Jivespace: Message List - Alternate model to a community leader/manager

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

communities@jivesoftware.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:52:48 GMT

I often hear people suggest the top down in conjunction with the bottom up approach to leading a community and making it thrive. A suggestion I have seen work is find someone in the middle who is passionate about fixing broken or inefficient processes. If they have access to both ends of the spectrum that need to be energized, and have a passion for seeing a change in the culture through social media... you are looking at a very nice solution to get things moving.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

communities@jivesoftware.com — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:56:58 GMT

Thanks Ted.

I'd like to collect as many anecdotes as possible to help my leadership team come to a decision regarding this role. Anyone else with ideas/anecdotes to share? For reference, we have about 1200 or so folks in the community and are using the platform for employee engagement.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

ted.hopton@ubm.com — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:24:05 GMT

Hi, Wini,

You've identified two key points. I'll address the second one first.

I agree that it's ideal to have the CM in the same location as the community, for face-to-face interaction really helps. We've seen that in a number of our communities that are the most active and effective. However, it's not a requirement. I, for example, am a full-time telecommuter and I manage the overall online community from my cottage on a horse farm. I travel now and then to offices to deliver training, but that's not the primary way I manage the community. Overall, I do so from a distance physically.

I don't think the success of our CMs correlates with physical proximity. It's much more important to find someone who is enthusiastic about the opportunity, who has the aptitude for the role, and the support of management to commit to it.

As for the time required, it will vary, of course. Our rough estimate based on 6 months experience is to expect 50% of a CM's time at the start and during ramp up. That's for someone committed to the role who is throwing himself into it -- we had others get by with less time spent. After things settle in, we see that time dropping closer to 20%.

I don't have a numerical ratio to offer for CMs to users. Ours are based on our business divisions and those vary greatly in size. One of our largest divisions has over 1000 people and one very capable CM who is doing a terrific job. But, she has help -- others in the division are champions and advocates, too, and they have converted still more, so the work has become spread out nicely.

We're a media company, by the way, not a professional services firm.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

communities@jivesoftware.com — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:09:06 GMT

Everyone,

This has been a great discussion. I recently joined the community, so pardon my ignorance if something has already been posted, but our leadership team has been asking for some guidance around:

1. Time commitment - Are there some guidelines (or even anecdotes based on your experience) around the number of managers/moderators (relative to company/community size) that firms dedicate to this role? We're particularly interested in what professional services firms might do. Could you share examples of the types of firms that have part-time vs. full-time managers or teams (even if you cannot share names)?

2. Location - We have heard that face-to-face interaction (in HQ or co-located with the community) was an important aspect of the Community Manager's success. Do you have any experiences or anecdotes from communities that have tried having a remote/offshore manager but have struggled as a result?

Thanks much for the advice.

-Wini

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

ted.hopton@ubm.com — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:09:41 GMT

Another fascinating thread! I'll declare my bias right up front in the interest of full disclosure: I am my company's sole full-time employee dedicated to our Clearspace installation. I am the community manager.

Gia's made many great points about the need for "stuff to get done" and having a central point of contact. All true, in my experience. The software and community does not run itself -- not fully and completely. I'm convinced I add value by handling many things under the hood and behind the scenes to keep the show running. Software this complex, for one thing, simply needs tweaking, debugging and administration. Concepts related to community development are not well- or widely understood, either, so providing thought leadership, training and educational resources about them is necessary. I do all of that in my community manager role.

To the point made above about being accountable, I'm that person. I report to the senior team on the growth of the community and the ways people are using it. Our CFO has pointedly and rightly asked how we will know what ROI we are getting, so I am developing metrics to try to capture that (while acknowledging from the start that we don't have any precise or truly reliable ways to measure that now -- that's a discussion for another thread). To the extent that our community is growing rapidly and shows signs of success, I get praised (so far so good ). Clearly, if the community falters or flounders, I will be charged with getting it back on track, or else shown the door.

Executives like having someone who is accountable. That's how they manage effectively. We may be pioneering new models with the communities we are building in social media software, but I don't think the executive's need to delegate responsibility and hold someone accountable for results is going away anytime soon.

But let's never lose sight of the meaning in my title -- Community MANAGER. I am expected to achieve results through others, not all on my own. I have to devise ways to get the company's objectives for our community accomplished, not create all the content myself. That's what management is all about.

So from the start, we created local steering committees and local community managers. We trained them, psyched them up and empowered them. They have learned, and they have carried the message to others in their teams... and they have learned and carried the message to others -- so on and so on.

It's become crystal clear what the single most important success factor is in each of our communities. The most successful, most developed, most active communities are those with strong, enthusiastic community managers. Like they say when you go to the gym, "you have to give some to get some." Decide that this is important enough to allocate about 20% of a person's time, choose the community manager carefully, and you'll see the payoff.

Having said all that, we see tons of growth that is entirely bottom up. People emerge as champions all on their own, or maybe with some nudging from another champion. They create groups, they establish new work processes, they blog or start discussions or suggest creative ways to put this community to work.

