Community Signal

著者: Patrick O'Keefe
  • サマリー

  • Community Signal is a podcast for experienced online community professionals, including those working in audience engagement, association management, developer relations, moderation, trust and safety, and more. It's released every two weeks and hosted by industry veteran Patrick O’Keefe. This is a very community-focused program. There are plenty of social media and marketing podcasts out there. That’s not what this is. Social media is a set of tools. Community is a strategy you apply to those tools. Marketing brings new customers. Community helps you keep them.
    Copyright © 2015-2020. Community Signal, iFroggy Network. All Rights Reserved.
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あらすじ・解説

Community Signal is a podcast for experienced online community professionals, including those working in audience engagement, association management, developer relations, moderation, trust and safety, and more. It's released every two weeks and hosted by industry veteran Patrick O’Keefe. This is a very community-focused program. There are plenty of social media and marketing podcasts out there. That’s not what this is. Social media is a set of tools. Community is a strategy you apply to those tools. Marketing brings new customers. Community helps you keep them.
Copyright © 2015-2020. Community Signal, iFroggy Network. All Rights Reserved.
エピソード
  • When Open Source Community Software is Bought by Private Equity
    2024/06/24
    When private equity buys online community platforms, who wins? What about if those platforms were built on open source software? Does the company continue to be a good citizen of the open source community that helped build the product? History has shown us that it is often the community managers and pros who lose. They might not just lose a good platform though, they might lose their job. Lincoln Russell has an interesting perspective on this topic. He joined Vanilla Forums, an open source community software platform, as a senior developer in 2011, having already used it for a couple of years. He left the company in 2020, then the director of engineering. Lincoln has continued to use the software. Vanilla Forums was subsequently purchased by Higher Logic, a company lacking a meaningful history of open source contributions. As a matter of disclosure, both Higher Logic and Vanilla Forums are past sponsors of the show. Lincoln and I also discuss: How Vanilla Forums’ open source ethos shifted over timeThe importance of data migration standards for community softwareIs community software best built by small businesses? Big Quotes Your community software provider must answer this (16:38): “The first question you should ask a [community software] vendor is: How easy is it to leave you? It’s not a fun question to ask, but the answer is crucial to me. It’s a deal-breaker question.” -Patrick O’Keefe Some community platforms try to lock their customer data into the platform (18:07): “When [a client is] onboarding [to new community software during the] initial year or two, they don’t care about their data export. It’s at the end. That’s a long-term reputational issue about how people talk about their experiences. We saw that with [community software] competitors. We had some trouble with a couple of competitors in trying to get the data from them and spent way more hours than particular customers were worth – just on principle, honestly – getting the data out for them because we were so personally offended. At least I was.” -Lincoln Russell When you aren’t selling community software to the people who will actually use it (20:37): “In the [community software] sales process, you identify stakeholders – people that are decision makers. A lot of the time they weren’t a community manager. A lot of the time it was a director of technology, it was a CEO, or other positions, and that warps your roadmap. “When those are the people that [the] sales team [is] sitting in front of, day in and day out, and you’re pitching an improved moderation queue, they want this button that does this thing. You’re like, ‘But that’s stupid.’ But it doesn’t matter. If those are the people you’re selling to, [with] their own idea of community that doesn’t actually align with community management because they have internal business goals, and all they want to do are check those boxes.” -Lincoln Russell Why community professionals should drive community platform choice (22:10): “Although I’d like to believe, ego-wise, that I could make a community out of whatever piece of garbage application you throw in front of me, I know the software can either help me or hurt me, and it’s tough when you’re making dinner with someone else’s ingredients.” -Patrick O’Keefe Great ideas need great communicators (23:44): “The biggest issue with charting a course is you need a really clear vision, and you also need someone who can articulate that vision a lot, and over and over again, to the right people in the right circumstances. You need an external marketer. All of us in engineering at Vanilla [were] all introverts. None of us were going to conferences and giving talks about our vision for community software. It just wasn’t in us to do that. I think we were poorer off in that we had some really good ideas, and could have shifted the conversation a bit, but we didn’t put our energy there because that was a lot of energy.” -Lincoln Russell Protecting your culture makes you unique from the big social media platforms (33:43): “I think this idea of being more private and being very selective about what you present to the world, and having an internal culture that is protected from the internet – not promoted to the internet – is the future of these independent community spaces because that’s the space those [bigger] platforms cannot touch.” -Lincoln Russell Community drives great software projects (37:04): “To build great software, like the great software projects that are going to outlive me, you need a community of people committed to working on them for long periods of time. [You need] to replace those people when they leave, but you have to have a system to keep that going, not just like, [we] got great five minds in a room and they did a thing, and then they cash out at the end. That’s not sustainable.” -Lincoln Russell About Lincoln Russell ...
