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Now Enrolling: Developing a Community Roadmap Workshop

November 17, 2020 By Jim Storer

The best way to improve the performance of your community is to ask for the investments you need that ensure it. But asking without context, data, or analysis is just a wish – one that is easily dismissed. A community roadmap is an effective way to educate, set expectations for, and secure budget from stakeholders.

The goal of this workshop is to create a gap analysis and roadmap draft, using industry frameworks to help stakeholders understand where you are, frame where you want to go, and collaborate to get there.

This six-session workshop includes:

  • Creating a defensible structure for community roadmaps
  • Assessment and discussion The Community Score results
  • Identifying gaps, required investments, and how to prioritize those investments
  • Developing a high-level roadmap designed to educate stakeholders and provide them with options
  • Guidance on securing stakeholder commitment and translating a roadmap into a budget

You will complete this workshop with these tactical deliverables: 

  • Results for The Community Score
  • Gap Analysis that identifies community opportunities
  • Draft community roadmap
Community Roadmap

COURSE FORMAT

This course is delivered in six, one-hour sessions, accompanied by homework and a shared space to learn-out-loud with other course participants. Each session includes an expert-led lesson, interactive discussion, and homework. Download the Syllabus.

SCHEDULE

December 8, 2020: 10am-11am ET and 2pm-3pm ET
December 10, 2020: 10am-11am ET and 2pm-3pm ET
December 15, 2020: 10am-11am ET and 2pm-3pm ET

Learn more and register.

Three Reasons You Can’t Miss Our Strategic Community Workshop

January 11, 2018 By Jim Storer

I know you are busy. 2018 is shaping up to be another crazy year, and the idea of committing to a course (even an online one) is daunting. With so much on your to-do list, it’s easy to push your professional development off until later.

I’m here to tell you: that is a mistake.

I’ve got three (research-backed!) reasons you should consider signing up for our Strategy Community Workshop. 

Community professionals who can develop strategy are in demand.

Community strategy development is the most valued skill in every community-related role we’ve examined in our research.

This has powerful implications for leaders of community programs. Directors of community should expect that their community specialists, managers and strategists want and need to have a say in defining and implementing community strategy. Hiring managers need to seek out people they think can couple that desire for strategic input with the skills to develop, implement and review.

For community managers, the shared power comes with shared responsibility. New hires should expect that they will be held accountable for their participation in community strategy development.

If you aren’t sure where to start, or even what community strategy development entail our Community Strategy Workshop will get you started and make sure you a comfortable with the basics of community strategy.

Community professionals who can develop strategy make more money.

In our research, community professionals who scored high on strategic highly benefitted, too. They earned an average of about $91,000 – a slight but noticeable bump over the overall average. This falls into the “noteworthy but not surprising” category: those who most highly valued business skills were more likely to be Directors of Community, and those who valued strategy were more likely to be community strategists (and make higher salaries in those roles.)

Can you really afford not to focus on developing your strategic skills? Our Strategic Community Workshop will level up your skills and give you valuable strategic assets for your community program today.

Communities with core value assets are more successful and more well-funded.

In our SOCM research we found that the foundation of a successful community really is the presence of a well-defined strategy – one that integrates social tools and methods with business goals and processes. A good community strategy also aligns an organization’s goals with member needs setting you up to succeed in both keep engagement high and provide ROI.

A thoughtful community roadmap sets your community up for success and provides actionable ideas about aligning priorities, communicating value and organizing planning in your community programs.

The Strategic Community Workshop is focused on helping you draft three core community assets – a business case for your community, a roadmap for your community and an ROI model for your community – all perfect for making the case for your program with stakeholders and executives.

Limited spots remain for the January session of the workshop. You can learn more here.

Five Reasons You Should Attend TheCR Connect

September 14, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Our first live event is in less than 30 days – and registration is closing soon (this Friday, to be exact!) and there are only a few spots left!

We know committing to a full day event can be tough so here are five reasons TheCR Connect is worth it:

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Register

In order to insure a diverse group, we respectfully ask that you limit registrations from one organization to three people.

The cost for non-members $600. Non-members request an invite here. Members register here.

Registration closes on 9/18/15.

 TheCR Connect is made possible thanks to our partners.

TheCRConnect_Partners_AkamaiTheCRConnect_Partners_JIVE

 

TheCR Connect Agenda

August 19, 2015 By Jim Storer

TheCR ConnectBy Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

TheCR Connect is the inaugural workshop in our regional events series. Kicking off in Boston this Fall, TheCR Connect is an event exclusively for community practitioners – those engaged in the development, implementation, management and measurement of community initiatives. You might be a community manager for a 5,000 person internal community, the community specialist at a start-up, or the director of community for a Fortune 500 brand. Learn more.