Bottom up is the long-term key to success, I believe. But without the community managers developing the community initially, I don't think we'd see anywhere near as much of the bottom-up success as we have. They need to go together.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

communities@jivesoftware.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:30:41 GMT

We converge much more than you would believe: I always prefer bottoms-up approaches as well, particularly because of what you mention, low investment to failure. Also, there is a unique pleasure to seeing communities organically emerge and become self-sufficient. Unfortunately, I am "soured grapes" from a couple of initiatives where I went in with meager sponsorship (to say the least) from the powers that be and many nay-sayers sitting on the sidelines waiting to say "I told you so"; in those cases the complete communities initiative needed to prove itself with success, or all of them would be turned off.

But you know, even when sponsorship is strong, I have found that gentle hand-holding, objective tracking, and metrics production come handy, for many reasons...

Some great champions may not know they (and their community) are in trouble because they are too close to the trees
Governance is a tricky thing, and of all possible governance strategies, only a handful are kosher for a given enterprise, because of internal culture, exec personality, and such. You can keep many of those same champions out of trouble by influencing there governance decisions
Communities (not their members) are organic entities,that grow much like children: given a stove and many children in a house, they will all sooner or later put their hands in the fire. Why not saving them the trouble?
There are specific questions (e.g., what to do about SEO) that may not be important to the community, but may be crucial to the enterprise. Do you want to surface them?

But you ask: Is it necessary? Mmmm, if you can take a couple failures without hurting the whole, probably not.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

ric.hayman@achurchassociates.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:38:39 GMT

I'm happy to be the grit in the oyster that produces a pearl like Carlos' comment ...

I feel we're coming to the same point from different directions (which is cool) - I am unashamed to say that I tend to be a bottom-up sort of guy who would prefer to see small (cheap) starts and build the community first; or fail quickly (and cheaply) before it means someone's job is on the line. But I also take the point that once those communities grow beyond a certain size/reach there needs to be an element of organisation about them - but by that stage there should already be momentum and justification for more investment.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

gia.lyons@jivesoftware.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:49:11 GMT

Carlos wrote:

In most scenarios, a good execution requires that a communities leader (let's not get hung-up in titles, but let's pay attention to the plural in 'communitIES', to imply multiplicity of projects) be the "keeper of the mission". That person is fully responsible, in short, for:

Making sure that needs are verified and validated (a community where nobody wants to participate usually pops up in this part)
Make sure that all processes and best practices are followed (including training, branding and other assets required, times and outreach kept, etc.)
Guarantee that expert advice, monitoring and advice is always available in as close a relationship as required by the people who are "jumping at the pool" leading each individual community or each individual segment of one.

This is what I meant. Thanks, Carlos! I'm copying this into my bag of adoption "tricks" now, with your permission.

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

ric.hayman@achurchassociates.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:22:34 GMT

OK - I'll get off my soapbox now

In response to the question ... apart from someone for Gia to liaise with (Vendor Relationship Manager, to commandeer a phrase from Doc Searls?) does it need to be anyone? Is there anything in that role that couldn't be handled by the community itself (for the functionality requirements), and an IT service desk (for the technical stuff)?

Re: Alternate model to a community leader/manager

communities@jivesoftware.com — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:28:15 GMT

Ric wrote:

It was the impression I got from others that it is necessary to have a community manager to be somehow accountable for actions that are at their best when internally motivated rather then "forced" - you can't have a community where people have to participate - that's a prison, not a social network, and trying to legislate for it will kill community spirit.

Well, it seems to be clear that it wasn't Len's or Gia's intention to imply sending anybody to prison for other people's refusal to participate. And yet,let me kick the bee-hive here, I think that SOMEBODY needs to be made accountable. FULLY accountable.

Most enterprise communities (the subject of this post) are funded, staffed and seeded with corporate funds. Those funds are allocated after very concrete and specific analysis, promises and projections are made, an initiative gets created, and ALL those projections and promises become targets to be reached by some execution plan. I can tell you that yes, I've been burned by choosing targets that were too optimistic, or even worse, expressed in the wrong terms or variables, but I can also tell you that unless people are made accountable for the targets agreed upon, another knowledge management disillusion will be coming our way, this time with Social Networking.

Social Software is NOT a free-for-all, let's-see-if-we-can-make-it-work kind of thing. None of my sponsors would have ever given me a dime to get going in that basis, and I would feel very lame to get back to them with a "Well, I tried, but nobody wants to socialize". Why? Simple: I can't be made accountable if NOBODY, absolutely nobody wants to come to build relationships, but if that happens I am probably accountable for poor situational analysis, non-existing planning, and lousy execution. I don't know about prison, but at least my job should be on the line.

Making sure that needs are verified and validated (a community where nobody wants to participate usually pops up in this part)
Make sure that all processes and best practices are followed (including training, branding and other assets required, times and outreach kept, etc.)
Guarantee that expert advice, monitoring and advice is always available in as close a relationship as required by the people who are "jumping at the pool" leading each individual community or each individual segment of one.

These responsibilities are not trivial, they don't imply a "mandate to socialize or else" and yet they constitute full accountabilities. Now, the question was whether such responsibility could be held by a group of evangelists, or a single person. I still think it depends on the level of sponsorship available... but whether one or many, she/they should be fully accountable for success.