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    41 分
  • When an Online Community Pro Retires
    2024/01/22
    Rebecca Newton is a legend of the online community profession. After 30 years, she has retired. But what does it mean when we retire from this work? Her career began AOL in 1994, building communities and managing a massive volunteer program. Among her numerous stops, Rebecca found a focus in child safety, leading such efforts for Sulake (the company behind Habbo Hotels and Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom), Mind Candy (Moshi Monsters), and most recently SuperAwesome, a provider of tools for safer, responsible digital engagement with young people, who was acquired by Epic Games. A program manager for community in 1997, a community director in 2001, a chief community officer in 2007: Rebecca has held all of the titles. Along the way, she has paved a path for the community profession, pushing us higher in corporate environments and creating valuable resources for us. Most notably, her 24 year stewardship of the e-mint listserv for community pros, an iconic resource that has helped countless community facilitators. After such a career, what’s it like to step away from full-time work? What goes through the mind of a retiring community pro? That’s what we’ll discuss, plus: How do you prepare for retirement, as a community pro?What will Rebecca miss? What won’t she miss?The least and most effective pieces of legislation passed during Rebecca’s career Big Quotes What will Rebecca miss most about being a full-time community pro? (17:32): “I’m going to miss working with people online the most. It’s a different animal than working with people offline, and I did plenty of that before I started in the online world. … Everybody thought they invented remote working. I’ve had remote teams since 1994, so it’s not new. I’m going to really miss that because there’s a special culture in the online world, as you know, that is really hard to describe, or it’s hard for me to describe but is not like the offline world. It’s like being in a special club, in a secret club. That’s how it feels to me.” -Rebecca Newton What won’t she miss? (23:07): “I won’t miss … people naively thinking they know better than everybody who built the widget. I’ve heard the conversations. ‘Oh, they can’t let go. They don’t know how to let go. They don’t know how to grow. They don’t know how to do this.’ Then I would think, ‘Okay, well, we’ll see who’s not growing in a year, so I’m going to go looking for another job because I know in a year this thing’s not going to exist.'” -Rebecca Newton The cyclical trend of online community obsession (31:09): “I remember in 2000 when dentists were [asking], ‘Do I need an online community?’ There was a trend of, “Oh, it’s online community,’ because of the success at AOL. I was like, ‘No. You’re a dentist.'” -Rebecca Newton Overreaction from government officials who aren’t active online (34:21): “I’m not saying anything about how smart [government decision makers] are, about how great their intentions were, or their abilities in the world. [But] if you’re not [active online], if you’re not a heavy user, if you’re not in the kid’s world using it, how can you possibly [make good decisions]? That’s what we see in Great Britain, in the EU. Something happens to one person under 16, they want to have 27 laws about it. Because this thing happened.” -Rebecca Newton Kids want to collaborate, they want a job (38:40): “That’s the biggest thing I learned about working with kids. The very first thing when they get online or game in an app, whatever it is, [they say] ‘I want a job. Can I have a job? Let’s do this together. Let’s do that together.'” -Rebecca Newton When legislation goes too far (39:18): “Over-regulation is detrimental. I think all it does is create a whole lot of jobs for people to do a lot of stuff that nobody’s ever going to look at. That’s a really rude thing for me to say, but I believe that.” -Rebecca Newton About Rebecca Newton Rebecca Newton has spent 30 years in the commercial internet industry. As head of digital trust and community, Rebecca led online community, online safety, moderation, engagement, and customer services efforts at SuperAwesome (of Epic Games) from 2015 to 2023. Prior to joining SuperAwesome, Rebecca worked at Mind Candy as the chief community & safety officer, serving over 140 million registered (young) users. From 2001 to 2007, she worked at Sulake (the company behind Habbo Hotels) as the global director of community for the world’s largest teen virtual world site, spanning 24 countries. She began her online community career with America Online in 1994, where she wore many hats, and finally landed as the program manager for AOL’s community leader program. Among her contributions to the discipline of online community, Rebecca co-founded VirComm, the London-based annual conference for online community professionals in 2011, and the ...
