The hosts unpack key community-building elements that work across both personal and professional contexts:
- The critical role of consistency in building lasting communities
- How shared challenges and interests naturally bring people together
- The importance of creating regular touchpoints and traditions
- The value of organic growth and patience in community development
- Ways to maintain engagement while allowing for natural ebb and flow of participation

Through personal anecdotes about running groups, potluck dinners, choir performances, and holiday traditions, Nicole and Chris demonstrate how the strategies they use in professional community management often mirror the natural ways humans connect in their personal lives. The episode offers valuable insights for both professional community managers and anyone interested in building stronger personal networks and communities.

The discussion culminates with reflections on how genuine human connection remains at the heart of all successful communities, whether they're focused on professional development or personal interests. This episode is particularly relevant for community professionals seeking to ground their work in authentic human experience, as well as individuals looking to build stronger personal communities in their own lives.

Hosts: Nicole Saunders and Chris Detzel

1. Introduction and Context:
   - Both hosts are about six weeks into new jobs, providing fresh perspectives on their roles.
   - Chris has been thinking a lot about AI and new technologies in his new role.

2. AI Integration in Customer Experience:
   - Discussion on the importance of thinking "AI-first" in community and customer experience strategies.
   - Examples of AI integration, such as chatbots for self-help and sentiment analysis tools.

3. Practical Applications of AI:
   - Use of AI for content creation, including blog posts and webinar summaries.
   - AI's role in data analysis, such as understanding customer needs and preferences.
   - Utilizing AI for routine tasks like meeting note-taking and creating event descriptions.

4. Impact on Support Communities:
   - How AI is changing the nature of questions in support communities.
   - The shift towards more complex, experience-based queries that AI can't easily answer.
   - The increasing importance of user-generated content for SEO.

5. AI in Community Platforms:
   - Discussion on the lack of innovation in community platform space.
   - The need for community platforms to integrate AI features.
   - Potential for AI in matchmaking community members with similar interests or needs.

6. Challenges and Opportunities:
   - Balancing AI use with maintaining authentic, authoritative content.
   - The importance of open, searchable communities for SEO benefits.
   - How AI might disrupt current community management practices.

7. Future Outlook:
   - Anticipation of upcoming innovations in community platform technologies.
   - The need for community managers to adapt to AI-first approaches.
   - Potential for AI to assist community managers in various aspects of their roles.

8. Closing Remarks:
   - Mention of upcoming presentations at the Refocus virtual community conference.
   - Encouragement for listeners to attend or watch recordings of the conference.

Throughout the episode, the hosts share personal experiences and industry insights, providing a mix of practical advice and forward-looking perspectives on the role of AI in community management and customer experience.

1. Introduction to the topic: 
   • The hosts introduce the challenge many community leaders face in connecting their work to the rest of the organization, especially sales.
   • They emphasize the importance of finding ways to integrate community efforts with sales motions without being overly "salesy" in community spaces.
2. Focus on expansion opportunities: 
   • Chris suggests that community plays a significant role in customer expansion rather than net new sales.
   • He discusses how community programs, such as webinars, can be connected to sales pipelines and influence revenue.
3. Defining sales plays: 
   • The hosts explain the concept of sales plays, distinguishing them from marketing campaigns.
   • They describe sales plays as repeatable actions that can be tracked and followed up on systematically.
4. Learning about sales processes: 
   • Chris shares his experience of learning about sales plays and campaigns within his organization.
   • He emphasizes the importance of building relationships with sales teams and understanding their language and goals.
5. Strategies for integration: 
   • The hosts discuss the value of co-planning events with other teams to ensure community initiatives align with broader sales and marketing strategies.
   • They stress the importance of approaching other teams with a "how can I help?" mindset rather than asking for inclusion.
6. Building internal relationships: 
   • Nicole highlights the importance of relationship-building skills for community professionals, not just with community members but also with internal teams.
   • They discuss strategies for gaining buy-in from executives and demonstrating the value of community to the business.
7. Data and metrics: 
   • The hosts talk about the importance of tracking data to demonstrate community impact on sales.
   • They caution against over-relying on metrics and stress the need for balancing data with practical field experience.
8. Challenges and encouragement: 
   • Chris acknowledges that integrating community with sales can be challenging but encourages community leaders to push themselves in new directions.
   • They emphasize the need for creativity in showing how community efforts contribute to business outcomes.
9. Closing thoughts: 
   • The hosts summarize the key takeaways and encourage listeners to continue exploring ways to connect community efforts with broader business strategies.

Throughout the episode, Nicole and Chris draw from their personal experiences, offering practical advice and insights for community professionals looking to demonstrate their value to the sales organization and the broader business.

Nicole discusses her move from Zendesk, where she spent seven and a half years, to Coupa as the new Senior Director of Customer Experience Marketing. She shares her approach to entering a new organization, including how she prepared for the role and her strategy for the first few weeks on the job. Nicole emphasizes the importance of listening, asking key questions, and quickly identifying patterns and priorities within the new company.

Chris reveals his transition from Reltio to ZoomInfo, where he'll be starting as a Senior Community Manager. He details his proactive job search strategies after his position at Reltio was eliminated, highlighting the crucial role of networking and personal branding on LinkedIn. Chris offers creative tips for standing out in the job application process, including creating personalized presentations and leveraging existing connections.

The hosts dive deep into several key topics:

1. The importance of personal branding and "working out loud" on platforms like LinkedIn to attract opportunities.
2. Strategies for networking effectively, including reaching out to connections and asking for help.
3. Techniques for preparing for a new role, such as researching the company and creating preliminary strategies.
4. The emotional aspects of leaving a long-term position and starting fresh in a new organization.
5. Practical advice for the first few weeks in a new job, including meeting key stakeholders and identifying quick wins.
6. The value of bringing ideas and potential roadmaps to a new position, especially when building programs from the ground up.

Throughout the episode, Nicole and Chris share personal anecdotes, challenges they've faced, and lessons they've learned during their recent transitions. They offer encouragement to listeners who may be considering a job change or find themselves unexpectedly in the job market.

This episode provides valuable insights for professionals at all stages of their careers, particularly those in customer experience, community management, and related fields in the tech industry. Listeners will come away with practical strategies for job searching, interviewing, and starting strong in a new role, as well as a renewed appreciation for the power of professional networks and personal branding in career advancement.

The discussion transitions to the impact of community engagement on business outcomes, highlighting the importance of Account-Based Experience (ABX) strategies. Luke shares valuable insights on how Reltio leverages ABX to enhance their sales process, particularly by identifying and engaging multiple stakeholders within target accounts.

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the impressive influence of community shows, hosted by Chris, on customer engagement and pipeline creation. Luke reveals how these shows have become a primary driver of engagement, accounting for a substantial portion of customer interactions, and how this engagement correlates with increased pipeline and expansion opportunities.

Listeners will gain a comprehensive understanding of how integrating community activities with data-driven marketing and sales efforts can lead to significant business growth. Nicole and Chris also emphasize the importance of community professionals building strong relationships with their marketing intelligence teams to harness the full potential of data insights.

Join us for a detailed exploration of the intersections between community engagement, data analytics, and business strategy, and learn how to translate community interactions into measurable business outcomes.

The discussion revolves around strategies for expanding revenue within existing customer accounts through cross-selling and upselling. The guest, Jay Nathan, Chief Operating Officer at Churnkey, shares insights on how focusing on customer expansion is crucial for driving growth, especially in the current economic climate where efficiency and profitability are paramount.

