Blogs

Three Lessons from Community: The Structure of Belonging

By Mary Emma Gary posted 06-16-2025
If you have time to only read one book this summer, this blog is a vote for that book to be Peter Block’s Community: The Structure of Belonging . I wish I had read it right when @Catherine Sword 's colleague, Michelle Sneck, first mentioned it to me a few years ago, but as the saying goes, the second-best time is now. For community practitioners, it can be easy to unintentionally limit the word community to what you do for work. This book will not only break you out of that mindset, but remind you what matters to communities of any type. It offers incredible insights, questions you can immediately use in meetings, and vocabulary for some of the more unquantifiable ...

Advice on Community Fellowships from a former fellow

By Sean Marlin posted 03-29-2023
When you feel stuck in your current line of work, dreaming about switching industries can be tempting. But what happens when you actually take the leap? @Anne Mbugua , former Community Fellow, did just that when she made the decision to switch from nonprofit to community management. Her fellowship at The Community Roundtable helped her learn the ins and outs of digital communities in a hands-on and more effective way than online courses or more traditional learning models ever could. Now that it’s been a few months since Anne has graduated on to her new role I touched base with her to see what she learned during her fellowship. ...

Three Community Trends in 2022

By Sean Marlin posted 12-26-2022
We won’t give you another version of Spotify wrapped, but this is the time of year where one can’t help but reflect on what occurred in yet another historic year. What we’d like to share with you today are three of our trends that we most look forward to exploring more of next year. Trend 1: Critical characteristics for community management Teams are shifting, as are Community professionals. This year felt like the year of the year of extremes. In some cases the pandemic has highlighted the importance of Community in an organization. With that we’ve seen more C-Suite support and growing budgets. However, we can’t ignore the large layoffs in tech earlier this ...

Help us make the Network even better - and earn a $250 gift card!

By Shannon Abram posted 12-14-2022
Help us make TheCR Network even better in 2023! Our members are what makes the Network an amazing place to be. Do you know someone who would add to the conversation and benefit from the exclusive resources, programming, and training offered in the Network? Refer a community professional to the Network by January 30th they’ll save 10% on their first year - and we’ll send you a $250 gift card as a thank you. All you have to do is share the code new22 with your community peers. Ask them to put your name in the “ How did you learn about TheCR Network?” field when they register . Once they are onboarded we’ll send you a $250 ...

Recognition and Reward in a Global Community

By Sean Marlin posted 11-07-2022
TheCR Network (our private peer community) is home to some of the most innovative community builders in the world. I get to enjoy a front row seat for the amazing work our members do, and I want to share it with you. Each month, I’ll highlight a series of questions - and answers from inside the Network. If you aren’t a member, you’ll get a peek that what’s going on inside. If you are a member, and have Roundtable FOMO this will help you catch up. And if you have more insights to any of these questions, I would love to hear them, too. Please feel free to continue these conversations in the Network on their original posts, or by leaving a comment ...

Happening at Connect 2022: Keynotes from Dr. Stephen Spinelli, Jr., President of Babson College, and Margot Bloomstein, Author of Trustworthy

By Shannon Abram posted 10-03-2022
Connect starts in just 21 days and we are in full prep mode over here! If you didn't see the news we'll be joined by two amazing speakers for keynotes: Dr. Stephen Spinelli, Jr is the President of Babson College, and will join us to share experiences and insights from his business and academic career, including how to: Get people to think differently and adopt novel approaches Stay positive while navigating ambiguous circumstances Work effectively with executives/organizational leaders Margot Bloomstein wrote the book on trust and organizations - literally. Margot will join us for a discussion where we'll explore how voice, volume, and vulnerability ...

5 Tips for Launching an Online Community

By Shannon Abram posted 04-14-2022
The Spring-y weather in Boston has us thinking about new beginnings, and (bear with me!) we've been chatting about how the best advice we have for launching a new community is really counterintuitive. You don't want to go big. (I know. The party planner in me is cringing!) The idea of not planning for a grand launch day for your online community is hard to consider. You’ve spent months project managing and planning for the launch, so of course, you want to celebrate! But, having a huge to-do to launch a new community can set up unrealistic expectations that tend to follow the hype of a grand online community launch. The hype and tunnel vision surrounding ...

Engagement: Automate, But Keep it Personal

By Kelly Schott posted 08-30-2021
Whenever we think about personalizing engagement, there is always a tug of war with customization and scale. The more we want to customize and make each experience unique, the more we need to think about how we can maintain this moving forward and at scale. As a team of one (and a half when we have our wonderful community fellows!), I thought about this a lot while auditing our engagement outreach campaigns. In looking at how we could improve user experience after a community redesign, I decided to also look at how we can utilize the functionality we have on our platform (Higher Logic) to personalize a member's experience, but also scale it so it is not added ...

A Reflection on August 2021 in TheCR Network: ROI as a Resource

By Kelly Schott posted 08-27-2021
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 ...

September 2021 in TheCR Network: Building The Way Forward

By Kelly Schott posted 08-27-2021
We have focused on a lot of value-based conversations in recent months, so now it is time to take all of that talk and bring it with us into the future (and even use it to get use there). Whether you are starting to plan for your community's future (2022 planning, anyone?), or you are thinking more in terms of your own future in community, we all should be thinking and planning ahead to make sure we have a path to follow to success, no matter what that will look like. So, for the month of September in TheCR Network, we are looking forward to exploring how we can be Building The Way Forward: Under the theme of Building The Way Forward, we will be ...

