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The Community Roundtable

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

TheCR Network Sneak Peek: March 2014 Wrap-Up

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By Hillary Boucher, Community Manager of TheCR Network

March = SXSW

And lest we forget SXSW! Many of our members rendezvoused in Austin earlier this month. That’s our fearless co-founder, Jim Storer, on the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As promised, I am back to share a snapshot of what went on inside TheCR Network this month. In February, I gave a pretty extensive overview of our regular programming, content offerings, and range of conversations that take place over the course of one month. Today, I picked out highlights from March:

  • Community Manager Exit Strategy (Discussion). A good community manager builds real and solid relationships with their community members. But what happens when you change roles or companies? Members are discussing the proper etiquette of saying good-bye to your community and the best practices to ensure clear communication and a clean hand off to the new community manager. It was particularly helpful (and touching) to have a member share the private message she posted to her super-user program members and the the public announcement she made when she left her community of two years to start a new role.
  • How to Build a Mentor Program (Case Study). Earlier this month we had a TheCR Network member share an excellent case study on a live, virtual Roundtable call. We got an extensive overview of this member’s adventures in building a traditional mentoring program within her community. In the past we have discussed the merits of reverse mentoring program, but this dive into a traditional mentor program was a popular and well-received case study.
  • Best Practices for B2B Customer Engagement (Live Virtual Roundtable Session). We find that our members who manage B2B customer and partner communities come up against some specific engagement challenges that are different than their consumer facing counterparts. Tomorrow we have an experienced member sharing his more successful engagement strategies for B2B communities and facilitating a discussion amongst our practitioner participants to gather the group’s collective wisdom on the subject. A true meeting of the minds!

This is only a small sampling of the events and discussions that took place this past month. I’d love to hear your top priorities and topics of interest from this past month in the comments. If you are anything like our members, I bet you were juggling a full plate. Tell us about it!

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Did you know that 95% of TheCR Network members agree that the content and peer input improves the quality of their work? It’s true! Membership in TheCR Network saves community and social business leaders time and improves the quality of their work by connecting them quickly with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.

Meet TheCR Team: Rachel Happe

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By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable.

Rachel HappeIf you had asked me a decade ago whether I wanted to start a company, the answer would have been a resounding no. But a funny thing happened on the way to the circus – technology, communications and organizational development collided in a way where my experiences gave me unique insight – some of which is personal and some of it through my previous work.

I am a minister’s daughter and not just any minister, one who worked in a church where the congregation was responsible for hiring and firing their leaders. And as a child I had an odd fascination with church meetings and listening to people resolve issues collectively. I also watched as my father had to balance factions in an intense culture (in the midst of Cambridge, MA where people do not lack for opinions). It was its own education in people, relationships and power dynamics.

Rachel Happe - RowingLater on, I had the opportunity to row on a crew team and first experienced the concept of swing, which profoundly impacted how I thought of group performance. I was never the best student (or the best athlete) but I realized that I could be an important member of the best team and that together, when there is swing, groups can do profound things.

Professionally, I’ve had almost nine lives; as a research assistant looking at health care systems, working in government, as an analyst assessing operational strategies, managing software products, managing start-up teams and as a technology market analyst. I’ve had experience working with the implications of organizational structures, with the application of cutting edge technologies (I was building SaaS-based ideation and partner portals in the late 90s), and from my youth I understood how you manage in environments you can’t control.

Rachel Happe - Eating FrogsSo now I’m eating frogs – our team’s term for getting critical but not necessarily inspiring things done – and helping to lead The Community Roundtable. I believe passionately that new communications environments enable individuals to be rewarded proportionately to what they contribute because those contributions can now be seen by everyone in an online community. For me, this means more equality and more access for more people – without the traditional barriers that limited talented people from succeeding; like the school you went to, your family’s social circles or where you live. It also gives individuals the responsibility and the opportunity to determine their own contribution balance. For organizations, it means lowering the transaction costs of creating and distributing value. My job at TheCR is to help organizational leaders understand how to execute on this opportunity by applying what we call community management instead of traditional management approaches. In the end, my hope is that I can improve lives by improving people’s control over the work they do.

One of the things that I am most proud of is that as an organization we collaborate with our members and clients to create value that neither one of us could deliver on our own. Recently for me, that meant working closely with a client to build a training program for internal community managers. The training program consists of short videos paired with worksheets that allow participants to immediately translate what they learn into actionable plans. While we had the content, our client pushed us to create a format that allowed part-time community managers to immediately put best practices to use. It’s a great example of how to create value that is a win for the client, a win for us and ultimately a win for other clients who need similar programs to make their social business initiatives a success.