The conversation delves into the roles and responsibilities of different teams, such as sales, customer success, and support, in identifying and operationalizing expansion opportunities. The speakers underscore the significance of providing exceptional customer support and argue that investing in a strong support function can pay dividends in terms of customer retention and growth.

Throughout the podcast, the theme of cross-functional collaboration emerges as a key driver of success. The participants discuss how breaking down silos and fostering cooperation among departments can lead to more seamless customer experiences and more effective expansion strategies. They also explore the role of customer communities in this context, suggesting that community managers should act as facilitators who bring together expertise from across the organization to deliver value to customers.

The speakers also touch on the importance of data and analytics in identifying expansion opportunities and segmenting the customer base. They emphasize the need to understand customer needs and tailor outreach and offerings accordingly.

Overall, the podcast offers a wealth of insights and practical advice for organizations looking to optimize their customer experience and drive growth through expansion strategies. The discussion is relevant to a wide range of functions, from community management and customer success to sales and support, and underscores the importance of a holistic, customer-centric approach to business growth.

Key points covered in the episode include:

1. Setting clear goals and objectives for the event, including business outcomes like expansion opportunities and pipeline influence.
2. The importance of proper planning, including creating a high-level agenda and identifying key team members and their responsibilities (using a RACI model).
3. Logistics considerations, such as choosing an appropriate venue, organizing catering, managing registration, and preparing event materials like name badges and swag.
4. Strategies for promoting the event, including leveraging various communication channels like email campaigns, personal outreach from sales and customer success teams, and community platforms.
5. Content planning, including selecting and preparing speakers, organizing panel discussions, and ensuring presentations align with the event's objectives.
6. The value of networking opportunities and how to structure the event to facilitate meaningful connections among attendees.
7. Challenges and potential pitfalls in event planning, such as last-minute changes, technical issues, and the need for flexibility and quick problem-solving.
8. The importance of balancing different attendee groups, such as customers, prospects, partners, and employees.
9. Post-event considerations, including measuring success against set goals and gathering feedback.

Throughout the discussion, Chris and Nicole share personal experiences and practical tips, emphasizing the complexity of event planning but also highlighting the significant value that well-executed events can bring to a business. They stress the importance of attention to detail, effective communication, and the ability to adapt to unexpected situations.

The episode provides valuable insights for professionals involved in customer experience, community management, and event planning, offering a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create impactful business events. They also touch on the differences between small, intimate events and larger conferences, noting that while the scale may change, many of the fundamental principles remain the same.

The conversation highlights the importance of aligning community activities with business outcomes, the challenge of maintaining authentic community connections while contributing to sales efforts, and the necessity of cross-functional collaboration to achieve these goals. They emphasize the evolving role of community management in supporting business objectives and the need for community leaders to adapt and innovate within this dynamic landscape.

As they introduce themselves and the vision behind "CX Nexus," Nicole and Chris share their personal journeys in community management, shedding light on the unique challenges and triumphs they've encountered. Their narratives set the stage for the podcast's mission: to unravel the complexities of cross-functional collaboration within businesses and highlight the indispensable role of community in fostering synergy across various departments.

The hosts outline an ambitious plan for the podcast, aiming to invite guests from a myriad of roles—ranging from customer success and sales to product marketing and customer experience. These conversations are designed to offer listeners a panoramic view of how community engagement not only bridges gaps between different business functions but also enhances collective efforts towards achieving common goals.

"CX Nexus" positions itself as a treasure trove of insights for professionals entrenched in the spheres of customer experience, go-to-market strategies, marketing, customer support, product management, and leadership. Nicole and Chris are committed to delivering content that not only informs but also inspires professional growth and encourages a culture of collaboration and innovation within product companies.

The essence of the podcast is encapsulated in its goal to showcase the interconnectedness of roles within organizations and how these connections contribute to strategic decision-making and business success. Nicole and Chris emphasize the importance of listener engagement, inviting the audience to actively participate by subscribing across various platforms, suggesting topics, posing questions, and recommending guests through cxnexuspodcast@gmail.com 

As "CX Nexus" embarks on its journey, Nicole and Chris stand at the helm, ready to guide their listeners through the evolving landscape of customer experience, armed with their expertise, vision, and an open invitation for everyone to join the conversation.

Key topics covered:

• The importance of end-of-year reporting to benchmark progress, justify budget/resources, and set goals. Nicole explains how quantifying community ROI helps secure leadership support.
• Conducting quarterly reviews to zoom out from day-to-day tasks and ensure you're focused on the right priorities.
• Tips for end-of-year people management like giving timely feedback and documenting personal achievements.
• Recognizing community members' contributions through year-end impact reports and tokens of appreciation. Nicole shares examples like infographics, swag gifts, and social events.
• Collaborating cross-functionally and articulating community impact on business goals like product adoption, customer retention, etc.
• The episode ends with a recap of key takeaways to help community builders reflect on the past year and prepare for the new year ahead.

Nicole explains how the user group program got started based on feedback from Zendesk customers who wanted more opportunities to connect with each other. The goal of the program is to drive customer retention by building meaningful relationships between Zendesk, its users, and partners.

She discusses how the user groups are structured, including interest-based and role-based virtual groups rather than geographic locations which was not what they initially expected. Nicole also talks about how they recruit and train volunteer chapter leaders, provide them with resources and assets, and help promote their groups.

Key learnings from the first year include the importance of regular cadence for meetups, starting small and letting groups grow organically, and transitioning leaders from active community participants. Ongoing challenges include sharing insights with customer-facing teams and automating qualitative data.

Overall, the user group program aims to provide a scalable way for customers to connect with Zendesk and each other, strengthening relationships and loyalty. Nicole reflects on the exciting growth after just one year, and opportunities still ahead to continue improving the customer experience.

Some of the main topics covered include:

• How community teams are adapting to doing more with smaller teams by prioritizing programs, leveraging cross-functional partnerships, and using technology like AI.
• Strategies for consistently engaging community members through innovative formats like "thought leader" sessions and getting customer feedback on new features.
• Optimizing virtual and in-person events to drive value, including hybrid models and facilitation techniques.
• Unifying data across platforms to get a holistic view of community metrics and tie back to business objectives.
• Leveraging community insights for product innovation by facilitating small group customer feedback sessions.
• Tips for community professionals like starting small by focusing on 1-2 metrics or partnerships to showcase value.

Overall, Christopher and Nicole have an insightful discussion about community management best practices, especially around engagement, measurement, and showcasing value.

They explore how AI chatbots may take over some routine community management tasks like answering common support questions, allowing community managers to focus more on building relationships and delivering personalized experiences. However, they acknowledge the need to pivot community roles to focus less on simplistic Q&A and more on engaging users in diverse ways like facilitating thought leadership and fostering connections.

The hosts also dive into the influx of AI-generated content and how it may clutter community discussions. They debate whether the onus is on community managers to moderate bot-created content or if search engines will adapt algorithms to surface high-quality human-created content. Overall, they agree community builders need to embrace AI as an accelerator for engagement but must skill up on leveraging these tools to avoid disruption.

With his extensive experience across various online communities, Jono provides thoughtful perspectives on AI's potential benefits and pitfalls for community professionals. His insights help paint a nuanced picture of how to prepare communities for an AI-driven future.

Drawing from their extensive expertise running online communities, Chris and Nicole discuss the value partners can bring by sharing expertise, creating content, leading community groups, and more. However, they also acknowledge the common concerns around partner self-promotion and emphasize the need for clear guidelines.

