As we continue to explore the topic of value as it relates to community, ROI (or return on investment) is always a sub-topic of discussion. We know we can work on calculating ROI for our communities using different methods (like TheCR's ROI Calculator), but what do we do with ROI once it's been calculated. Or what do we even do with "value" once we are able to identify and measure it?
Over the month of August, we explored not only ROI as a Resource, but how we can identify, measure, and communicate the value in and of our communities.
So, let's get into what we have learned...
August in TheCR Network: Roundtable Calls
Our first call of August brought back a call we held years ago that focused on exploring our non-work communities and how they function, looking analytically at the strategies and value that they use and create.
On, "Community on the Side", we each used an example of a community that we are a part of outside of our work or professional communities to look at how they are created, facilitated, and how value is created, while also thinking about the challenges and solutions these communities have seen along the way.
While we usually look at our work communities through this analytical lens -- identifying the strategy and tactics behind their intentional management -- this time, we got to look at communities that we do not typically reflect upon.
Personally, I thought a lot about onboarding, the creation of community culture, and intentional facilitation when looking at the communities I am a part of outside of work.
How do these communities welcome and engage new members? How do these communities handle challenges and changes?
We can learn a lot from our non-work communities, so I encourage you to reflect on your own and see what you find as well!
If you would like to see another Community on the Side Roundtable Call on the calendar in the future, please let us know or leave a comment below and we can talk more!
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Our next call was actually a Watch Party for a call we held earlier in the year, "Making The Impact: Measuring and Connecting Engagement & Business Outcomes", which focused on how we can measure the value of communities through engagement and connect that to outcomes that the organization sees as valuable.
Highly relevant to this month's topic of ROI as a Resource, this panel conversation was great to take another listen to to reflect on how we could be using ROI and other forms of calculating community value to communicate with senior leaders and show how community is "not just a thing, but a way of doing business".
As this was a Watch Party, we rewatched the Roundtable Recording of the original call, which you can find here if you would like to watch again as well.
If you want to read our original reflection on this call, you can find it in the February 2021 reflection blog post.
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The next even we held in August actually came in the form of an Ask Me Anything (AMA) with a TheCR Network member: Helen Chen.
As the Enterprise Community Manager and, more recently, the Digital Channels Manager, at VMWare Carbon Black, Helen has been responsible for community management and the development of an internal community and volunteered to share this knowledge and experience with us on her AMA.
In this AMA, Helen shared some amazing knowledge around several key topics including welcoming new members, hiring for technical skills, managing unhappy/negative members, social listening for internal communities, identifying internal stakeholders, and more.
I personally loved how Helen emphasizes the personal in each response, reminding us that we are regularly working with people and we need to keep that in mind regardless of if we are dealing with negative comments or understanding stakeholder motivations.
If you want to read through the AMA conversation, you can find the discussion thread here.
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Our last call of the month, "Building A Community Business Case", put a nice bow on our topic of the month by also leading us right in September with a bit of future thinking.
On this call, we walked heard from two members as they discussed how they approach building out a business case for community. While business cases revolve heavily around fundamental strategic elements, we should also be communicating the possible value gain for members as well as the organization as we pitch community to senior leaders.
A couple of key takeaways I noted from this discussion focused on building relationships with leaders before you need to be communicating the business case with them, knowing your audience and work in support with them to create your business case, and remember to put your members first.
We know that communities take time to get started and create value, but we do not always have that time to convince our leaders of this. However, by putting this value into financial terms and pairing our value-based metrics with actual words and thoughts from our members, we can put together a great case for why we should get that time, and if not that time, then more support to get us there.
There is so much more under the umbrella topic of a business case and we should always be iterating to make sure ours make sense in our current context, but this conversation was a great look at how two members in different industry have worked through and continue to build out this process.
If you want to listen into this call, you can find the edited Roundtable Recording here.
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We heard some great examples and had some great discussions this month, so why not round it out with what we learned about members of TheCR Network overall...
What Did You Think?
For the month of August, we opened up a simple poll to get a pulse for how members communicate their metrics and who they communicate them to/with. We know that metrics can look different for every person at every organization, so this poll aimed to get an understanding of if our members regularly share metrics to people elsewhere in the organization, both to understand the reach and the goals of our members' metrics work.
In order to explore this more, we asked TheCR Network members: Do you currently share metrics/dashboards with people outside of your community team?
(with the clarification that examples of these people may include members, stakeholders, executives, partners, etc)
What did members say? Let's find out...
The poll results come from a sample size of 11 respondents (which represents about 3.9% of TheCR Network members) and show that all respondents do indeed share their metrics reports with people within their organization that are
not on the community team.
These results show that our members are navigating differing goals, needs, and priorities when they are curating their metrics, but they also show the reach and impact potential that community has in our members' organizations.
While navigating the challenge of reporting to others outside of the community team, we also need to make sure to lean into the opportunities this reporting creates, opening up avenues for communication and advocacy within the organization, especially with those at higher levels like the C-Suite and executive leadership.
While this was a great quick poll to get an idea of what members are dealing with in terms of metrics, it by no means encompasses all of the experiences members are working and dealing with. While some do have these challenges and opportunities, others are being tasked with much more and/or much less, while also receiving more and fewer opportunities alongside them.
After thinking about our perspectives, knowledge, and skillsets, we are looking forward to taking that into our next conversation...
So, Where Do We Go From Here?
After thinking about how we can use metrics like ROI and how we can communicate value, we naturally think about what comes next. And that is exactly what we are looking to explore in September: how we build what is next.
Next month, we are looking forward to exploring more about how we can build the way forward for both our communities and for ourselves within the larger community space. So if you are interested in topics like community careers, building teams, and building metrics reports, be sure to keep an eye on
the Roundtable Programming Guide to see what we have in store.
In the meantime, if any of these conversations or concepts have sparked an idea or recommendation from 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, please reach out! We're happy to talk about how you or they can get involved.
If you'd rather do that yourself, you can
find out more about how to join TheCR Network here.