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Communities – How Intelligent Is Your Community?
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 @ 09:05 AM
On Monday evening I attended an event (GSummitX / #gsummitx) in London centred around Gamification. While the discussions were interesting and we undertook some useful group tasks it wasn’t these things that struck me, it was the content of the initial presentation from Gabe Zichermann that did.
He referenced some of the factors regarded as being relevant when looking at adoption of game mechanics and how young people differ from the previous generation. One reference he made was to fluid intelligence, or the ability to quickly reason, problem solve and multi-task. He used an example of a 12 year old being thrown in to a commercial flight simulator and being tasked with landing a plane. The outcome; the 12 year old successfully landed the plane without any prior training or knowledge. This was put down to a high level of fluid intelligence and may have been improved by spending time playing videogames.
So what’s this got to do with Communities? Well, I refer back to the title of the post. If the youth of today are demonstrating a greater level of fluid intelligence rather than crystallised intelligence do we as Community Managers need to adapt the way we create content, the regularity of that content, how we drive and involve ourselves in discussions and how we develop a strategy for our communities? If one of the traits of a youth rich in fluid intelligence is their inability to focus on the mundane or ’slow’ things like real life do we need to ensure our communities are rife with activity or things to do to keep them occupied and engaged? I appreciate this isn’t always easy but as we see another generational shift and with it the assessments of what is “normal” we need to be aware of those changes in order to stay at least with the game if we can’t stay ahead of it.
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Communities – CMs Need To Be Bi-lingual
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 @ 10:04 AM
Something that came up recently and made me more aware of how big an issue this can be. I’m not talking about the ability to speak multiple languages to interact with your community audience although that would help. I’m talking more about having an understanding and appreciation of the differences. For me being a native British English speaker having to make changes for a US audience is hard, not hard in terms of making the necessary lettering changes but hard in terms of having to swallow the fact that I’ve got to make the change in the first place.
If you manage an English language community what’s the audience split between different territories speaking the same / similar languages and are you aware of the nuances for each? In addition to that, what does your audience expect? I know a lot of British English speakers that would hate to receive an Americani”z”ed email or response to something while it seems Americans are a bit more forgiving if they receive a British English correspondence.
If you’ve created a specific style / persona for your CM duties have your audience come to terms with that style and do they understand where you are coming from? Outside of your community management duties, what are the internal processes for marketing communications, support communications and anything else that touches users? If you don’t know it would be worth finding out because all your hard work catering to your audience in the way they want to be catered to could be undone but communications from other departments.
Communities – What’s your CM style?
Monday, April 16, 2012 @ 11:04 AM
Last week I received a random tweet from a small group of users from one of the communities I used to manage (the EA FIFA one). Seems they had been talking about how things had changed since my departure and how the new CM for the community focused on different things. I sent a quick reply saying that every CM has a different style when it comes to managing a community and this started to get me thinking. Is that really true and if so is it possible to define different styles?
Below I’ve included a bit of a tongue-in-cheek image for what I think some of the different styles are (read elements that make up a CM). Disclaimer: Images remain the property of their respective owners.
Communities – Crafting The Perfect Community Manager
Thursday, March 29, 2012 @ 09:03 AM
Last night I attended a Community Manager meetup in central London (#cmLDN) and the main topic of the evening was the core skills or tenets of what makes a great Community Manager. Steve Ward (@cloudninerec) walked us through how he had seen the role evolve over the years as a specialist recruiter in this space and then Georgina Thompson gave insights in to how her agency were tackling the problem of finding great CMs for the brands the agency work with.
It sparked a number of great conversations about where you need to have the ability to craft unique personas on a per-community basis depending on the nature of the users, whether there are underlying passions that you need to have and whether journalists naturally make great community managers due to their questioning nature and need to find out more.
I think it’s quite hard to create a long list as the nature of the CM differs by vertical and by organisation but following conversations a while ago I did jot down a few notes. I don’t want to bore you with all of this but some of the scribbles included having a passion for connecting people. I think this point works on two levels, connecting people with a brand (and you as the CM) and then facilitating the connection between other users. You can gain knowledge of specific industries and you can work on your tone of voice and writing style but if you don’t want to connect with people I think you will struggle to be a great CM.
Further discussions last night looked at where we see CM roles in 5 years time and whether they should have a place in the boardroom or whether giving them enough authority and autonomy would suffice. Overall some great debate and insights from a number of different industries and for those that have been to a CM meetup before I’d highly recommend getting involved in them, if nothing else to share your own experiences and learn from others.
Communities – A Troll A Day Helps You Work, Rest And Play
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 @ 11:03 AM
A Community Manager’s life is never easy. Thinking of catchy blog post titles is just as difficult. However, I think I may just have done it with this one (quick nod to some tasty chocolate treats for inspiration).
As I prepare to unleash a new design and added functionality to the Community I’m managing part of me starts to wonder what the response will be from users. I can see from the stats that people have been using it (viewing more than contributing) and the new functionality will endeavour to encourage contributions and conversations but the big question will be; what sort of contribution and conversation?
Given that the community is B2B I’m quietly optimistic but one thing I’ve realised is that you need a troll every now and again. Aside from the potential of giving something other users can rally behind (either to goad or to chastise) as a Community Manager it keeps you on your toes. Every situation is different and it’s these that ensure we don’t become blasé about the roll we take and the communities we manage. I’m looking forward to seeing what situations arise and whether there are any trolls that come out of the woodwork as new ways to contribute are brought online.