When an Online Community Pro Retires
Community Signal
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...
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Breaking: Online Community Consultant Discovers Brand New Concept (Again!)
Community Signal
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 . 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...
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Kinks vs. Crimes and Gender-Inclusive Content Moderation at Grindr
Community Signal
Bodies aren’t moderated equally on the internet. Content moderation efforts, especially those at large, mainstream platforms, can suffer from policy-based bias that results in moderation centering a cisgender gaze. This reinforcing of heteronormativity can leave some of your most vulnerable community members – and potential community members – feeling alienated, ostracized, and simply unwelcome. Last year, in her role as CX escalations supervisor at , Vanity Brown co-authored a whitepaper, . Insightful, with a straight forward approach to making content moderation just a bit...
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Safeguarding a Diabetes Charity Community and Knowing if You’ve Done the Right Thing
Community Signal
Safeguarding is a term used in Ireland and the United Kingdom that covers efforts to protect the health, wellbeing, and human rights of people, especially children and those who are otherwise vulnerable. At , four people alternate by week as the safeguarding lead, helping to protect those that the charity comes in contact with. One of them is Josh Poncil, the online community and learning manager. Among his responsibilities is . On this episode, we talk about safeguarding and knowing if you’ve done the right thing at the end of the day, plus: What is considered “too technical”...
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Empowering Employee Resource Group Leaders With Your Internal Community Platform
Community Signal
Employee resource groups (ERGs) can do a lot to create a greater sense of belonging at your organization. But the folks who volunteer to lead these groups may find themselves in need of help when it comes to utilizing perhaps the greatest tool at their disposal: Your internal employee community platform. As a community strategist within large organizations, has trained employees to help them get the most out of these platforms. She has also managed two large migrations, both from Jive, and that has led her to have a (in her words) cynical perspective on the resources made available...
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The Chief Community Officer Hype Machine
Community Signal
As we celebrate Community Signal’s 7th birthday, Patrick takes questions from Community Signal listeners and supporters in this first ever “Ask Patrick Anything” episode of the show. Questions include: If everything had worked with CNN+, what would community look like for the platform? Would you rather be a working community professional or a community consultant? Will we ever see community leaders in the C-suite as the norm? 2023 will be Patrick’s 25th year of community work, so this is an opportunity to reflect on that passage of time. A lot has changed and, surprisingly, some...
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Elon Musk’s Quest to Make Twitter Worse
Community Signal
Elon Musk’s presence has loomed over Twitter since he announced plans to purchase the platform. And for these few weeks that he’s been in charge, many concerns have proven to be justified. Musk , and then . He is . The verification process, perhaps one of Twitter’s most trusted features, has been unraveled. He’s offered severance to those who don’t want to be part of Following the results of a Twitter poll, , who was suspended from the platform for his role in inciting the January 6th attacks. So, what happens now? What of the many social movements that...
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When Community is on 3 Teams in 5 Years
Community Signal
As customer base and product offerings have grown, so has its community. The Zendesk community started in 2008, under the support organization, as a space for people to ask and answer questions about using the product. Since then, it has shifted departments multiple times, leading to changes in KPIs and core purpose. , the company’s director of community, joins the show to explain how she has navigated these challenges. Tune in for her approach on thoughtfully managing change and expectations within your community and inside of your organization. Patrick and Nicole also discuss: ...
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Why Community on the Product Team Works, From a Product Leader’s Perspective
Community Signal
Recently, community pro Danielle Maveal joined Community Signal to discuss . In this episode, we’re getting the opposite perspective from product leader . Gitesh and Patrick worked together at CNN, where community reported into product. And while the product and community that they were building were short lived, they both speak highly of their time working together. Gitesh describes creating a team atmosphere where each individual’s expertise was respected and given room to ladder into organizational goals, giving each person the opportunity to see the impact of their work....