A major focus of the episode is around measuring the impact of partner participation through goal-setting, data analysis, and surveying partners directly. Chris and Nicole stress the importance of collaborating across teams to quantify the value of partners as part of the broader customer experience.

With insightful stories and actionable advice, this episode explores how partners can become co-creators and advocates for community when given the right framework for engagement. Tune in to hear Chris and Nicole’s guidance on maximizing partners’ contributions while avoiding potential pitfalls.

Check out the blog: The End of Walled-Garden Communities

Key points they cover:

• Community happens across social channels, forums like Reddit, and other informal spaces online. Companies need to think about how to participate in these spaces, not just drive people back to their own community platform.
• It's important for community managers to align strategies and data across all community touchpoints, though this requires breaking down silos and working cross-functionally.
• No technology alone can solve the problem of managing community everywhere. Human insight is still critical to connect the dots.
• At its core, community professionals love building relationships and connections. The challenge is balancing that with showing business value.
• To understand your customers, you need to know them as whole people, not just their interactions on your community platform.

They conclude that managing community everywhere is complex but critical for the evolution of community management. More collaboration across the organization is key.

Other topics covered include enabling customer success teams through content sharing, facilitating community events for customers, and optimizing program offerings based on data and impact. Overall, Saunders and Detzel provide a wealth of practical tips for leveraging community to enhance customer success initiatives and foster collaboration between the two teams. Their conversation offers valuable lessons for community leaders looking to strengthen cross-functional partnerships within their organizations.

Nicole opens up about her experiences at various startups and at Zendesk, sharing insights from a roller-coaster career where she had to adapt to five different managers over a span of 6.5 years. The conversation centers around the crucial importance of adaptability in a community manager's skill set.

Chris and Nicole discuss several essential strategies for managing change and uncertainty, beginning with the necessity of a clear vision for your community. They emphasize that the vision should remain constant, regardless of the organization's changes. It should inherently drive value for both the business and the end-users, being independent of any single organization.

They further elaborate on the importance of documenting your community programs and their impact, along with building cross-functional relationships as internal advocates within the organization. They advocate for showing urgency, delivering results, and welcoming change rather than dreading it.

Nicole's quote, "Your community should have an objective that is kind of agnostic to all of that. It should be something that drives value for both the business and the end users that is not dependent on a single organization," encapsulates their philosophy.

Chris concurs, adding that community managers must consistently show the value they bring to the business. He says, "I think people do to some degree, right? I think we have to continue to build out the programs, build out the value and act as every other department does to show what value we bring to the business."

They further discuss how a community manager can smoothly transition knowledge and programs through organizational changes. For instance, Nicole recommends having quarterly reports to track and showcase community progress and impact.

Lastly, Chris emphasizes the importance of forging cross-functional relationships and nurturing champions within the organization, thus amplifying the influence and reach of the community manager.

The episode is a treasure trove of wisdom and practical advice, offering community managers the tools and mindset they need to thrive, even in the face of constant leadership and strategic changes.

• Understanding the Community Role
• Community Integration: The Embedded Approach
• The Shift to Decentralization
• Role of Community in Feedback Management
• Business Alignment and Trust in Community
• The Evolution of Community Roles

The "Peers over Beers" podcast offers a refreshing perspective on the value of community in an organizational setup. As Saunders and Detzel articulate, incorporating a community-led model into business strategies can revolutionize traditional structures, enhance customer interactions, and drive sustainable growth. It's an eye-opening conversation that invites us all to rethink the way we understand and integrate the community within our own organizations.

Nicole outlines her journey from managing Q&A topics to orchestrating an all-encompassing community strategy at Zendesk. The strategy entailed merging the five product communities into a singular one to facilitate user experience. Additionally, Nicole shares her success with Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions and webinars, which were introduced as tools for community engagement.

These webinars eventually paved the way for the creation of the digital events team at Zendesk. The team hosts deep-dive sessions following product announcements, helping users understand new features better. However, the growth and popularity of these events led to the challenge of scaling, with resources being stretched thin due to increasing requests for specialized topics. To navigate this issue, Nicole and her team initiated user groups.

The user groups, designed to empower end-users to host meetups, experienced enthusiastic participation. From starting with five groups, they soon grew to eleven, with some groups boasting over 150 regular attendees. The global pandemic led to these gatherings transitioning to a virtual format, yielding groups arranged around job titles or industries rather than geographical locations.

Nicole discusses how these user groups were promoted using community events, forums, and even paid social media. To maintain engagement, a Customer Advocacy Program was launched to recruit volunteers desiring to be more involved with the community.

On the subject of data management, Nicole emphasizes the company's responsibility in using data strictly for user groups, prioritizing trust-building with customers. The conversation culminates with a discussion on the business value of these community engagement efforts. Nicole argues that user groups significantly contribute to customer retention, revenue generation, and account expansion.

This episode of "Peers Over Beers" offers a comprehensive look at the intricate process of community building, user group management, and their impact on business outcomes. It serves as an enriching resource for professionals interested in community engagement, user group operations, and the balance between customer satisfaction and business objectives.

In their conversation, Michael Burke and Chris Detzel explore the crucial role online communities play in the modern digital business environment. Detzel, an expert in building these communities, outlines how they offer spaces for users to connect, collaborate, and resolve product-related issues. From a business standpoint, these communities can reduce support costs, generate marketing leads, and encourage product adoption, boosting upselling and cross-selling opportunities.

The discussion delves into why customers often prefer peer support from community members over professional services or support tickets. Detzel explains this preference arises from the ease of access online communities provide, creating an environment conducive to knowledge sharing and swift problem resolution.

Interestingly, Burke shares his personal experience with online community participation, underlining the emotional connection it can foster towards the product and the company. Detzel builds on this point by detailing how communities allow users to share their expertise and ideas, enabling the development of long-term customer relationships.

The conversation also touches on the more analytical aspect of community management. Detzel suggests that the metrics used to measure a community's success should align with its maturity level, with more established communities tracking marketing, product adoption, and customer success metrics.

Burke and Detzel both stress the importance of fostering network effects within communities and discuss strategies to achieve this, such as automated emails, reward systems, and recognition.

Overall, the conversation underlines the pivotal role online communities can play in business growth, providing platforms for customer feedback and idea generation, while also building trust and empathy. Despite the potential challenges in managing these communities, especially on a global scale, Burke and Detzel highlight the substantial benefits and strategies for successful management.

Check out: The Power of Community Metrics for Data-Driven Storytelling

Join our industry experts as they share their vast experiences and dive deep into the nuts and bolts of community management. They will explore how to collect and analyze relevant data, identify key metrics, and weave a compelling narrative to highlight the community's impact. From newer community managers to veterans in the field, there's a lot to learn about building relationships, securing funding, and raising awareness about the value of community management.

Moreover, we'll highlight the importance of visuals in enhancing your narrative and the channels you can utilize to share your story. In essence, this podcast will equip you with the tools and knowledge to transform raw data into an engaging, comprehensible story that amplifies the value of your community management efforts.

Whether you're a community manager eager to demonstrate your impact or a business leader seeking to understand how community engagement drives success, this podcast is your roadmap. Tune in for enlightening discussions, expert insights, and actionable advice on harnessing the power of community management!

