While I may be biased toward online communities–I think lots of organizations can find ways to incorporate community into their business strategies–I will also be the first to tell you that there is a right time, and a wrong time, to launch your association’s community. Before you can even start building your private social network,…
Tag: basics
Community manager, advocate thyself! Speaking up for you, your job and your community
Being a good community manager means being an advocate for your members. It also means advocating for yourself and your job. To do that, you sometimes have to take risks. Once upon a time, I stepped into my annual performance review, palms sweaty, hands shaking. I wasn’t all that nervous about the review itself. I…
Levels of order in online community: The art of banning users
I was listening to Community Signal (available wherever fine podcasts are sold) and Patrick O’Keefe’s conversation with famed criminologist George Kelling about applying the Broken Windows theory to community management. They discussed how behavioral demonstrations and “levels of order” can maintain a cohesive, orderly group, whether online or off. While the theory is somewhat controversial,…
8 design basics for non-designers
This article was first published by ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership. If you’re a part of a small communications team—or you are the communications team—then at some point you might be asked to design something for your association, even if you don’t have design experience. But, in today’s hypervisual world, even basic design skills…
So you decided to be a community manager
Let’s introduce ourselves to virtual strangers then tell them how to talk to each other. We’ll assume for a moment that you’ve decided to become a community manager. The other option, of course, is that you’ve had community management unknowingly thrust upon you, but that’s not our problem today. Today, you’ve got all the skills of…