 

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Did you know that 95% of TheCR Network members agree that the content and peer input improves the quality of their work? It’s true!

Membership in TheCR Network saves community and social business leaders time and improves the quality of their work by connecting them quickly with peers, experts and curated information. Learn how joining TheCR Network can improve the work you do.

Introducing: Faces of Community Management

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By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day! We’re excitedly following along with all the #CMAD activities today.

In TheCR Network we’re always surprised with how different our members are – in wonderful ways. It seems like no two community managers have taken the same path on their journey and their varied backgrounds make for a fascinating set of members. The greatest benefit of such a diverse group is how broad and deep their knowledge bases are. We have ex-lawyers, former journalists and even an librarian! We’ve decided to honor our members through a new 2014 initiative called The Faces of Community Management and we thought unveiling the project on #CMAD was a perfect opportunity to share our love and appreciation.

Every few weeks we’ll profile one of our members and really shine the spotlight on their place in the community world. We can’t wait to share some of our amazing members with you! Without further ado, the very first Face of Community Management is James LaCourte, Online Strategist and Community Manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina. He blogs at The Gaspar and you can find him on LinkedIn.

FacesCM_JamesDownload James’ profile here: FacesCM_James.

We are also delighted to share a guest blog post from James today! You can read it below or check it out here.

5 ways your community can be more engaging and still keep your sanity!

Community Manager Appreciation Day is here again but I don’t think most people outside the social media realm even know about it. Community Managers are the unsung heroes working behind the scenes to nurture and grow the community. It’s a tough job that many underestimate the skills and time required.  In a single day you can go from feeling energized to worn down and lonely. But it’s worth it. That’s why whenever two Community Managers get together there’s an instant connection. They know what it takes and the rewards to be gained from such a role.

Here’s 5 ways you can help your community be more engaging and still keep your sanity!

1. Set the tone Define the purpose and set the stage by planting the seeds of discussion.

2. Make visitors feel at home Recruit and welcome new members. Give them a tour or better yet have another member mentor them.

3. Connect people and ideas

The key to any community is in the relationships among participants. Building relationships online takes time. A successful Community Manager can foster relationships by connecting ideas and members to each other.

4. Steering conversation

Sometimes conversations need a little help getting started. Other times conversations need to be steered in another direction or cooled down. Do it with confidence and creativity.

5. Shining the light on others

I think one of the most powerful tactics a Community Manager can remember is to find ways to empower and praise community members. Let them shine in the light, allow them to become advocates for the community and in the end the more advocates a community has the easier your job will be.

So from one Community Manager to another I wish you a wonderful day and know that what you do may not be understood by many, but you have a small group of peers who understand and are here to help. That’s the great thing about the Community Roundtable, it’s a support group for all of us crazy people who took on this role, many of us not knowing what we were getting into!

Enjoy your day!

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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. TheCR Network is the place to learn from social business practitioners.  Join today

Friday Roundup – The News You Can Use Edition

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By Shannon DiGregorio, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable

It was a big news week here at The Community Roundtable. We announced our newest toolkit offering and discussed changes in TheCR Network for 2014. If you missed the news you’ll find those links below as well as links to some of our favorite stories from around the web this week.

Our Holiday Gift Guide: For the Community Manager in Your Life was one part silly, two parts serious – but 100% built to help you shop!

The WestJet Christmas Miracle ad went viral and brought a lot of smiles (and maybe some tears) to our team.

Our co-founder Jim Storer shared some upcoming changes in TheCR Network for 2014.

This “The Twelve Days of Community Management Christmas” series (Part One & Part Two) is funny and spot on.

2014: The Year of Earned Social Marketing is an interesting look at how social marketing might change in the new year.

We launched our newest toolkit with newly released and archived research from our State of Community Management survey.

I can’t believe there are only three weeks left this year! I hope you have a lovely, warm and cozy, restful weekend – whether you are celebrating the holidays, braving the snow on the East Coast or decking your palm trees with lights!

Become a Part of the Network You Need… Before You Need It

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By Jim Storer, Co-Founder and Principal at The Community Roundtable

2013 has been an amazing, busy and productive year here at The Community Roundtable. Membership grew by 34% and we now reach members in thirty-one US states and seven countries around the world. I am personally thrilled with the collaboration and camaraderie that the Network fosters – watching members help each other with real issues and solve problems together is gratifying and brings us one step closer to realizing our vision for a truly interactive hub for advancing community strategy and management. The best reward for us is that our progress also makes our members proud.