With just seven weeks left until TheCR Connect Boston I’m excited to share the full agenda*. Without further ado:

8:00am – Breakfast

8:45am – Welcome from TheCR

9:00am – Keynote: Community Inspiration with JJ Lovett, CA Technologies

10:00 – Community Case Study: How to Win Friends & Influence People – the Community Edition Presented by Akamai – Whether you manage an internal or external community we have all experienced some of our biggest challenges negotiating internally. We have to weave our way through a maze of opinions and / or corporate policies to achieve the goals we have established for our community. This session will facilitate a discussion around the following; How to Prevent, How to Avoid, How to Accept, or Run Around It while influencing people and winning friends.

10:30am – Break/Optional Tour of Akamai’s Command Center We couldn’t visit Akamai without getting a look the famous Network Operations Command Center (NOCC).  The NOCC’s proactive stance and unique view ensures a seamless response to network conditions – enabling Akamai to deliver rich media content and applications, regardless of network traffic volume. The NOCC is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by expert network operations personnel.

11:00am – AMA with Community Experts We’re putting community experts in the hot seat to answer your most challenging questions. Featuring Patrick Hellen, DeepIS, Luke Sinclair, AMEX, and Lauren Vargas, Aetna.

11:45am – Office Hours w/ Community Superheroes We believe every community manager has a superpower. We’ve rounded up a group of these community superheroes including Welcome Wonder Woman, the Executive Engager and more to answer your questions and get your community programs on track.

12:30pm – Lunch & Matched Networking Groups Sometimes it’s hard to find the person you need to meet the most. We’ll take the guess work out of connecting with the participants that can make a difference in your community and career.

1:30pm – Interactive Roundtables Dig in and dive deep on a community challenge that you’re working on. We’ll break into small groups and expert facilitators will share advice and guide you to actionable plans and tools for community success. Roundtable topics may include: Defining Community Value, Sharing Your Community Success and Building Your Community Dream Team.

2:30pm – Break

2:45pm – Community Case Study Stay tuned! Our second community case study will be announced shortly.

3:30pm – Creating a Culture of Yes: Improvisation for Community Management Improvisation is about more than being funny. It involves active listening, confidence, creative thinking, flexibility and working as a team. We are thrilled to host a team from ImprovBoston for a look at how the principles of improv can be successfully applied to community management.

5:00pm – Closing remarks

6:00pm – Happy Hour After a busy day we’ll decamp to nearby Mead Hall for tasty drinks, delicious food and more great conversations.

Want to join us? Members register here, non-members request an invite.

* This Agenda is subject to change at any time.

TheCR Connect is made possible thanks to our partners.

TheCRConnect_Partners_AkamaiTheCRConnect_Partners_JIVE

Sneak Peek: TheCR Connect Agenda

July 27, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Today I’m excited to share the first look at the agenda for TheCR Connect – our first live workshop happening this October in our hometown. Without further ado:

TheCRConnect_Promo

The early bird cost for non-members who register before 7/31 is $550. Any tickets remaining for TheCR Connect (and we do anticipate the event selling out) after 7/31 will cost $600. Don’t miss out on this one-of-a-kind event – non-members request an invite here.

Announcing TheCR Connect – A Workshop for Community Managers

July 7, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

TheCR ConnectAfter over six years of connecting community folks online we are taking this show on the road! I am thrilled to announce our latest venture – TheCR Connect! TheCR Connect is technically a workshop for community professionals, but our goal is to have it be much more that that. By bringing together an intimate group of community practitioners we want to facilitate conversations, share knowledge, solve problems, inspire action and provide the tools participants need to go back into their communities and create real, meaningful change. Basically, TheCR Connect is what our online community – both here and in TheCR Network,  would look like if we were all sitting around a big roundtable in a room together, instead of behind our computers and devices.

Our first event takes place on October 1 in our hometown – Boston, MA. You can join an intimate group of people who live and breath community for this day of inspiring speakers, actionable planning sessions, engaged networking and expert case studies – plus some fun surprises.

Participation is limited to just 50 community enthusiasts to ensure that real conversations happen, that every participant can contribute and that everyone walks away with the connections and inspiration to create real change.

If you’re not close enough to Boston to make it in for the event don’t worry – we are targeting a West Coast event in the Winter, and a Mid-West event in the Spring. Stay tuned for a full agenda in the coming weeks.

I hope we’ll see you there, and that you’ll bring your enthusiasm for community building, your passion for connecting with others and your sense of humor! To learn more visit TheCR Connect or request an invite now!

—-

Did you know TheCR has a facebook group? Join us to chat about current community issues, share advice and connect with other community professionals.

