December in TheCR Network usually means a slow decline in activity until the holidays and the end of the year. Because we know many members go on vacation or have priorities shift, we wanted to focus our monthly theme on something more reflective, that allowed us to both hear from others' experience and think about how we're going to start the new year.
With all of the talk around launching, migrations, proving value, and metrics this year, we thought it be only fitting to send off the year with a focus on Launching & Getting Support for Community Programs.
Over the month, we focused on topics like the evolution of metrics, launching (and relaunching) platforms, crafting our pitches for resources, and also got to reflect on community careers through some new research.
December in TheCR Network: Roundtable Calls
Our first call of the month focused on metrics and how tools and integrations can shape what metrics we pull and how we pull them.
On the Metrics: What CMGRs Do With What They Have Roundtable Call, we heard from @Jeff Ross who talked about how he's used integrations (like SWOOP Analytics) to develop his community metrics. Through this integration, he's been able to dive deeper into his internal community's metrics, drive more value out of the engagement, and change what metrics he collects and how.
Under the theme of "getting support for your community program", this call was a great way to explore the use of metrics to get support, what metrics you can pull to prove value, and what platforms and tools can do to help us do that.
Our next call (the very next day), brought members together to discuss all of the hairy details around launching a platform. Based on a thread created earlier in the year where members shared their journey of launching a community platform, we asked a panel of members to share their experiences, reflections, and lessons learned while they've worked toward launch.
On the Diary of Launching a Community Platform: The Call Roundtable Call, @Lisa Allison, @Jeff Ross, @Jill Ross, @Keeley Sorokti, and @Dennis Pearce (with some pre-recorded messages from @Jon Zucker) shared the experiences, insights, advice, challenges, and successes that had while working toward a platform or tool launch. As migration and launching were popular topics this year, this call was a great way to hear from people who experienced it first-hand and see what they've learned from the process. From having launched to getting ready to launch to somewhere in between, this was a great group of perspectives to hear from.
The next call of the month explored how we ask for what we need and why that ask centers around building relationships. On the Roundtable Call, Learning To Ask For What You Need, we discussed two main topics:
- What do we need?
- Who do we ask for what we need?
With the guidance of some homework (an amazing
TED Talk by Amanda Palmer that you should watch!), we focused on how relationships are at the heart of being able to ask for what we need and, before being able to ask someone for something, we need to be able to clearly articulate what that "something" is. If we can't pinpoint the cause of our problems or roadblocks, we won't be able to ask for the help that we need. And if we don't know who can truly help us, then we're not going to ask the right people.
This call started a reflective conversation around our problems, what will help them, and who we can ask for help, that will carry over in the new year.
At the very end of the month, we had some excitement when we published our brand new
Community Careers & Compensation 2020 Report. To complement that launch (thematic, eh?), we hosted a quick call around our takeaways and questions from the research.
On the Roundtable Call,
Top Takeaways on Community Careers: All About The New CCC Research,
@Jim Storer dropped by the Network to give us some quick takeaways and discuss questions about the research itself. It's a lot of content, so if you haven't gotten to read it yet, you should. If you're thinking about building a team, hiring someone new, changing your role, advocating for something new, or just pitching to executives, this is great research to draw from.
As community management comes of age, this data becomes more and more relevant in helping us standardize our roles and responsibilities, advocate for teams and salaries, and distribute our work evenly. This research is definitely not the end of the discussion, but the continuation. If you have questions, feedback, insights, or comments on the new CCC report,
feel free to join the conversation here.
What Did You Think?
For the length of December, we opened up a poll that asked the question: "What is the problem that is stopping you from getting support for your community program?"
Through exploring the art of asking, we talked about how we need to be able to pinpoint what the problem is before we can know solution we're asking for, so this question aimed to get at the heart of the common problem of not feeling supported.
So, what was the response?
The majority of members who responded said that "not enough resources" was the challenge that's holding them back the most. That means that a majority of respondents feel like they don't have the budget, headcount, time, and/or capacity to do their jobs effectively and bring success to their community programs.
So, Where Do We Go From Here?
As we discussed on our Roundtable Call, we need to know the problem as well as who to ask in order to get the support we need. December was spent focusing on identifying that, learning how we adapt, and getting to the place where we can launch. Not everyone's launch goes smoothly, but they're all opportunities for learning.
In 2020, we're looking forward to taking this reflection into a place of action and bolstering our community skills, brainstorming new ideas and concepts, and learning more from what others have done to bring new and interesting ideas to our communities.
If this reflection as sparked areas of interest in you, let us know! While we plan our programming calendar, we also leave space for reactive programming, spur-of-the-moment topics, and member involvement, so leave us a note or send us a message and we'll get something together to address your topics of interest.
And if you're not a member of TheCR Network, or if you know someone who isn't a member of TheCR Network, but would love to participate in these conversations, let us know! We're happy to talk about how you or they can get involved.
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