To support this growth we’ve made significant changes this past year, including doubling the size of our team. 2014 will also bring changes to what membership in TheCR Network looks like. First, we’ll begin bundling our Toolkits with membership starting in 2014 and our research library will continue to grow to support our additional members. After a lot of discussion Rachel and I have decided to increase the fee for TheCR Network membership. In order to provide quality content and programs, access to industry-leading research and our signature professional concierge service, we feel this is essential. As of January 1, 2014, TheCR Network membership fee will increase from $995 to $1,499/person/year and will include your choice of one toolkit along with your membership seat. Contact us for special team pricing for three or more people.

Current members will be grandfathered at the current membership rate, meaning if you join by December 31st you can lock in the $995 price. In other words, if you have been thinking of joining, now is a great time to do so!

Members of TheCR Network enjoy:

  • Weekly member-only roundtable calls with industry leaders like Jeremiah Owyang, Richard Millington, Maria Ogneva, Bill Johnston and more
  • Access to over 200 case studies and reports in our research library highlighting best practices from Fortune 500 companies
  • Our professional concierge service, matching you with a member or expert that has experience with your specific issue
  • Downloads of all TheCR Research in pdf format
  • Exclusive discounts on training, events, research and Toolkits
  • The opportunity to define TheCR roadmap and research priorities

We know it’s not always easy to convince your boss to allocate budget for your professional development. We are happy to help you with cost justification and referrals. We’ve drafted a justification letter for you to use and we are also happy to speak directly with you and your team. Contact us to learn more.

As 2013 draws to a close I want to thank you for being a loyal friend of The Community Roundtable. TheCR Network members are a vibrant part of our world, but we also appreciate your continued support. We will continue to invest in curated content and research for our wider community of friends and followers (including our curated Twitter stream, Pinterest boards, Slideshare presentations, favorites and blog). Over the last two years we’ve added services and content for those of you just starting out – including training and toolkits that can be purchased a la carte.

Join TheCR Network now!

Here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014. We can’t wait to see what the new year brings!

The Power of Change and Why TheCR Network Matters

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I was obviously an early believe in the power of online communities and networks to generate value for organizations and over the years I have been gratified to see many of my beliefs born out through experience and data. One of the reasons that I always believed communities were so powerful was that they expose tacit knowledge, thus speeding time to innovation. Communities do that and so much more. But I was missing a key element of why communities matter so much until I recently read The Power of Habit and the three requirements for sustained behavior change:

  1. Understanding the mechanics of change (how to do something differently)
  2. Belief that change is possible
  3. A community that reinforces the change when you are stressed

It gave me new insight and appreciation to why what we are building at The Community Roundtable is so critical for community and social business leaders. One of the things that is true of most community and social business professionals is that they have their feet in two worlds – they go to their office, interact with their colleagues and are immersed in their company’s culture. But they are also people immersed in the online social environment and hyper-connected to a world outside of their organization in a way few others (if any) are. They are constantly pulled by the past and the future simultaneously.

And that is hard, sometimes almost untenable.

The “easy” part is articulating how things might change – how people might communicate in networked environments vs. through email and thus be discoverable or how they might write their expertise down in a blog so everyone can see it and those most affected by it can raise their hand instead of being hunted down.

The harder part is helping people build up the faith that work can, in fact, be better and communities can help by letting people expose what they know and be rewarded for it directly; by compounding their knowledge vs. fracturing it; and by removing unnecessary hierarchical barriers.

The hardest part still is when you get knocked down, dismissed or ignored repeatedly. As one of the few within your organization to really get the profound impact of digital communications you are isolated and because of that, it is often easier to believe you are crazy than that everyone else is. If you hope to succeed, you must find a community of like minded peers to reenforce the value of your work and its validity. It doesn’t have to be TheCR Network, although I personally think that would be a good choice, but it is critical that you have a support structure outside of your organization if you are to be any good at helping your organization do things differently. Change will almost surely not come from within.

As TheCR Network has grown, we have also been able to offer more value to our members. Along with weekly programming, we also offer:

  • Speaking opportunities
  • Event passes
  • Early access to industry research
  • Opportunities to advise and collaborate with TheCR on industry research
  • Access to some of the smartest peers in the industry

If you (and your boss) are serious about the success of your community initiative or serious about growing your own career in the community or social business space, joining TheCR Network is a no-brainer for $995/year.