Events On Our Mind: IBM Connect and Enterprise 2.0 Summit

February 5, 2014 By Jim Storer

By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Winter is a great time to plan to be away from snowy (very snowy today) Massachusetts. Our co-founder Rachel did just that and spent last week at IBM Connect 2014 in sunny Orlando, FL, and will be jetting off to Paris (which might not be balmy, but it’s Paris) next week for the Enterprise 2.0 Summit.

These are two very different events and I wanted to get the scoop from Rachel on what drove her interest in each. Below is a short interview with Rachel – highlighting her views on both events and recommendations for conference goers in general.

The focus of this year’s IBM Connect was “Energizing Life’s Work,” – how did you see that theme play out through your experience there?

There were literally hundreds of events – from panels like “Avoid Being a Social Zombie in a Global World” to multi-day innovation and design labs; the event definitely had a hands on feel. I got to take part in several interactive events, really targeted at applying expertise and case studies to real-life challenges. Personally, I walked away energized by the number of interactions I had that are already lending themselves to collaboration. One quick example – I took part in a great lunch roundtable celebrating Community Manager Advancement Day and walked away already discussing the possibility for an ebook. Everyone there was focused on applying the discussions and interactions back to their life and their work immediately, and it was exciting to see – and energizing!

Seeing a large enterprise like IBM shine a spotlight on social business is refreshing. What do you think was the key social take-away for attendees?

The event was so large I don’t feel like I can pinpoint the key take-away, but there was a sense of “this is now” in every meeting I had and every session I attended. Enterprises are focusing of social business as a vital component of a successful strategy – certainly a shift from where they were five or even three years ago.

Worth noting is the Social Business Symposium – an education package for undergrad and grad students.  I took part in an interview focused on internal collaboration that will be distributed on the Social Business Symposium platform (a newly launched website) with interviewer/host Peter Cardon, Professor at USC. I haven’t seen the finished product yet but I love that the discussion of social business and community management is making its way into the curriculum of both undergraduate and graduate programs.

You interacted with a lot of new faces through some of the events you took part in. Can you share a highlight?

I was lucky enough to host the CMAD roundtable and a “Social Buzz chat” in the IBM Connect Social Cafe. But as with many events, a lot of the conversations came from one-on-one discussions as part of bigger events. At lunch we had fun discussing what creature our communities reminded us of – and what creature we would prefer it reminding us of. My favorite response was that one community culture was like a bunch of monkeys – very intelligent but just wanting to have fun – and the community manager said their preferred creature would be ants – individuals working in concert to do something they could not do alone.

I also got the opportunity to catch up with some of our members and clients and dig more deeply into their challenges and opportunities, which I can never get enough of as I find the process of transforming businesses and cultures to be fascinating.

I’m already looking forward to Connect 2015 – and thinking about trying to plan my calendar to fit even more in. There were so many sessions that I would have loved to take part in and want to take advantage of next year.

The Enterprise 2.0 Summit is next week in Paris. Can you give us an overview for anyone not familiar with the event? 

The Enterprise 2.0 Summit is held in Paris and is primarily focused on enterprise and social business practitioners in Europe. This year the main theme is “Getting Social Enterprise Ready” which I think will include how organizations adopt and adapt technology solutions, as well as how companies implement social business across the organization. As part of that, I will be running a workshop on internal community management training – something I’m very excited to deliver as we recently finished developing this course with a client and I believe it is the first of its kind focused on addressing the needs of community managers focused on internal employees.

You’ll be speaking on a panel “Driving the Engagement & Adoption” can you give us a sneak peek on the discussion? 

In an interview with Rogier Noort on the Enterprise 2.0 blog I share that the three hashtags that best describe my talk are #motivation, #ability and #triggers. I’ve found that  striking the right balance between those things will increase engagement and they are part of a template we’ve built called an “Engagement Recipe” which uses the research of B.J. Fogg, founder of Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab.

The panel also includes some great social business names – Björn Negelmann,  Claire Flanagan, Guillaume Guerin and Laurent Pantanacce. More than anything I’m looking forward to the different perspectives on engagement that each person brings to the discussion.

Final question, a softball. Besides the great conversations and connections at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit what are you looking forward to in Paris? 

I truly am most excited about connecting with new and old friends in Paris – Enterprise 2.0 Summit is chock full of experts and peers that now have lots of experience to share. However, our team member Maggie has spent a lot of time in France and she’s been psyching me up with the talk of macarons and wine bars – I’ve already planned a number of fun dinners with clients and partners that will be a little bit business but more than a little bit fun.

Thanks Rachel! Have a great time in Paris – we’ll post a recap when you’re back! 

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