[...] Jeremiah Owyang created a score card that you can use to help you determine your need for a community manager. [...]

Actually it was meant in the overall generic market, not sure where you thought it went personal. I post in many many places, just in the geek-social media sites the skin seems way thin, and it’s “pushing buttons” or “trollish” if you go off the ranch or take strong stands, muddled middle is the best you should hope for.

But I disagree that you can’t criticize without offering up an alternative solution or lucid-dreaming “visions”, some things are just bad ideas regardless, and most of everything, since we are dealing with emotional human behavior, has no solution, life is absurd, but work on it anyways.

It’s not a “fascination”, it’s an opinion, or a comment, nothing more than that. And if you want my “visions”, show lots of green-folding stuff, please.

My contention with Chris is that he is blanketing a number of people with pre-conceived notions. And, almost as important to me, I don’t like seeing someone make critical statements w/o backing it up with some sort of alternative (I will also aid friends when I think something is unfair…a critical, perhaps fatal, personality trait of mine).

If he focused half as much time on pushing buttons as he did on actually doing something, he would probably be quite a success. I would just like Chris to post what his vision of a community is, without the b.s. about what he thinks it isn’t.

A lot of people I know that have worked in community really do believe in what they do, and they are actually very interested in servicing the needs of customers first. Like any organization ,however, you can run into a bunch of political garbage present in any organization…

Chris is trying to push your buttons (and anyone else’s he can) to get a reaction.

just an FYI, he’s really good at this. When you meet him in person, he is so gentle, docile, and almost passive, it’s quite a flip.

Ok, now I can disagree with Chris:)

The strength of the community at sites like eBay, even though eBay is no longer the star it once was, was that there was (is) a large number of regular people there.

Since you’ve obviously never worked with me, or worked in a serious community job on your own, I think your comments are a little off in some ways. You also seem to blanket your statements based off of what you feels happens in the blogosphere.

I don’t attend geek fests.
I don’t attend Valley parties.
I don’t throw parties for customers or others.
I don’t make it a point to hang with the elite. My friends are my friends, that’s it.
I don’t seek the spotlight.

A community will evolve around strong products. A community manager won’t save a crappy product. And a good community manager will highlight product concerns before a product is launched, or they will make sure that customer feedback is funneled up after a launch so that they can address the needs of the customer.

I don’t know what your fascination is with Jeremiah, or Scoble for that matter (no, Scoble is not a friend of mine) , but Jeremiah’s a pretty cool guy that I’ve known for a few years (well before he became a blogging celebrity) & I don’t entirely understand why every post you make is pointedly negative on his blog. Instead of criticizing people, why don’t you actually offer an alternative solution?

P.S. If you don’t think I do any real work, you’re more than welcome to sit with me one day.

A community is relational, it has glue around a common interest, but it only sticks when real friendships are formed. And once forged, the actual “common interest” becomes less and less important. Which is paradoxically why a good successful community, eventually kills itself, so if you don’t want it to salt up, always have a river of new inputs.

The easiest way to “build” community is the junket and entitlement route (the Microsoft model), key members, called “influentials” as an ego boost, are sought out and coddled, instant community, but such is fraught with heavy downsides, as such creates an elite, which becomes immediately resented by the rest of the community, and the elite become an entitlement drug of sorts, constant freebies, titles and special events are not only expected, they are demanded. Additionally this elite, no longer mirrors the community at large, which prevents real growth, as no one wants to play in a closed shop. Plus the “Community Managers” never have to do any real work, just hold parties and talk with the yes-men, all without leaving your laptop, community without getting hands dirty.

The second way is just basic PR, be seen, be visible, attend all the “special” events, talk to all the “important” people, stroke their ego, be the contact person, party, lobby, influence, party, influence, lobby. Fun for the “Community Manager”, but actual results vary from nil to ineffective, whole lot of seeming activity however. Blogs (and even conversations) are not communities, and most corporate blogs are pure pap.

The third way is “sharing the wealth”, getting a “community” in on the take. But influence peddling works much better, with a lot less activity, in the political arena, just apply raw “donations”, i.e. cash, access granted already. Easy, but once real money is in the game, the community will destroy itself, as it’s no longer a community, it’s a business.

So what to do? No set formula, just case by case common sense, and flexible at that. Advertise, host, overall support, be available and visible, but in an inclusive way, no sneak peeks, no invite betas, no exclusive freebies, no early adopter pandering, if not for everyone, not for anyone. But if the product isn’t the best of breed, and can’t outdistance the completion, all is moot anyways. The buzz should come AFTER the product is used, not before.

The only caveat: Not all companies actually require one. Some products suit themselves well to community involvement, whereas some other ones do not.

It is also one of the few times I will agree with Chris on anything:) Some of the comments he makes are spot on…

We’ve discussed this many times in the past, the thing is, HR latched onto this title, and thus is stuck.

We all agree, communities can’t be managed.

Most companies definition of “community” usually spells out support, so all customer interaction is usually represented by overworked and underpaid support “engineers”, but that’s backwards, a good community lessens support requirements, customers helping customers.

Please your customers, and support the community that follows it, but don’t manage it, as no matter how well-intentioned, the company needs never match the community, and you will spend more than half your time putting out pointless ego-fighting melodramatic wars.

I created questions – backlink is above

The add’l one I have is – Are customers creating product related content around the web?

My question is: should the ‘positive’ questions all have the same weight? Are some more important than others? For example – I think if the community is asking for a comm mgr (& it’s a plea based on problems they want addressed) then that should be +2. I used ‘red alert’.

[...] Jeremiah Owyang created a scorecard that helps quantify the questions. You should definitely read [...]

Blogging and engaging them in the community is a way to keep them engaged in what is likely to be a six to eighteen month sales cycle.

Balancing this with working with customers who are paying for and directing development is a challenge, but that challenge *hopefully* seeds future sales.

So, there could be great uses for a startup to invest the time, though not necessarily to have a dedicated role.

“Minus TWO points if the startup’s management and the orginization is not prepared to take in community feedback to make changes.”

This is VITAL. If you’re not ready, willing and able to take user feedback and adapt to it, instead of trying to make it adapt to you, you should save your money and not hire a CM.

I just took on the role of CM for A.viary.com, and articles like this are really helpful for me when explaining my work to colleagues. Thank you.

[...] Igår på ReadWriteWeb publicerades Marshall Kirkpatrick en artikel som ställde frågan om startups behöver community managers. Jeremiah Owyang har utvecklat frågeställningen till om företag ska prata med kunder och prospekt överhuvudtaget i en utveckling av artikeln med tillhörande pro-et-contra-lista. [...]

PLC is an interesting take, the challenge is, some startups like to operate in stealth.