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!)
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Kinks vs. Crimes and Gender-Inclusive Content Moderation at Grindr
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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
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Empowering Employee Resource Group Leaders With Your Internal Community Platform
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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
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Elon Musk’s Quest to Make Twitter Worse
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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
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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_outlineWhen did you first realize that community management was an actual job? Many of the guests on Community Signal, including Patrick and this week’s guest, Shreyas Narayanan Kutty, got their start in community management by volunteering for causes or topics that they were passionate about. After building communities as a volunteer for the Mozilla Foundation, Shreyas found himself surrounded by community professionals and realized that he wanted to take his work full-time.
Shreyas now manages the developer relations community for CoinList, and with seven years of experience managing communities, he has observed a lot of positive change in how the community profession is perceived in India.
Patrick and Shreyas discuss:
- How they each came to the realization that community management can be a viable job
- Opportunities for growth and specialization in the community management profession
- The practices and guidelines that lay the foundation for successful developer communities
Big Quotes
Community management as a career in India: “[In India] the job seeker layer understands communities now … but I think change really comes when the top layer, or the hiring layer, really understands communities. When they say, ‘We know that this is how our business can benefit [from community]; this is the ROI of communities.’ They’ve taken that decision to invest in it. That’s when you understand that this [career] is successful.” –@dun3buggi3
On searching for community management jobs: “When I was looking for the job in community … a lot of these companies were really looking for business development or sales or growth hacking. They were just sugar coating it with the title ‘community manager,’ which was really interesting to me because I know that for them it sounded appealing but they really didn’t want to invest in communities. I’ve actually had that conversation with founders where I’m telling them that, ‘This is a wrong understanding of community, this is not what community management is. If you really want to invest in communities, you probably should think about it this way and not what you’re doing right now.'” –@dun3buggi3
Getting started in community management: “When we go to events, when people just come up to me and say, ‘How do I get a role? How do I get started in this industry?,’ I tell them that if you’re really passionate about it, there’s nothing that can stop you. I know it sounds like a cliché, but there’s nothing that can stop you from achieving that. My first go-to tips are try to volunteer for an organization that you really care about. Then eventually that might get converted to a paid position but don’t do it because you’re motivated by that, do it because you genuinely care about the cause.” –@dun3buggi3
Setting a standard for how we communicate about our work: “We’ve talked about these exact things on the show, community management versus social media management and the confusion there. For me, it’s the difference between tools and strategy, that’s how I try to simplify for people. Social media is a toolset. It’s a toolset that’s used by marketing, by human resources, by customer service. Community is a strategy you apply to a toolset. It’s a different set of goals and beliefs.” –@patrickokeefe
About Shreyas Narayanan Kutty
Shreyas Narayanan Kutty is a community manager primarily based in Bangalore, India. A computer science engineer by education, he succumbed to the lure of building communities and took up community management as a full-time profession. He recently joined the CoinList team to work on their developer community. Shreyas is also a volunteer with the Mozilla Foundation.
Shreyas is passionate about digital inclusion and building an open and accessible web. He runs Community Managers India, a resource for professionals with questions about the industry.
Related Links
- Shreyas Narayanan Kutty’s website
- Shreyas on Twitter
- CoinList, where Shreyas works on their developer community
- Shreyas’s contributions to Mozilla
- Community Managers India on Twitter
- Swarm Conference, Australia’s community management conference
- Vanessa Paech on Community Signal
- Telegram, a messaging app
- VK, also known as VKontakte
- Instagram to test hiding public likes count in Canada
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.