Community

Funny thing about communities. Sometimes they spring up in spots you haven't been watering. Because they're not clustered in nice fat groups claiming a proud central space in the garden, they're not complimented by neighbors of other carefully-groomed organic matter. They're insubstantial, really. These wild communities may be lone, thriving on a long-thought-dead channel with small membership numbers. It may be easy to discount the discovery of a wild community as unintentional, lacking organization...

Do your employees - even those that don't directly touch your customers - think about how they can shepherd them down a path to greater commitment, higher satisfaction, and higher lifetime value? I'm reading a book titled "Edge" by fiction author Jeffrey Deaver. The story line centers on a personal security expert whose job it is to protect innocents and whistle-blowers (along with the occasional bad-guy-turned-informant) until they can safely deliver their damning testimony to the appropriate...

Recently I covered 5 immutable laws of community-centric organizations.  Below are four more to consider. Make Your Community Character Count Make good choices.  Set the standard. Coaching community members to abide by codes of conduct may be a bit more challenging than censoring your own behavior as a manager. After all, it's your job to moderate what goes on.  You're the eye in the sky.  Set a tone and religiously maintain it.  Most participants will understand where the boundaries...

I want to blow off some steam addressing community building common sense.  Nurturing relationships with members, customers, or merely interested parties isn't rocket science, yet it seems so hard for organizations large and small - even those within the "community" and "digital marketing" spaces! - to get right.  Maybe it's a case of the cobbler's shoes.  Maybe it's a case of arrogance or a lack of checks/balances of the "Are we living our promises?" category.  Whatever the reason, too many businesses...

While reading a book of fiction recently, I came across what struck me as an intriguing phrase.  The main character was referencing the sheer joy he experienced while out on a boat in the ocean.  The wind on his face, the scent of salt brine in his nose, the feel of cool water splashing on his arms and the warm feeling brought on by good company and a day without demands.  The character said that in giving him this afternoon charter, in essence his wife gave him the gift of glee. As an adult...

A few years ago, all-stars Drew McLellan and Gavin Heath brought forth a new book titled The Age of Conversation, 100 Voices, 1 Conversation.  It was a fabulous collaborative effort edited and coordinated by the two men and written by a host of contributing authors.  The book was so well-received that the guys published a new installment the following year featuring even more authors.  Now we're up to Age of Conversation 3: It's Time To Get Busy, slated for release in mid-April. This project...

A colleague and I were recently discussing some features of Facebook pages.  An example frequently cited as a well-designed page (in the creative/app sense) is PINK by Victoria’s Secret.  With 1,702,953 fans, this branded page certainly has an audience with its target demographic – late teen-to-mid 20-aged women and to a lesser extent, the males in their lives (not to mention males who simply appreciate the lingerie maker’s, er, assets). If you notice the brand’s wall, you’ll see a host...

By now you've heard of Twitter's newest feature, Twitter Lists. You may have even decided to use the feature and have begun creating your own lists, or following the lists created by others (which could certainly save some time, provided you really trust the person aggregating and organizing the lists). I was hearing all about these lists, running across both tweets (where some issued "thank you!" shout-outs for their impressive numbers) and blogs (some served as "how-to" instructions, others...

"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgment."--Will Rogers I heard this inspiring quote for the first time in February, mentioned by my friend and counselor Sam Meers at a gathering I wish could have happened at some far, distant time in the future.  As it is, we were saying good-bye to a friend, a man who was bigger than life. Even as I heard Sam speak those words, they crept into my head and quietly spoke to me for months.  I'm finally writing about them because...

A Blog And A Partner I had the opportunity to partner with Successful Blog author Liz Strauss, and let me say I'm darned lucky. Not only is Liz the fairy godmother of relationships and conversations, but she can identify kernels of ideas and say big things about them.  Things that get her readers thinking.  And you can be sure, they're always listening to Liz. The post I co-authored was published today and is titled "It's so easy to get stuck repeating what we already know." And you guessed...