A Reflection on July 2021 in TheCR Network: Developing Community Skills

By Kelly Schott posted 07-30-2021
Community is an ever-growing space, which means we will always be building our skillsets and learning new skills in order to continue growing alongside it. We are never "done" learning, but how do we prioritize the skills we need? In July in TheCR Network, we wanted to dig further into that question and take a deeper look into the key areas that community professionals need to learn about, develop their skills in, as well as just all around practice in order to create value for themselves and their communities. So whether you are new to community or have been around the proverbial block more than once, these conversations should be relevant and valuable for ...

August 2021 in TheCR Network: ROI as a Resource

By Kelly Schott posted 07-30-2021
This summer (or winter for our southern hemisphere friends), we have been looking at how we can measure what matters and also how we can develop community skills. So what happens when we combine the two: metrics and developing skills? We are going to use August to figure that out! We all need to start somewhere in every aspect of our lives, including our work lives. So that means you usually do not start working on something as an expert; we all need to build up our skillsets in order to get to that level. That absolutely applies to community metrics and reporting all the same. Many people do not start a community role knowing how to measure the community's ...

A Reflection on June 2021 in TheCR Network: Measuring What Matters v3

By Kelly Schott posted 06-30-2021
We know that metrics are always an intriguing topic to discuss in the land of community management: there are always new methods for gathering, new strategies to implement, and new tools to try out. So, while we wanted to spend time in TheCR Network talking about metrics, we also wanted to focus this broad topic into something valuable that could also encompass the needs of different use cases, contexts, and situations. We have previously discussed value, reporting metrics, and more under the umbrella, so we wanted to dust off an old favorite and once again talk about how we all measure what matters to us. Here's what we found... June in TheCR Network: ...

July in TheCR Network: Developing Community Skills

By Kelly Schott posted 06-25-2021
After spending June look at how we measuring what matters in our communities (including metrics as well as culture and the feedback we get from our members, the next step is knowing what to do with all of that data and information. How do we know what to do with it? We have the skills, or know how to find people with the skills (which is also a skill!), to find out! A large part of being successful in any role is continuing to learn, grow, and develop new skills, and community management is no exception. We all come from a variety of backgrounds with vast experience in many different areas, roles, and circumstances, so part of developing our skillsets is to ...

June 2021 in TheCR Network: Measuring What Matters v3

By Kelly Schott posted 06-04-2021
Since we spent the last month looking at the impact of not only our communities on the organization but the impact of elements of community programs (like content and programming) on the organization and member base, it would only make sense to continue that line of thinking into our next month and look more at the data behind it. Coupled with the public launch of the newest State of Community Management report, we will be spending the next month thinking more about the data, metrics, reporting, research, and other pieces that fall into place to help us define, showcase, explain, and communicate the value our communities are creating. So, for the month of June ...

A Reflection on May 2021 in TheCR Network: Creating and Accelerating Impact

By Kelly Schott posted 05-27-2021
With new research around the corner to back it up, we wanted to take all of the key pieces of community that we had discussed so far this year and combine them to talk more about how communities not only create, but also accelerate impact. We can talk about metrics (and we will!), but what comes up when you talk about the value of a community and the value of the many aspects of a community? Here's what we found... May in TheCR Network: Roundtable Calls Our first call of May was another one of our Prep With Peers series, this time focusing on interview skills. But, except of only thinking about interviewing ...

A Reflection on April 2021 in TheCR Network: Identifying Key Relationships

By Kelly Schott posted 04-30-2021
We have said it a hundred times (and probably more) so we already know that relationships are at the heart of community building, and we wanted to use April to explore more around how we identify who to build relationships with and how to build them so that they are valuable for everyone involved. These relationships involve members of course, but they also involve stakeholders, leaders, colleagues, and peers. So, how do we get started and even identify who we should be meeting and connecting with? Here's what we found... April in TheCR Network: Roundtable Calls Our first call of April focused on internal relationships, or how we ...

May 2021 in TheCR Network: Creating and Accelerating Impact

By Kelly Schott posted 04-28-2021
After spending time looking into how we can identify and build relationships with stakeholders, members, leaders, and peers, we know that people are at the heart of creating value in our communities. So now it is up to us to see and communicate the value. With the launch of our newest research report around the corner, we are going to use this month to look at how communities create impact and, not only that, but also grow and expand upon that impact to create value for members and the organization. We will dig into strategy and tactics and everything in between, so get your questions and notebooks ready! Because, for the month of May in TheCR Network, we ...

A Reflection on March 2021 in TheCR Network: Building Skills

By Kelly Schott posted 03-31-2021
After working through fundamentals and goals, we spent the month of March looking at: Building Skills . While that is a bit vague, we know that community managers use a multitude of skills to work through all of the tasks we have on a daily basis, so why not focus on that wide array? In order to start out exploration in how we all build the skills we need, we held Roundtable Calls, discussions, and conversations throughout the month that revolved around how people determine, build, and grow the skills they need to be successful in community management. Here's a look at what we found... March in TheCR Network: Roundtable Calls Our ...

April 2021 in TheCR Network: Identifying Key Relationships

By Kelly Schott posted 03-24-2021
So we have fundamentals, goals, and skills, now what do we need to focus on to continue building our community foundation up? The answer centers around identifying and building relationships with key stakeholders, colleagues, and peers that will help us get resources, buy-in, and support for our communities. So, in order to look more into this topic, we are looking forward to spending the month of April in TheCR Network, focusing on Identifying Key Relationships: Under the theme of Identifying Key Relationships, we are looking to discuss how we can identify, communicate with, and building relationships with influential and important people for ...