Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.
At-a-Glance:
Member Since | 2018
Superpower | Extroverted Introversion
#teamcat or #teamdog | #teamcat
Birdie thinks that making a connection is all about getting the right message to the right person at the right time.
You can ask Birdie about:
Director of Marketing
At-a-Glance:
Member Since | 2013
Superpower | Extreme punctuality
#teamcat or #teamdog | #teamdog
Shannon loves bringing people together to learn and connect in meaningful ways. She wears a lot of hats at TheCR and that’s just the way she likes it.
You can ask Shannon about:
Email Shannon or connect with her on Twitter or Linkedin.
View all posts by Shannon or listen to Conversations with Community Managers, a podcast Shannon co-hosts.
Do you love digging into data to discover the story it tells?
Are you comfortable questioning assumptions?
Do you enjoy debating what something means?
Are you fascinated by human behavior and how it impacts decisions and organizations?
Does working in an emerging industry excite you?
If so, you may be a great fit for the Community Research Analyst role at The Community Roundtable
This is an exciting opportunity to learn about the future of work and how community approaches affect outcomes, financial measures, workflows, and leadership. The ideal candidate will have research experience, familiarity with analytics tools, good written communication skills, and strong critical thinking.
The Community Roundtable (TheCR) is the leading research and consulting firm in the community management and digital transformation space. Our core research platform, The State of Community Management, is read by tens of thousands of people every year and we work with 200+ clients to support their organizational transformation efforts.
The Community Research Analyst will be responsible maintaining and delivering high-quality research, analysis, reports, and content. This includes building and maintaining TheCR’s research databases and tools as well as supporting client work.
This is an individual contributor role for someone with 2-5 years of analysis and writing experience. This is a high growth opportunity, working with TheCR’s co-founder and head of research, Rachel Happe.
Key responsibilities include:
Expertise required:
Why join The Community Roundtable team?
If you are looking for a predictable job in a big, slow-moving, and bureaucratic organization… this is not the job for you.
The Community Roundtable is a small, agile, and innovative team with a lot of opportunities to learn and grow into new responsibilities. We work with the largest organizations in the world, including, American Express, Electronic Arts, and H&R Block as well as established non-profits including AAAS, City Year, and The World Bank. The exposure and access you will get is hard to match and there is never a dull day.
You’ll join a team that works hard but also feels strongly that everyone needs balance and flexibility. We strive to keep the workday to eight hours, but recognize that both extra work is sometimes required and that life sometimes gets in the way of work. Collaboration is our team’s superpower, requiring personal responsibility and accountability, but also providing incredible support and new opportunities.
Salary and benefits are commensurate with experience. New England region preferred.
Are you ready to explore with us? Apply now.
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!
Note from Hillary: I’m thrilled to share this guest blog post from one of our current community management fellows who is wrapping up her training time as a TheCR Fellow and looking for a new community management role.
Rachael Silvano, TheCR Fellow 2017
On my first day as a TheCR Fellow, the team asked me to take a quiz to determine my Holy Grail character (King Arthur for those interested). This quickly led to nine months of learning, training, and exploring every nook of community management, with some fantastic thought leaders at the helm. For those of you unfamiliar with TheCR Fellowship program, it’s a one-year contract designed to intertwine real-world experience with a training environment. For me, that meant working on dashboards, reading the last four years of The State of Community Management Research, and making connections in TheCR Network where I helped manage the day-to-day workings of the community.
With my year coming to a close, I’m walking away with a profound sense of gratitude for the opportunities I’ve had at TheCR, as well as excitement over what my next role could be. I’d love to continue honing the skills I’ve established in building dashboards, collecting and analyzing community metrics, and training (if you have a position that fits those descriptions, feel free to drop me a line!).
Below are just a handful of some of the most important takeaways I’ve learned from all the teachers I’ve had at The Community Roundtable:
Working in community means being agile, flexible, and comfortable with the unknown. Maybe you start building out an engagement program and end up reviewing your governance in the process. Or perhaps you begin exploring a metric and you wind up waist-deep in your analytics dashboard finding new reports you didn’t know existed. By approaching your work with a loose grip, you can be ready to take on rewarding (if unexpected) challenges.
Much of my work with TheCR was focused on wrangling TheCR Network data. As such, “more =/= better” quickly became my golden rule. Putting your community maturity narrative first, and then telling that story with data is a valuable lesson for community newbies and veteran pros alike. Saying that your “likes” have gone up 120% doesn’t speak to the dynamic complexity of your community’s journey – detailing who is liking, why, and in what context gives a better (and more important) picture.