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Lessons in Building Safe, Inclusive, and Functional Spaces for LGBTQ+ Folks
Community Signal
If you’re wondering how you can more actively foster safety and belonging for LGBTQ+ folks in your online community, there’s precedent to learn and borrow from. In this episode of Community Signal, we’re joined by , the CEO and founder of . Venia shares lessons from her decade of experience building community for LGBTQ+ individuals, which started when she began sharing her transition journey on YouTube. Patrick and Venia discuss tools, policies, and practices that can help build queer friendly spaces over time. For example, how easy is it for someone to edit their profile...
info_outlineAs community leaders, we’re responsible for people. The people in our communities and the people that serve them. In this episode, Chris Catania, head of community at Esri, shares how he approaches planning for growth and specialization for his community organization, for his people, and for his own role.
Chris is currently hiring for three roles, a community operations manager, a community manager for engagement and content, and a community manager for ArcGIS Ideas. Chris shares the responsibilities and scope for each of these roles, in addition to the challenges and advantages of hiring right now. In addition to the effects of the “great resignation,” as specialization and scope of responsibility within the community industry grows, so does the need to be clear in our job listings, success metrics, and paths to growth.
Chris and Patrick also discuss:
- The role specializations and career paths that Chris is charting for his team and himself
- Hiring for specializations within community
- Communicating your team’s value to other execs (and around the dinner table)
Our Podcast is Made Possible By…
If you enjoy our show, please know that it’s only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Hivebrite, the community engagement platform.
Big Quotes
Esri’s community team is two sides of the house (1:49): “[Our community team has] a structure where we have two halves. I’ve been using the analogy of a house: Two sides of the house. … An operational side, community ops, and on the other side, we have community experience and programs.” –@chriscatania
The current landscape for job applicants and hiring managers (4:31): “There’s a multi-layer effect that’s going on in the job market where you have the Great Resignation going on … [and] then you have this other layer that has emerged over the last five years where you have this proliferation of community jobs.” –@chriscatania
All job candidates have areas where they need help (10:20): “Having been in the community industry for a while, [I’ve been able to] get a good idea of all the different paths that you can take. … [This is] influencing how we are approaching the strategy of the hiring process, and knowing that there’s not one person out there that is going to do everything that we [need a given] role to do.” –@chriscatania
Planning for your team’s growth (24:46): “I started really looking at our new org structure for the community team early last year because I saw the team was growing, … individually and as a team. I saw the community industry starting to advance … people coming into it were really accelerating. I looked at my team, and [said], ‘Okay, I need to think about promotions. I need to think about their path.'” –@chriscatania
Planting the seeds to grow and promote your team (25:33): “As I have meetings with my boss about our team and what our team is doing, I plant seeds with them. ‘Look what this person’s doing.’ Because I’ve seen that work with executives over the years of trying to get buy-in incrementally, just walking in and boom, put down the plan. I like to plant seeds. I like to make a case over time so that when you go for the ask [to grow or promote], it’s like, ‘Yes, you got it.'” –@chriscatania
Giving out skimpy raises will often lose you money (28:41): “I’ve worked at places where I’d have to grind out an $8,000 raise to go with a promotion for someone who’s been there five years. I was like, ‘They need $10,000.’ ‘You can have $8,000.’ That $2,000 in our pocket, it’s worth nothing. That $2,000 in their pocket is worth something, because if we lose that person, the amount of time that I’m going to have to spend training, interviewing, we’re going to lose way more than that, in my time and in our company’s time.” –@patrickokeefe
About Chris Catania
For more than 20 years, Chris Catania has developed a versatile array of skills and experiences in strategic communication, community management, customer experience, global business strategy and emerging media production. He is a dedicated community and collaboration leader, who always thinks “people first, technology next,” and uses his passion for emerging community and communication strategies to drive measurable business results and design meaningful experiences for employee and customer audiences. Chris is currently the head of community at Esri.
Related Links
- Sponsor: Hivebrite, the community engagement platform
- Chris’ website
- Chris on Twitter
- Esri community
- ArcGIS Ideas
- Chris is hiring a community manager, ArcGIS Ideas, a community manager, engagement and content, and a community operations manager
- Patrick is hiring community moderators on his team at CNN+
Transcript
Your Thoughts
If you have any thoughts on this episode that you’d like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.