leaders and practitioners to follow to expand your community knowledge base.

Things We Are Reading This Week

Convincing Skeptical Employees to Adopt New Technology – “Bringing new technology and tools into your organization can increase productivity, boost sales, and help you make better, faster decisions. But getting every employee on board is often a challenge. What can you do to increase early and rapid adoption? How can you incentivize and reward employees who use it? And should you reprimand those who don’t?”

Gamification Is Thriving Inside the Enterprise – “Opinions may vary, but there is no denying that the use of gamification inside the enterprise is becoming an effective way to engage staff with their organisations. “If you want employees to share knowledge and collaborate, you need to have not only a platform but motivated people,” says Mario Herger, CEO and founder of Enterprise Gamification Consultancy LLC.”

Beware Red Herrings: Intranet vs. ESN is a Sham – “Internal communications departments have debated this question, as have ESN teams and intranet teams. Maybe they saw higher adoption and engagement on their ESN platform, or read success stories from their peers. Or maybe their tired intranet publishing platform is in desperate need of replacing. Oscar Berg nailed it when he wrote that choosing between an intranet and ESN is the wrong question to ask — it displays technology-centric thinking. Instead of thinking about platforms, the starting point needs to focus on organizational and user needs.”

What Millennials’ News Consumption Habits Mean for Associations – “A new report found that millennials are not willing to pay for news and that while they don’t actively seek news through social media, they often get their information through Facebook and YouTube anyway. How does these findings affect associations? Though they don’t use social media primarily as a source for seeking out news and information, a majority of millennials end up getting most of the news they absorb from their social networks, according to a report released last week by the Media Insight Project. MIP, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, also found that they’d be very unlikely to pay for news.”

New Social Media and Community Jobs

Community Manager – Beachbody, Santa Monica, CA

Community Manager – Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Cambridge, MA

Community Manager – Manulife/John Hancock, Toronto, ON/Boston, MA

Community Manager – The Onion, Chicago, IL

Enterprise Community Manager – First American Financial, Santa Ana, CA

Community Manager, Local Guides – Google, New York, NY

Community Manager – Williams-Sonoma, San Francisco, CA

Digital Community Engagement Manager –  Hillshire Brands, Chicago, IL

Marketing and Community Manager – Van Andel Education Institute, Grand Rapids, MI

Community Marketing Manager – Sumo Logic, Redwood City, CA

Community Manager, Niche – Twitter, San Francisco, CA

Community Support Manager, ShopSense by Shopstyle – Popsugar, San Francisco, CA

Online Community Associate – SolarCity, Las Vegas, NV