In a recent episode of the Peers Over Beers podcast, community management professional Nicole Saunders and host Chris Detzel delved into the intriguing topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on online communities and customer support. Their engaging conversation touched on various aspects of AI, such as its challenges, possible advantages in content generation, and the impact on community management. This blog post will explore the key insights from their discussion, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of AI in the realm of online communities.

Challenges: AI Limitations and Historical Data Dependency

Saunders began by discussing one of the main limitations of AI: its reliance on historical data. AI language models, like ChatGPT, depend on data sets that may not include the most up-to-date information. Consequently, AI-generated content could contain errors or be out of touch with current events. For community managers, this limitation necessitates staying informed and verifying AI-generated content to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Potential Benefits: AI-Generated Content for Communities

Despite the limitations, AI-generated content offers several advantages for online communities. Saunders and Detzel discussed how AI could assist community managers by summarizing conversations, generating show or webinar summaries, writing descriptions, and even crafting tweets. Such assistance could free up valuable time for community managers to focus on other essential tasks.

However, Saunders and Detzel also emphasized the importance of caution when using AI-generated content. Community managers must validate the output to prevent the spread of errors or misinformation. AI-generated content can be a powerful tool, but it should not replace human engagement in online communities.

Impact on Community Management: New Roles and Future Developments

As AI and generative technologies continue to advance, Saunders suggested that new roles specializing in these technologies could emerge within community management. Detzel compared this potential development to the early days of social media when new roles like social media managers were created. The growth of AI in online communities may bring about significant changes in the field, necessitating adaptability and a keen awareness of technological advancements.

Integrating AI Responsibly

The insightful discussion between Nicole Saunders and Chris Detzel sheds light on the potential benefits and drawbacks of AI in online communities and customer support. AI offers promising advantages, but it also has limitations that community managers must consider. Staying informed about technological developments and being prepared for the potential impact of AI is crucial for community managers. By responsibly integrating AI and maintaining human engagement, online communities can harness the power of AI to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency.

Check out Revolutionizing Online Community Platforms with AI and ChatGPT

When selecting metrics, it's important to understand the goals of the customer success or customer service management organization. Building a collaborative process and involving different teams will help to create metrics that resonate with executives. Creating a metric dashboard that covers the Who, What, and Why of each metric will help to tell a story that resonates with executives.

Capturing and showcasing community moments is an essential aspect of community management. Using social media platforms such as LinkedIn and creating a "brag folder" are effective ways to capture positive feedback and interactions. Webinars and online events also provide opportunities to capture and showcase community moments by collecting feedback and testimonials from attendees. Balancing the hard metrics that contribute to business value with the softer, qualitative aspects of community management is key to capturing and showcasing community moments effectively.

Check out the blog to learn more: The Power of Community Metrics for Data-Driven Storytelling
Check out the Video here: [Webinar] How to Create a Member-Centric Community

Additionally, they provide insights into promoting events, including word of mouth campaigns on social media platforms like LinkedIn, and the resources available on the Academy site, including podcasts, discussion forums, and learning paths. Overall, this episode offers valuable information for anyone interested in the technology industry.

Joining him is Allison Boudreau, Director, Digital Programs, Education and Community at Calix; Elizabeth Kinsey, Director of Community at Slack; and Nicole Saunders, Director of Community at Zendesk. Check out the YouTube Video:  Episode 114: Women in Tech

The representation of women in the tech industry has long been a contentious issue. Although progress has been made in recent years, there remains a significant disparity in the number of women holding positions in this rapidly growing sector. This article will delve into the experiences of women leaders in the tech industry, exploring ways to dismantle gender stereotypes, empower women in the workplace, and create a more inclusive hiring process.

Accidental Entry: The Importance of Early Education and Mentorship

For many women, a career in tech was not a conscious choice but rather a serendipitous encounter. This emphasizes the need for early education, mentorship, and community support to inspire more women to consider careers in tech. Schools and universities should introduce technology-related subjects and coding workshops to female students from a young age, while tech companies and organizations should provide internships, mentorship programs, and networking events to encourage and support women entering the industry.

Empowerment in the Workplace: Growth, Development, and Fair Pay

Companies must recognize the importance of providing opportunities for growth and development to their female employees. Training programs, career development resources, and mentorship opportunities should be readily available to help women advance in their careers. Equally important is addressing the gender pay gap, which continues to persist in the tech industry. Employers must commit to fair pay and promotion practices, ensuring that women are not left behind in terms of compensation or career advancement.

Breaking Societal Pressures and Systemic Issues

Women in leadership positions in tech often face societal pressures and systemic issues that create barriers to their success. Traditional gender roles may require women to shoulder a disproportionate share of household responsibilities, limiting their availability for career advancement. Moreover, women-led companies frequently struggle to secure venture capital funding, as they are often unfairly perceived as riskier investments. To break down these barriers, society and the tech industry must recognize and address the existing gender biases and work towards creating a more equitable playing field.

Overcoming Gender Bias in the Workplace

Despite increased awareness, gender bias remains a pervasive issue in the tech industry. Women often face challenges when negotiating salaries, asserting themselves in meetings, and feeling like they truly belong in their roles. Building strong networks of allies and mentors can provide crucial support and guidance, while fostering a work culture that allows individuals to express themselves authentically and communicate in a manner that suits them can help level the playing field. Implementing blind hiring processes can also contribute to a more equitable recruitment process, free from gender-based bias.

Creating an Inclusive Hiring Process

A truly inclusive hiring process is essential for fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace in the tech industry. To achieve this, companies should ensure that women are well-represented on interview panels, create welcoming interview experiences, actively recruit women at the executive level, and celebrate trailblazers and mentors.

Breaking down gender stereotypes, empowering women in the workplace, and creating an inclusive hiring process are all vital steps in building a more equitable work environment for everyone in the tech industry. By addressing these challenges head-on, we can create a more diverse, inclusive, and innovative sector. It is high time for the tech industry to make a conscious effort to cultivate an inclusive environment where women can not only survive but also thrive and lead.

The Importance of Strong Relationships Between Community and Product Teams:

In a B2B context, establishing robust relationships between the community and product/engineering teams is vital. These connections facilitate the creation of content around product success, releases, and future requests. The speakers also addressed the challenges of implementing an ideas platform within a community, sharing their positive experience with a community event called Dinner Five, which fosters strong bonds between community leaders.

Integrating Community Engagement into Market Strategy:

Drawing from her experience managing community programs at Bigcommerce, Lauren emphasized the need to incorporate community engagement as part of a company's overall market strategy. Online community platforms provide a space for technical individuals to discuss product-related questions and receive support from product managers and engineers. Inviting community members to participate in product release events and hosting educational community shows about new features can drive engagement and create value.

Overcoming Challenges in Building Strong Relationships:

The speakers highlighted the necessity of making it easy for product and cross-functional teams to collaborate, stressing the need for enthusiasm and promotion by the product managers themselves. Sharing their experience in producing webinars for product releases, they discussed the tactical work involved, such as crafting titles, descriptions, and promotional content. To foster strong relationships, it's essential to understand the workflows and tools of product managers, reducing friction and offering support in content creation.

Creating Engaging Content to Drive Community Success:

Developing captivating content is crucial in attracting new members and improving SEO. Considering the community's needs and interests when creating content is key, as referenced in a talk by Bridget from Atlassian on content strategy for communities. Aligning new programs with existing community goals and exercising patience while building a community are also essential components of success.

A thriving community can help companies engage with their customers on a deeper level, driving success and fostering innovation. Collaborating with product teams, understanding their workflows, and creating engaging content are all necessary steps in building a community that benefits both its members and the company. While challenges may arise when working with product and leadership teams, adopting a collaborative approach with patience and persistence can lead to a successful community that contributes to the company's overall success.