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    57 分
  • Breaking: Online Community Consultant Discovers Brand New Concept (Again!)
    2023/07/24
    Online community consultants aren’t unlike consultants for any other area of work. Some are ethical, smart, and talented, and some aren’t. Consultants also don’t often make great guests for the show because they view it as yet another lead generational funnel for them to shout generalities into. But hopefully an exception is this episode with community consultant Jenny Weigle. On it, we discuss how being humble is often at odds with how many consultants promote themselves, as they place a certain importance on appearing authoritative and revelatory, even if that isn’t actually correct in the context of the history of this work. Can you even be a community consultant or an online community resource if you haven’t taken a concept pioneered 30 years ago and thrown your logo on it? We also discuss: An update on past guest Tim McDonald’s quest for a liver donorSelf-promotion by community consultantsCommunity professionals do roadshows, but are they ever invited to roadshows by other departments? Big Quotes When consultants and resources claim general concepts (3:57): “I’ve seen plenty of [community] consultants and resources pop up over my 25 years and throw a logo on something. The commitment curve, the activity ladder, the mountain of progression… how many different upward-facing shapes can we throw a logo on? I’ve seen a lot of that, and I’ve seen people claim something that has either been claimed decades ago or no one should be laying claim to.” -Patrick O’Keefe How much of the talk in community work is brand new? (6:01): “There are very few things that happen in our field today that make me pause and say, ‘Wow,’ either to myself or out loud. When I’m putting out my materials and what I’m personally working on, I’m just doing what’s top of mind and mainly it’s influenced by what my clients need at the time.” -Jenny Weigle The danger AI poses to community creativity (15:19): “[With ChatGPT and similar AI tools,] I’m worried about elements of communities where creativity is usually needed. An easy example is the writing of content, the writing of posts, the writing of conversations, and how those things start. I’m worried about everyone sounding the same. I’m worried about everyone getting the same prompts. I’m worried about everyone rewriting their posts using the same tool that learns on the same data set, and will all move them closer to the same center. Ultimately, that’s the death of community.” -Patrick O’Keefe Why community pros should read hospitality books (26:05): “There were so many things [that community builders can learn from the hospitality industry]. I was in awe as I turned each page of Danny Meyer’s book because he paid so much attention to wanting to know his customer’s preferences, their likes, dislikes, what was relevant going on in their lives at the moment, what would bring them in the door, and what would keep them from coming. These are all things that community managers are concerned about with their online communities, as well.” -Jenny Weigle About Jenny Weigle Jenny Weigle has been creating, executing, and reviewing strategies for online communities for more than 10 years. She’s worked with more than 100 brands on various aspects of their community strategy and implementations, including launch, migration, programming, and planning. These brands include, Airbnb, Google, HP, Intuit, Pinterest, REI, Samsung, Sephora, Splunk, Stubhub, and Visa. When she’s not geeking out on community strategy, Jenny spends time in Los Angeles with her partner, John, and stepdaughter. In her personal life, she is a proud member of a number of communities, including Southern California Gator Club, Spiritual Sisters of Los Angeles (which she founded), Oak Park LA (for CrossFit), Sofar Sounds, and D23: The Official Disney Fan Club. Related Links Jenny’s website Tim McDonald on Community Signal Good news from Tim!TimsLiver.comJenny’s Substack The Hospitality Books That Made Me a Better Community Professional by JennyDanny Meyer’s book, Setting the TableTV shows that deal with hospitality and customer service: Hotel Impossible, Bar Rescue, Kitchen Nightmares, and The Profit The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick GrayBe Our Guest by The Disney Institute with Theodore KinniJenny’s Community Roadshow templateJenny on LinkedIn Transcript View transcript on our website Your Thoughts If you have any thoughts on this episode that you’d like to share, please leave me a comment or send me an email. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.
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    39 分

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