There is something to be said about the virtues of being cookie cutter, but the biggest I took away from my time at TheCR is that the things that make you unique are not only important but vital. I’ve learned to not only be authentic but to craft my authenticity with intention. Chances are if you read an email from me, it had something about video games, robots, or my cat, Walter- which is all thanks to TheCR letting me be me.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn from amazing community practitioners and I’m excited to move onto my next career adventure. You can connect with me on Linkedin.
Community Strategist
At-a-Glance:
Member Since | 2017
Superpower | Planning and organizing
#teamcat or #teamdog | #teamdog
Passionate about all things process, Emma loves a list. She is here to keep the team on track with all things advisory. You will find her tackling project planning in Wrike and transitioning projects from pipeline to process. A newcomer to the USA and to Community Management, Emma moved from the UK in July 2016 with her family. Consequently, Emma spends much time wondering if people understand her British humor and correcting her spelling and punctuation. In her spare time, you will find Emma on a ski slope or a beach with her family.
You can ask Emma about:
Connect with Emma on Linkedin.
By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable – After a delay for the holidays, we’re getting into the process of interviewing candidates for the three TheCR Fellowships we are offering this year – in community management, research and sales and marketing. And an interesting question has emerged – people in community management get what a community management fellow would do, but they aren’t as clear on what we mean by “research” and “sales and marketing.”
To better explore the research fellowship, I talked with our own Maggie Tunning, who is not only has a lead role in all of our heavy-duty research projects, she’s also a former TheCR Future of Business Research Fellow.
Here are five reasons she gave me to apply as a research fellow:
A unique education in community management: “I saw the research fellowship as an opportunity to learn more about community management from employers dedicated to the field and from clients representing a variety community use cases. Working with TheCR’s Community Maturity Model gave me an understanding of the elements of a successful community that I could apply to research and client projects.”
Opportunity to create new research products: “Community management is still a developing field, but it’s rich with data, and someone really interested in data and data visualization has a great opportunity to create new tools and products that could move community research forward and could be applied to other disciplines.”
Work on the front lines of the future of business: “More and more, we see community management techniques as the future of business and management generally. Being able to research these key business trends is a great opportunity to be at the forefront of management – and that’s always a good place to be.”
TheCR mission to advance community management: “Community managers are leaders of change in their organizations, and I know from experience this job is not always easy. It’s rewarding to be part of a team dedicated to help these people succeed – and exciting to see when and how they do!”
A smart and supportive team: “Even though I “knew” and respected my colleagues when I applied, I was a little anxious about joining a virtual team. I quickly learned I had nothing to worry about and was impressed how well everyone collaborated in a virtual environment. I may wish I had the opportunity to meet up for coffee or after work drinks more frequently, but I appreciate and enjoy their company.”
Want to ask Maggie more questions? Submit an application and see if the role is the right fit for you!
Do you want to join TheCR team and learn more about community, research and analysis? We are thrilled to announce that we are hiring a Research Fellow for 2015.
Why a Fellow?
The Community Roundtable has hired a number of fellows over the years because it is a unique opportunity for both an individual, TheCR and TheCR’s ecosystem to benefit. Our fellowships are intended to last 6-12 months and give individuals a strong background and network with which to find a permanent research or analyst position – you can read more about this program here.
What you will learn:
You might be our next research fellow if you:
You might be the ideal candidate if:
You are a storyteller and data nerd who is curious about how community management is transforming business.
Apply Now
Do you have what it takes? Are you excited by what we could do together? Please tell us more about you! While not a requirement for the right candidate, preference will be given to people within commuting distance from Boston.
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:
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.
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.
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!
Co-Founder and Principal
At-a-Glance:
Member Since | 2009
Superpower | Simplifying the complex
#teamcat or #teamdog | #teamdog
Rachel is the chief wonk at TheCR and oversees the research, content and thought leadership.
You can ask Rachel about:
1. The secret lives of eight-year-olds
2. Tips on how to travel for fun and profit
3. Why our approach to enabling human potential needs to be community-centric
Connect with Rachel on Twitter or LinkedIn.
More About Rachel:
Rachel has spent the last 25 years helping organizations implement emerging technologies to advance their business strategies.
She understands how networked communications environments can transform how people work, their productivity and their personal satisfaction by aligning their passions, skills and relationships.
Rachel co-founded The Community Roundtable to support business leaders developing their community and social business strategies. Clients including SAP, Aetna, BASF, CA, H&R Block, and CSC benefit from Rachel’s ability to make sense of abstract trends and her ability to see the implications that technical and operational decisions can have on people and processes.
During her career Rachel has served in analyst, product management, product marketing and executive roles.