Check out:
Fostering Thought Leadership: Enhancing Communities

YouTube Channel episode: Episode 113 - How Community Can work with Product Teams

Get to know Lauren Clevenger, Global Head of Seller Community at Square

Amazon: The Accidental Community Manager

Check out the YouTube Video

Human interaction has always revolved around communities, and in today's digital age, they have become even more integral to our lives. Building and managing thriving communities calls for a unique set of skills and knowledge. In this blog post, we'll explore the experiences of veteran community managers David DeWalt and Chris Detzel, delving into their strategies for tackling the challenges they encounter while building and managing communities.

Building a Community from Scratch

David DeWalt's journey began in 1998 when he founded The Dungeon Siege Historian, a fan site dedicated to tracking the development of a video game from inception to release. As the site evolved and merged with others, it ultimately became Planet Dungeon Siege. David's experience in building a community from scratch illuminated the importance of engaging with all company departments, comprehending stakeholders' needs, and determining the best approach to community building.

Inheriting an Existing Community

David also has firsthand experience in inheriting pre-existing communities. He acknowledges the challenges associated with this process and emphasizes the importance of community managers having ownership of the platform and a strong say in its management and direction.

The Challenges of Community Management

Managing a community is a multifaceted and demanding task that calls for a diverse skill set and comprehensive knowledge. Community managers must familiarize themselves with existing processes and procedures, pinpoint internal champions, and establish connections with internal stakeholders to understand both the organization's and the community's needs. Additionally, they must strike a balance between catering to the community's requirements and prioritizing organizational objectives.

Building a Successful Community

To build a prosperous community, the initial step involves connecting with individuals and engaging in conversations with key stakeholders. Hiring the right community leader is crucial, as their expertise and innovative ideas will contribute to shaping the community's direction. Effective communication, cross-team collaboration, and a willingness to learn from mistakes are indispensable strategies for cultivating a 

Creating and managing a successful community is a continuous process that demands commitment, dedication, and a growth mindset. By implementing the insights shared by David DeWalt and Chris Detzel, organizations can develop robust, dynamic communities that captivate members, spur growth, and support the achievement of business goals. Community managers must recognize the significance of collaborating with all company departments, taking ownership of the platform, liaising with internal stakeholders, and balancing the community's needs with organizational priorities. Effective communication, teamwork, and embracing errors are vital strategies for fostering a successful community.

Check out:
Building Online Communities: Engagement Strategies that Work

Find David, (Historian), DeWald here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/historian/

Check out his page here: https://thecommunitymanager.com/

This PoB highlights the significance of community operations in managing digital and social platforms, community building, and achieving business objectives.

Community operations encompass various tasks such as establishing processes, scaling the community, managing technology, and ensuring community engagement and moderation. It involves working with a technology stack that includes community platforms, CRM systems, customer success platforms, marketing automation tools, support portals, and product ideation tools. The effective management of community operations can have a substantial impact on business goals, including case deflection, customer health scores, upselling, cross-selling, and renewal rates.

The role of Community Operations Managers is gaining recognition due to their ability to streamline processes, manage data, and enhance operational efficiency. They serve as a bridge between the community and the business, aligning both sides towards achieving organizational goals. The emergence of specialized roles in community management, such as Community Operations Managers, allows for efficient division of labor and comprehensive management of operational aspects.

The integration of customer success operations and community operations has become a notable trend, promoting operational excellence and improved customer experiences. Embracing discomfort and constantly seeking growth are essential for Community Operations Managers to adapt to changing landscapes and drive communities and businesses to new heights.

Operational efficiency is crucial in community building. Understanding different systems, utilizing data effectively, and implementing changes at the right time are key challenges. Building a community from scratch requires strategic planning, involvement of project managers, and educating the entire organization. Streamlining community operations involves identifying bottlenecks, improving processes, and emphasizing efficiency. By evaluating the tech stack, data availability, and prioritizing operational improvements, dedicated operations personnel can increase productivity and efficiency within the community.

Overall, community operations management is vital for successful community management, business outcomes, and operational excellence. Strategic thinking, timing, and continuous improvement are essential for creating thriving communities.

The 2022 Community Industry Report from CMX is out, find it here: https://cmxhub.com/community-industry-report/ and we answer these questions: 

Difficult to consistently engage members 46%
Hard to quantify the value of the community 38%
Efforts are largely manual and not automated 34%
Not enough staff 27%
Not enough budget 16%

Check-out the episode on video: https://youtu.be/zcONjTjG580

Managing burnout, it will happen to all of us!

Check it out here

Online Community Platform Vendor Selection

https://chrisdetzel.com/f/online-community-vendor-platform-selection

• First, start with strategy.  
  • What is your community's ambition?
  • Think about how you wish to unfold your community.  For example, will you drive video or wiki content?
• Second Needs Statements. 
  • Define your member's needs
  • Are you a supportive or inspiring community
• Now you can talk about technology

Transcript:

hello and welcome to another episode of

00:20

peers over beers i'm one of your hosts

00:22

michael sandoval

00:23

and i'm Chris Detzel

hello chris i hope

00:25

you're doing well

00:27

yeah man i'm doing really well how about

00:28

you oh excellent i'm doing pretty good

00:30

uh it's late in the day and i uh

00:32

i i am not enjoying a nice cool

00:36

adult beverage as you are you truly are

00:38

having a pier a beer

00:40

yes i was hoping that you would have a

00:41

beer but i figured you wouldn't even

00:43

know you knew you were coming to tears

00:45

of course yeah

00:48

nobody has to know that exactly

00:52

you're you're definitely in a different

00:54

time zone so it's all right

00:56

yeah for me it's fine you know so i'm

00:58

drinking a it's called two-hearted ale

01:01

uh i guess this is an american ipa

01:04

it doesn't probably tells me somewhere

01:06

where it's uh made but

01:08

it's a bells company or something so no

01:11

bells yeah

01:12

oh my gosh someone's going to kill me

01:13

that i don't know this but i want to say

01:14

bells is

01:15

uh like michigan or something like that

01:18

i don't know why that comes to my head

01:20

michigan

01:20

yeah that could be i'll have to google

01:23

that later

01:24

yeah exactly uh now i feel like i have

01:26

to do it

01:28

uh in real time anyway but um

01:34

oh my gosh kalamazoo kalamazoo okay yeah

01:37

it is michigan

01:38

yeah um all right so

01:41

we were just about ready to talk about

01:43

something very

01:45

interesting that happened to you whilst

01:47

you were

01:48

i think having an all hands meeting

01:50

about community

01:51

at uh royalty right yeah that's right

01:54

you said it right that's awesome really

01:56

i'll see i just corrected what i thought

01:57

i said it right so

01:59

yes so that's so funny so

02:03

um we had an all hands meeting

02:06

meaning just the whole company meeting

02:08

monday through thursday for four to five

02:10

hours

02:11

every single day to kind of go over the

02:13

product roadmap to the vision

02:15

and everything else and on monday so

02:18

today's friday but on monday

02:20

i had the opportunity to present for an

02:22

hour uh

02:23

to the entire company i think two or

02:25

three hundred people were on there i

02:26

don't remember but

02:27

um about community and

02:30

it's funny because i knew it

02:33

it always happens is that there's tons

02:37

of questions at the end

02:38

um i mean a lot of questions yeah

02:41

everybody's quiet until somebody says

02:43

it's until something breaks well what i

02:46

did what well yeah well

02:47

there it's it's crazy because people

02:49

want to know all about community they

02:51

they don't

02:52

they they kind of get it but they want

02:53

to understand who's moderating what

02:55

who's going to help who's going to do

02:56

this

02:57

what does this even mean what's the

02:58

strategy i mean there's all kinds of

03:01

great questions you know from people

03:03

within the organization

03:04

the other day it's about me trying to

03:06

get them to help me

03:08

build it you know and so that's really

03:10

the message is

03:11

is so basically i i had an hour i only

03:14

spent 30 minutes or less

03:16

on content you know just hey this is

03:20

um this is the vision of the company

03:23

this is

03:24

community this is how community relates

03:26

to the vision and

03:27

and goes well with the vision of the

03:29

company um

03:30

and then here's you know talk a little

03:33

bit about you know the goal of community.

