Comments on: Musings on “community management” Part 1

By: Nancy White

Nancy White — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:58:09 +0000

Socialbutterfly, I think age can give us a CLUE to skills, but I’d be very wary of assuming they define skills. I see the skills in 60 year olds and lacking in 21 year olds. But absolutely, I think the skills are more prevalent and practiced in younger generations due to early technology exposure.

I still think it is important to understand what a person brings to a job - including skills we don’t even know exist. So the exploration with a candidate is more important, in my mind, than any “test.” Does that make sense?

By: SocialButterfly

SocialButterfly — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:45:59 +0000

Hello,

I bookmarked Chris’s post and now yours, as I’m very interested in how organizations are developing jobs titled ‘community managers’ or some similar title with the same job description.

As for the tests recommended, I can see their need. However, I think as time goes on, the need for formal tests may become antiquated as the younger move into the work force. Many millennials and younger may already have these types of skills as they grew up learning how to splice and dice information quickly from the internet and being actively engaged in social media from a young age.

Thoughts on how age may affect skill sets?

Best,
SocialButterfly

By: Overheid en sociale media « Sociale Media en Landbouw

Overheid en sociale media « Sociale Media en Landbouw — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:41:12 +0000

[...] White, schreef het op in een fantastische serie blogposts over de ‘netwerkwereld’: deel 1, deel 2, en deel [...]

By: links for 2008-05-04 : roots.lab

links for 2008-05-04 : roots.lab — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:37:51 +0000

[...] Musings on “community management” Part 1 Nancy White, picking up where Brogan’s recent post left off, drops serious science gleaned from more than a decade of experience with this art. (tags: community communitymanager onlinecommunities) [...]

By: Beeline Labs » Blog Archive » Why wrong measurements can be bad for your community’s health…

Thu, 01 May 2008 22:41:00 +0000

[...] on managing communities going on right now…Chris Brogan kicked it off and Nancy White wrote some interesting musings and also kept track of many of the other interesting links. Posted in [...]

By: Why wrong measurements can be bad for your community’s health… | emergencemarketing.com

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:41:39 +0000

[...] on managing communities going on right now…Chris Brogan kicked it off and Nancy White wrote some interesting musings and also kept track of many of the other interesting [...]

By: Connie Bensen

Connie Bensen — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:31:56 +0000

Great additions Nancy!
It’s totally head & heart & about relationships. If a Comm Mgr can provide value to customers they totally appreciate it. It’s not about marketing.

I see my position as facilitating conversations between customers & internally & vice versa. Connecting & communicating are my primary roles.

By: LisaN

LisaN — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:13:43 +0000

As the community manager for a very small organization, I think the connections part is so important, especially in the early stages of an organizations attempt at social networking. Obviously, because I’m with a small organization, I have input in all avenues of the company, but I can clearly see that working for a much larger company, connections within the company would be a key ingredient. If the community manager doesn’t know what’s coming down the pike, either good or bad, they will clearly not be able to do their job effectively.

I loved your refences to head and heart, plus multimembership. This is my favorite part of my “job.” I love what I do, and “talking” to various people from so many different fields is highly enlightening. This blog for instance is totally out of my usual musings, but a need non-the-less. I think a community manager also has to have the humbleness to grow, as both an individual and as a company representative.

Chances are, they will be involved in many avenues with a company and outside the company, having to wear many hats, just as I do. Being able to say, “I don’t know, but will do everything I can to find out,” is essential.

Thank you for the great information, and I look forward to Part 2.

By: Nancy White

Nancy White — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:03:55 +0000

Michael, I think what you are pointing to is the AND part of this. We have feet in both worlds right now, and have to work with that tension. (Part of today’s Part 3 post!)

By: Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:53:08 +0000

Oh, and in reference to Bill Anderson’s post, I emotionally totally agree with what he’s saying.

But the penny-pinching streak of Taylorite manager in me says that if you can only afford 0.5FTE of a social media person, they’d better be able to touch type from day one. Or you’re paying for 2 and a half days a week and getting a couple of hours useful work. You don’t hire an accountant who can’t do arithmetic and you don’t hire digital communications staff who can’t type! We’ll be doing two work samples as well as an interview and the work samples will have equal weight.