Comments on: Seth Godin’s Job #1: Community Management

By: pepelicious

pepelicious — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:59:38 +0000

You might also want to add that a great community manager is able to weigh the needs of the community against the needs of the business. They usually end up playing a very important role in determining what features get attention and what don’t. They not only are an evangelist to the community for the company, but they also evangelize back to the company on behalf of the community. It’s actually kind of a crap position to be in.

By: Oddpodz

Oddpodz — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:39:30 +0000

We read this post over at sethgodin.com, too, but I’m glad I found the commentary and discussion over here.

This is one of the most challenging, but interesting jobs I have ever had (community manager). In order to get the word out at a grassroots level, it draws upon my creativity, my personality, my strategy skills and even lessons from anthropology 101. It also requires lots of on and offline networking and relationship building - you can’t just sit behind your computer. Even in Web 2.0, the face to face interaction is important. And, finding ways that we can be helpful to others is key.

It has been extremely rewarding to watch Oddpodz grow by reaching out to individuals and organizations that are aligned with our community and telling our story. I should correct myself here. We’re actually more than a community, we’re building a nation - a global nation for creatives. And, our members are citizens.

We’re pretty young, but it has been such fun to see it evolve and to meet so many interesting people. Much of my time is spent interacting with our citizens and listening to their suggestions. I’ve even had the occasional encounter with a rude, cranky person which makes me call upon another skill…dipolmacy.

Thanks for the post, glad I found your blog.

By: Henrik

Henrik — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:09:26 +0000

The last 6 months or so, my job has been to develop a social network. This niche-network will go out of a private beta phase next week, and we’ve already got about 1700 members. And I can tell you, there’s a lot of different people out there. I’m currently in the “network manager” position, if you’d want to call it that.

It’s not a dream job, that’s for sure. But it’s the best job I’ve ever had! I have never learned more about human beings than I have the last four weeks. The humidity you might encounter from a troll when confronting him is a rather shocking experience.

By: Jeremy Fuksa: Creative Generalist

Jeremy Fuksa: Creative Generalist — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:12:53 +0000

It’s certainly a career shift that I had been dreaming of myself over the past few weeks, and it’s nice to see Seth validate its possibility.

By: Online Community Organizer - a job for the future « TechNayak(mirror)

Online Community Organizer - a job for the future « TechNayak(mirror) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:40:37 +0000

[...] Even Joshua of Social Design vouches by it. After a certain point, it will be people who will influence the audience of a social app. I sure as hell would join a social network where I could find the Real Bill Gates, if he can be there, so can I, thats the idea. An Online community organizer will have to be one with an impeccable reputation and a neat resume, one that can turn heads. He/she must be able to talk people into joining a product and using it and even deliver the promise of a fruitful app. Its not enough having high profile people in your Organizers list, you need to a have a good product. Marketing will only take you half the distance, the product has to endure the other half of the audience’s prejudice. Its a tricky predicament to let people from all walks of life into a product that was never meant for them; your organizer must have been a patron of the genre or must be at least influential enough to draw audiences of the right kind. [...]

By: Uno de Waal

Uno de Waal — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:50:45 +0000

I’m starting a new position on the 1st of August in a similar if not exact position.

By: TechNayak » Online Community Organizer - a job for the future

TechNayak » Online Community Organizer - a job for the future — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:23:43 +0000

By: Dale Cruse

Dale Cruse — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:59:57 +0000

Funny, I was having this EXACT conversation with two guys from a startup just this evening!

By: Adam Audette

Adam Audette — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:58:45 +0000

It’s a position just starting to take up momentum, and no doubt will explode in the coming months / years. My company (not linked here) started in the community development space a long time back, but it didn’t gain traction until Web apps took off. Old days it was all about remarketing, email lists, forums, and blogs. Now those are givens and it’s about online social networks, and many big companies are starting to put resources there.

As the web evolves people want more dynamic and sophisticated ways to interact, to find information. Companies able to solve consumer problems with social media will be at the forefront of the new wave, imho.

By: Brad Garland

Brad Garland — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:42:59 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. My thinking about this though got me thinking on how a community manager works. Seth stated about getting people invited to this new service or that which kind of came off to me as a spammer of sorts. Not to downgrade the position at all b/c I feel it is very important.

By: Bryan Eisenberg

Bryan Eisenberg — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:19:52 +0000

Josh,

I did an interview with Betsy Weber of Techsmith who is their customer evangelist. You can find part 1 of the interview here.