03:36

what we're trying to accomplish

03:38

and what's and then i had a slide

03:40

actually of

03:41

nine questions uh from

03:44

people before the so i already had this

03:48

only nine questions from the audience or

03:50

not even the audience but um

03:52

beforehand so beforehand there was an

03:53

email that went out okay oh i was gonna

03:56

ask how you did okay

03:56

okay email went out and said hey these

03:59

are the sessions

04:00

uh and they made people ask a question

04:03

around community so what are some of

04:04

your questions i got several of them but

04:07

i only put nine of the i don't know uh

04:12

20 or 30 questions that were asked but

04:13

so what i did was

04:15

so there's 30 minutes left or more and i

04:17

answered every one of those questions

04:19

um and then then there was tons more in

04:22

the chat because

04:23

then i had like i think i answered those

04:25

in 10 or 12 minutes

04:26

but then there was question after

04:27

question after question after question

04:28

after

04:29

and i was like oh my god i was so tired

04:31

afterwards really

04:32

it was awesome it was like people loved

04:34

it you know and so

04:36

um what i thought we would do what do

04:38

you think they loved about it

04:42

they're excited because their customers

04:44

and their partners

04:45

for lto have been asking for community

04:48

for a long time

04:49

okay that's why i was curious about the

04:51

one and then

04:52

two is they're excited that they have

04:54

somebody full time to actually

04:56

do this you know and three is they'...

00:02

welcome to another episode of peers over

00:04

beers

00:05

your favorite digital and social

00:07

evangelist podcast

00:08

with your industry veteran hosts michael

00:11

sandoval

00:12

and chris detzel this podcast starts now

00:17

it really does i like the way it does do

00:18

the countdown so three two one

00:20

hello welcome to another episode of

00:22

peers over beers my name is michael

00:23

sandoval

00:24

and i'm chris stetzel hello chris how

00:26

are you doing good man how about you

00:28

you know well i am not in the

00:32

the seven day trial of alaska weather

00:34

for texas

00:35

so yeah i'm assuming you're going to

00:37

cancel your alaska subscription

00:40

oh show

00:44

yes i think what michael's talking about

00:45

is here in texas he lives in el paso and

00:48

i'm in dallas and

00:49

you know we just had kind of a

00:52

big snowstorm but also cold i mean super

00:55

cold for us

00:57

i think three degrees Fahrenheit one

00:59

time it was negative two like at night

01:01

uh 10 degrees i mean it was like five or

01:03

six days

01:04

and we're still kind of in it and it's

01:06

sunny today but 30

01:08

it's gonna get up to 36 but the point is

01:10

is a lot of people didn't have power

01:12

we didn't have hot water for three days

01:14

um

01:15

i was afraid our pipes were gonna bust

01:17

but they didn't luckily

01:19

hot water came back on and i think it

01:21

took like three showers in like five

01:22

hours you know

01:24

because i'm so

01:28

you know so it's it's amazing how

01:30

quickly

01:31

uh things go to mad max beyond

01:32

thunderdome

01:34

uh yeah i know you know i still watch

01:36

the news local news and dallas and

01:38

just watching all the folks just

01:43

i just kind of people are just standing

01:44

in lines and

01:46

um fighting i mean chopping down their

01:50

own furniture to light it up i mean it's

01:52

just it's just nuts

01:54

yeah it was yeah it hurt you know all

01:56

this firewood is gone and

01:58

you know they couldn't sell enough yeah

02:00

or they could uh

02:02

yeah they could yeah it's gone i mean

02:03

they gotta go chop down some more trees

02:06

exactly and folks are chopping down

02:07

trees but they forget that it's still

02:09

wet it won't light

02:14

they didn't know they get in there and

02:15

this yeah

02:17

let's take down that tree where we're

02:18

gonna do and then all of a sudden they

02:19

try to light it and just

02:20

blend exactly

02:24

it takes days to dry out

02:28

uh but i i will admit for for us for

02:31

good for bad for whatever it is uh el

02:33

paso is on a separate power grid we're

02:34

on the

02:36

on the west coast power grid uh the one

02:38

that's connected to

02:39

uh edison ercot i mean sorry edison

02:42

and we get a lot of our power from a

02:45

nuclear power plant

02:47

called palo verde and so i think yeah

02:50

and i can't say a percentage but i feel

02:51

it's a large percentage of our power

02:53

percentages from uh

02:54

is from a nuclear uh facility and when

02:57

they were doing some of the thought that

02:59

i guess el paso was part of the

03:00

discussion to deregulate but they said

03:03

well it's going to cost

03:04

more because power distribution from the

03:06

center of texas is

03:07

further away than the power distribution

03:09

that we get from

03:11

the nuclear power plant that's just only

03:12

a few hours away

03:14

let's tell you how far out we're over

03:15

here yeah you guys are

03:18

yeah what is it like eight or ten hour

03:20

drive from dallas to

03:21

dallas yeah yeah yeah that's tough uh

03:24

i'm glad you're safe sir i'm glad you're

03:26

doing okay and

03:28

i wish you many more warm showers

03:32

to start off you know you sent me

03:35

a fascinating invite to an app called

03:38

clubhouse

03:39

yep and i felt immediately like an

03:42

old man because you are like what's the

03:46

shape cole clubhouse

03:47

you know how to do this had to

03:49

investigate and look at it

03:51

but it's kind of like a like a like

03:54

a a talk if i were to say

03:57

ted's you know the ted's software like

04:00

or the ted's

04:01

what do you call it not ted's pet talk

04:03

ted talks right

04:04

like you could host a proverbial

04:06

clubhouse talk right just get people

04:08

to listen in and it seems to be like

04:11

this

04:11

uh maybe um

04:15

almost like the podcast effect but like

04:17

this information

04:19

distribution easily distribution of

04:21

people getting

04:22

information did you ever do you know

04:24

something called i think it's called

04:26

speaker square or speaker's corner

04:28

in london no so in i think it's in

04:31

regent park but

04:33

you know it's it's where we get the term

04:35

to stand on one's uh soap box

04:38

uh-huh during the victorian area that

04:40

they general on sundays they would take

04:42

soap boxes you know there were these

04:45

large crates sit

04:46

and they would stand on top of it and

04:48

then you would just talk about whatever

04:49

you want

04:50

yeah and so they would soapbox

04:54

they still do it by the way it sounds

04:56

like a little bit this but maybe not so

04:57

The net of it is concentrate on three things: 

1. Concentrate on your Dashboard
2. Where are you in you roadmap
3. Next Steps

As we build each community from chapter A to chapter B, we should think of the individual customers and partners of that community and their needs. If you do that, you will be just fine! 

What is Finimize? Finimize is a finance media brand for millennial investors. With over 1 million subscribers globally, we're on a mission to increase the net worth of a generation through bitesize informative content & community.

Find Max on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxrothery/ 

Michael and Chris start talking about building a roadmap for digital. Michael mentions that he is in the process of building a strategy for five years and mentions that it is super hard to do for digital. Digital changes so much that it is hard to to for one year.  

Chris talks about when he built his roadmap for Imperva Community, that there are just some things that you don't know. For example, the business is not always ready when you are. You have jump on the opportunities when you see them and sometimes the opportunities come to you. 

Find him here:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniweinstein/

Twitter https://twitter.com/DaniBoy777

An ROI - Back of the Napkin - Email sent from Michael To Chris:
As a behind the napkin calculation and using a simple return/investment I would give this a try.

COST SIDE

1)     Assumed built in costs which are not included in the calculation.  They are built in for all marketing efforts 

a.      IT cost 

b.      Computer infrastructure (your computer and facilities) 

c.      Phone charges or internet costs 

2)     Cost of materials 

a.      A day’s cost of community license 

b.      cost of webinar for an hour 

c.      Cost of hosting (webinar, community) for one hour 

d.      Cost of marketing (email that was sent, SEO etc) 

3)     Cost to produce 

a.      Cost of producing, 

b.      Freelancers used 

c.      Cost of your time for an hour 

d.      Cost of guest’s time for an hour 

Add 2 and 3 up, and this is your cost to product a one hour show. ( $C )

RETURN

I would use your standard off the shelf consulting rate for technical support or consulting.  My guess it’s about 200 bucks an hour.  I would say, “hey, I won’t even make it equal, and I am going to really under estimate it at 25% of the rate, I would say it’s more like 50, but hey, for sake of estimation, let’s make it 25”.  That is $25 an interaction

COUNT THE INTERACTIONS  (Visitors , not visits)

Number of attendees to the event = W

Number of visitors to the videos from the webinar (to date) = V

Number of visitors to the blog (to date)= B

Number of visitors to the FAQs = F

W+V+B+F = total interactions (T)

Take your total interactions (T) and multiply times $25. = ($R)

ROI would be $R/$C and voila.

So if your costs were say 1K for the hour.  And you had a total of 300 visitors to date on the one show and its variants, then the return would be 7500.  The ROI would be 7.5 or for every dollar I spend producing a webinar, I get it back 7 bucks 50 cents.  Folks will say, “well, that isn’t in the bottom line.”  You will say, that is an extra 7 bucks we didn’t have to spend in real dollars in technical support infrastructure, and I think the work you are looking for .... is, you’re welcome.  Now can I get what I need in budget please 😊 

There are a lot of holes in the valuation but hopefully the numbers work and you can claim value. 

Extra points if you can separate the interactions which came from google.  Then I would compare it to a ROAS model.  If you want to try that, it’s a slightly different calculation.  One would see how much marketing spends to bring folks to one of their events and divide that amongst the total amount of attendees.  My guess it would be high.  That is their acquisition cost.  For you, the amount of people who attend your webinar, let us say, 50 against the cost, 1000, and the cost of acquiring one person is $20. I bet marketing for a physical event is very high.  This one will take more time to develop a model but it’s a start.

Chris' favorite Beer - Yes, he loves Dos Equis https://dosequis.com/

More about Holly:
Holly Firestone: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollygfirestone/
Holly's Recent Blog: This is How I Role: My Path To Finding A New Community Role

Michael talks about building an accountability framework for his employees in his new position.  There was not one when he got to his company and he's built it out.

Chris gets us off the subject a little and starts talking about how he uses his Facebook - DFW Running Group as a testing ground for his B2B community he runs for work. Luckily, Michael brings us back to some key points.

Show notes and Tools that could be useful for Employee and Customer Engagement

1. Facebook - DFW Running Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/424512757580264/ - Chris mentions this during his talk with Michael
2. Icebreaker Video - https://icebreaker.video/ - Gather your peeps, spark new connections, and have fun together — no matter where you are.
3. Remo - https://remo.co/ - Grow your revenue, and connect with your audience in the most interactive way online

Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriemjones/

Carrie Melissa Jones website: https://carriemelissa.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriemjones/

Creating a great digital customer experience is not always easy. Integrating the community into the organizations core systems such as the CRM, SSO and other content areas takes time and working with the right people at the right time.

Chris talks to Higher Logic about what they are doing at Imperva: 

1. Chris Detzel talks about How Customer Communities Improve the Digital Customer Experience | Imperva - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6F4vlSoezw 
2. Chris Detzel talks about How Customer Communities Drive SEO Growth and Brand Awareness | Imperva - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4JtuTbO9-Y
3. Chris Detzel talks about  How Branded Online Communities Improve Customer Retention | Imperva - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf3YJ0YEavE

Michael mentions that Panada Planner helps him a lot with organization. Bullet journey that helps you plan daily, weekly and more. 

“Without community, we would be in the exact same place as we were before – not really understanding our customers. We want to be where our customers are, and community allows us to help customers the way they want to be helped – in a digital way.”  Chris Detzel

“I want to make our community a hub using integrations, so that if customers want to create a case or look at technical documentation, it’s seamless for them. That’s a great digital customer experience. Instead, in a lot of companies like ours, customers have to go here, there, and everywhere to get some information. I see community as being that place that’s right in the middle.” Chris Detzel

"Let's understand where the community plays in the support story of your product." Michael Sandoval

Chris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdetzel/
Michael on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/msandoval2/

Twitter: @PeersBeers

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peersoverbeers

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinaruffoni/
Twitter: @valentinaruffon

Website: https://www.ericakuhl.com/ 

• Blake Etheridge starts this part of the discussion how community creates a 360 customer view.
• If you work the community correctly, super users will start to curate and help support customers for the enterprise.
• Learn how Blake customized community reward benefits to understand what made super users motivated.
• Why did Blake flip the customer script at TI's affinity conference for invited super users.  Clue: What do you want to see and experience?
• What happens as your adjust your rewards and realize you may have over-rewarded?
• How Blake won the trust of sales and marketing teams to help him find super users in his program?

• How Blake Etheridge worked TI's internal organization to create a large referral engine to find top users and new users for community.  
• Creating events for employees started driving internal energy and interest.  Success is like a virus.
• Why planning strategic face-to-face meetings with your key members are important? 
• Vested Interest to know what each community member needed to create a great experience"
• The Blake Ethridge framework of building a B2B community super user program:
  • Phase 1: Reach out to your sales team and learn how to community members can help
  • Phase 2: Identify individual users outpacing internal support response
  • Phase 3: Get to know your internal and super user advocates.  Find out what motivates them and offer a win-win solution on community. "How can I help you, here is how you can help me"
  • Phase 4: Create an internal referral program to find super users in the employee and customer base.  

To listen to Blake Ethridge's presentation on Super User Program click here.
Define your program and strategy
Critical baseline
Steps to finding users
Chicken and the egg
Running your program 
Executing your effort

• Happy #CMAD
• Hear how we spent our holiday season.  Some traveled, while others ate
• What is self-care and listen to our perspectives
• Learn how we manage our stress
• Chris seeks others to help him broaden his roadmap view to destress
• Michael digs into research to understand to destress
• Perhaps community managers need self-care since we tend to be lone wolves
• Don't be afraid to say no
• Is self-care needed because out new work normal is a smaller workload that added responsibilities stress workers?  Hear us opine. 

1. What is an open source community
2. How did beagleboard.org start
3. How important was "guerilla marketing" for the site's release 
4. What made the beagleboard so successful?
5. The one thing you should ask yourself when you are asked to start an open source community

• The idea of " tribal knowledge"
• How to get employees excited to generate original content
• How original knowledge articles can drive content and interaction

We then go into a Case Study of how we built a social brand in the German Market with "Elektrohelden" .

• How one's company brand can help or hurt your community's success
• How knowing one's customers will make your community successful
• Finally, we discuss how all of these activities are the result of the efforts of a community manager.  When kickstarting a community, you are the "jack-of-all-trades"

What is a community manager?  Is it more than what the word states?
How does an online community help a customer through the online experience? 
How can an online community lead a customer through the purchase cycle?  
What is a community manager's career path?

Lastly, Chris then gives me, Michael Sandoval, some Chris pep talk career advise.  It's good for everyone to hear.  I will give you a hint.  It involves running and confidence.  Listen in and find out.  

Highlight discussions from this week's episode:

• Where does one go to find help with a problems arises in your community
• The importance of finding mentor(s) in the community management space
• Why you should build your professional network of community managers.
• The importance of learning from your peers.

• For our first episode, we will start with Chris Detzel who will talk through his work so far in getting Imperva's new customer community through launch.  
• We will also talk about the importance of customer engagement and its automation
• A mini case study on how Chris and I solved our customer engagement problem whilst at Rexel 
• Note: The interruption you hear about mid way through the podcast was a public radio canvaser who kindly reminded me that I have yet to renew my membership.  I of course did with the gentleman.  

Transcript:

00:03
welcome to our inaugural podcast of
00:05
peers over beers
00:06
your hosts michael sandoval me and chris
00:09
detzel
00:11
in our inaugural podcast we'll start off
00:13
with chris
00:14
chris is going to talk us through a
00:15
little bit about his new community over
00:17
at imperva
00:18
we're also going to discuss this idea of
00:19
the importance of engagement automation
00:21
in the community
00:22
engagement overall a little mini case
00:25
study of our
00:26
effort that we did at rexell with
00:28
regards to
00:29
engagement automation and you're gonna
00:32
hear an interruption somewhere about
00:34
halfway
00:35
that was the public radio canvasser
00:37
coming to my house
00:38
apparently i forgot them this past year
00:40
don't worry
00:41
yes i gave all coming up
00:45
next
00:46
[Music]
00:50
so i mean i just want to make sure i got
00:52
the name of the beer correct
00:54
of yours yeah it's called i think it was
00:58
number 21.
00:59
oh yeah beers over or piers over beers
01:03
got it it's from lewisville
01:05
or louisville i was thinking that too
01:07
that's why i brought a beer just i was
01:08
like we got to talk about
01:09
yeah it's called uh
01:13
old town brew house double vision
01:18
okay so we're recording um
01:22
my name is michael sandoval and i'm
01:24
chris dettel
01:26
and i'm chris detzel excellent oh go
01:29
ahead and have a seat if you do
01:30
is it better standing i like to stand
01:32
but yeah it's fine no no i got it
01:33
that's all right because i can do uh i
01:35
don't know let's lift it higher
01:37
i don't know do you guys
01:41
um so once again my name is michael
01:43
sandoval and i'm chris stetson well
01:45
hello chris how are you doing i'm good
01:46
how about you i'm doing good
01:49
so this uh this is a very interesting uh
01:52
point in how we got some discussion we
01:54
were just having a beer and we thought
01:55
hey we should probably record our
01:56
conversations because
01:58
they're pretty they're pretty good yeah
02:00
we're talking about a lot of cool stuff
02:02
yeah uh and mostly on the community side
02:05
and so we thought well hey how about
02:07
piers over a beer
02:09
wouldn't that be kind of fun so we are
02:10
having a beer and this one is that's why
02:12
i would look it up
02:13
old town brew house from louisville
02:16
texas an ipa
02:17
pretty good eh it's it's excellent
02:20
cheers
02:24
so with that we were already having the
02:26
discussion uh before we started
02:28
recording
02:29
but chris was telling me so well
02:30
actually i'll let you chris tell me
02:32
what are you doing yeah um
02:36
so i'm building or have built an
02:39
online community for um for a
02:43
cyber security software company called
02:45
imperva
02:47
so what why did they one
02:51
yeah i think that um it's a good
02:54
question
02:55
the biggest reason is to kind of think
02:56
about a few things
02:58
um is retention
03:02
so and then also case deflection
03:05
so we had a big issue with support um
03:08
not being able to answer
03:09
cases in a timely manner so you know
03:12
the thought was well if we can answer
03:15
some of those easier
03:16
questions online and have customers
03:19
really answer some of those you know and
03:21
share their
03:22
um uh share their experiences with the
03:26
products
03:27
then what better so i think that was
03:29
kind of the initial thought
03:31
right you had come on i mean they had
03:33
already made that decision right that
03:34
they wanted to do something
03:37
community-ish um
03:40
well if you want another real story is
03:42
or the big story is
03:43
that so yes and no um the story i got
03:47
was
03:48
so about a year ago i talked to somebody
03:50
that i knew
03:51
um and uh she was like hey look there's
03:54
this job description that
03:56
that needed the community and we needed
03:57
a community manager and i thought of you
03:59
and so um
04:02
they just started a customer success
04:04
organization
04:05
um the company's been around since 2002
04:08
i believe
04:09
and so they're like well we also need a
04:12
community manager and
04:13
she she went after it and they thought
04:14
of you specifically
04:16
um one person did yeah we'll look at you
04:18
specifically
04:20
so yeah i know it was a nice gesture and
04:24
so they
04:26
um thought you know
04:28
when i think of customer success i think
04:30
of retention and i also think of
04:32
case deflection so how do we help our
04:34
customers get the answers that they need
04:36
quickly and
04:37
community kind of came to their mind
04:41
and so i really started to develop the
04:42
strategy roadmap et cetera and
04:44
yeah so they you said they had a problem
04:47
with it already
04:48
obviously something was getting to the
04:50
top echelon of the company saying
04:52
you're having a customer service problem
04:53
yeah a retention problem
04:55
because also the customers are bolting
04:57
that's right uh interesting
04:59
and uh and so you came in and thought oh
05:02
i figured i know how to do this yeah
05:05
how do you know
05:06
let's go do a plan
05:09
so you recently launched it didn't you
05:11
yeah so i uh
05:13
you know we decided to go with a vendor
05:15
back in April
05:16
of 2019 which um and then we just
05:19
recently launched october 14th
05:21
so it's ready to go how did which
05:23
vintage use we use
05:24
uh we used a company called higher logic
05:27
what do you think of them
05:29
you know something I really liked about
05:31
higher logic is uh
05:33
they have this great marketing so before
05:37
you and i worked together um we worked
05:39
with a company called intelligent what
05:40
they didn't have was
05:42
kind of this engagement piece of
05:44
customer so when customers create a
05:46
login and
05:47
start looking at the content there was
05:49
really no not built in anyways some
05:52
some engagement type things that they
05:54
have um
05:55
what i call or what they call automation
05:58
rules
05:58
so you can set up different types of
06:00
personalization
06:02
and type different types of marketing
06:04
things that you can do within the
06:06
platform
06:07
and that really um is what sold m...