the route
September 2, 2011
‘murica. In a blog post
September 2, 2011
So, my time left in this country is dwindling.
It has been a hoot, a blast, I’ve met some amazing people, been some amazing places and done some amazing things.
I thought the place was worthy of a recap.
The Sierra’s – Yosemite might be the biggest gem in the crown, but there are lots of other sparkling places too. The backside between Mammoth and Twin Lakes, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park, Historic Hwy 49 and Lake Tahoe are just places of rippling natural beauty.
Also, Hike Half Dome if you can.
The Variety – America might only have 3 colors on its flag. It should have 50. Apart from (mostly) speaking the one language, the place has tremendous diversity, both in its people, but also in its culture. Could there be another country in the world that could contain cities like San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, Miami, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago and Boston? The accents, cultural beliefs, food, architecture, lifestyle and scenery all have dramatic differences that I am not sure another country in the world could emulate.
Their Holidays – whether its due to the fact that they don’t get a lot of holidays or not, any day that is a day off is celebrated, seriously. My favorites were Independence day in any Small Town in America, and Thanksgiving at all of the families that invited me to share with them.
The Food – the glutenous food! Chicago style pizza, Chesapeake Bay Crab, Cajun Gumbo, Fried Chicken and Waffles, BBQ Ribs, Bagels, Pulled Pork, great Mexican food, tri-tip, burgers… all of it wonderful, and all of it added to my weight by a good 40lbs (18kg!).
The People – I don’t care what anyone ever tells me, almost all of the Americans I have come across are friendly, helpful, nice and excessively generous people! I will definitely miss my friends here.
the plan
July 28, 2011
The Plan
Consists mostly of not having one. 2 bikes and a little bit of kit, with a requirement to fly out back to Australia by April next year being the limits.
My good mate Seager lands next week, whereby he will be instructed in the art of motorcycle maintenance (and riding) and he will do some test runs to make sure his scoot is working properly and he can operate it. After spending the last couple of months in dry Aboriginal communities in central Australia, his liver might need as much work as his motorcycle skills. I’ll have to make sure both are tested thoroughly!
Notice has been given to work – I am going to miss the place, seriously. This is less a desire to escape “the real world”, more a preemptive strike on a mid-life crisis. There isn’t anytime better to do something stupid than now.
The US’n’A has been fun, lots of fun and I am going to miss lots of people. Perhaps one day I will return… I am sure when I am holed up in Bolivia, I will be wishing for Los Angeles traffic and that Honduras Custom officials will make the CA DMV appear organized.
ride on.
And here we go…
July 27, 2011
Traits of good community managers
April 22, 2011
Characteristics of Community Leaders
These characteristics are not all necessary for one to be a good community manager, and all of the traits can be taught, however most of these characteristics need to be present in one form or another. A community manager is not necessarily limited to a person displaying the “community manager” title in their e-mail signature either, it is all individuals that take a position of leadership on a community site, be it moderators, administrators and important users of the site.
Primary traits
Communicator:
Communication is an important trait. The fact is that this is a large component of moderation/administration/community management.
Communication is perhaps the most important trait, and as such the people that are utilized in these positions need to be very good communicators. It isn’t a matter of being a great speaker or writer. The primary need is to be able to express complex things in basic terms so that most of the community is able to understand them. Conversely it is necessary to communicate the Community’s message to our Company. Aspects that may assist in being a good “communicator” are covered below.
In the recruitment of moderators/administrators, what I am looking for is someone who has gone out of their way to communicate to other users something that they may have learnt recently and they wish to share with the community to help them.
Empathy:
Administrators/moderators/community managers need to see things from the emotional perspective of our community. It is the understanding of their wants and needs that helps our communities to make positive changes in manners which they will be most receptive too.
Community Managers need to feel what the community feels. If there is a significant change to the dynamic of the community, such as a policy change, the CM/moderators/administrators needs to feel it as it they were the community and understand the emotional impact on the community, and ensure that the policy change is received in a manner that the community will resonate positively too.
Perspective:
Differing from empathy in that it is necessary to be able to separate the emotions from the logical, using common sense and personal experience. The perspective to present the right information to the community and our companies is necessary.
This is the tough one, and one that can really only be learned by doing or by through observation (covered below). Each community is different and even within a given community there may be sub-communities that differ. The situations where you will need to use this trait will be just as unique. One can only work on experience formed from relationships that have been built within the community to ensure that these situations are “played out” in an appropriate manner.
Advocacy:
Simply put, influencing outcomes and the culmination of the three previous attributes. Sometimes this means we are advocating for the community within our company and in others it may be advocating for the company to the community. Either way, it is an important part of being a Community Manager.
We are the champions, the ambassadors and the evangelists. It is sometimes our jobs to ensure that the message is heard, fully understood, and acted upon.
Selflessness:
The art of building/teaching others and providing value to others will in turn provide people with an investment in the community.
This trait should be utilized with the individuals taking up positions around you, below you and competing with you. If you are a good “netizen” (citizen of the Internet) it places you in a position of advantage with your community and its identity, by default they will perceive that your intentions are those of genuine benefit and your interests lie in being a champion of transparency to them as individuals, their community and the internet as a whole. Those intentions need to genuinely provide benefit and encourage transparency as well… no smoke and mirrors.
Observation:
The art of recognizing new directions/cultures/behaviours early in their growth stage.
In keeping with “perspective”, this is a trait that is focused on watching others’ online behaviour and trends and being “in tune” with them. Be it through quantitative metrics (page views, unique visitors, new posts per day etc.) or through qualitative metrics (What is the “new buzz”? What are people now passionate about?) both in your community, or elsewhere within the Internet. Good community managers are astute observers of community interaction and interpersonal relationship dynamics. The earlier a new direction/culture/behaviour is identified, the more chance your community has of capitalizing on it.
Identity:
Conversely to observation where one needs to understand others’ behaviour, one should not be averse to sharing theirs. As is the point with any dialogue, it should never be “one way”, one needs to be an intent listener, but they need to be able to interject with appropriate commentary, questions, stories, facts etc. for the conversation to be stimulated. Don’t be afraid to have a personality, share your opinions, your interests, be quirky and have an identity, not only will it assist in giving you an investment in your communities, but to be personable, first one needs to be a person. I like adding random awkward silences in interviews to see how people deal with them.
Passion:
Ultimately one needs to have some sense of passion towards the concept of the community, and hopefully the medium as well.
It is difficult to feign interest in managing individuals even at the best of times, and is definitely necessary for motivation when someone is parading over the Internet calling you all sorts of names at 2am. One needs to have a deep rooted caring for their community and what it stands for.
Secondary Traits
Organization:
Be a master of information and keep it all together.
The very nature of managing a number of users is that a moderator/administrator/community manager will deal with a lot of information and often have many tasks on their plates to the point of being overwhelmed. Managing and directing your time to those tasks that will provide the greatest benefit to your community/company is necessary and conversely ensuring as “few balls get dropped as possible” as small irrelevant issues can soon snowball into an 800lb gorilla.
Analytical:
Seeing beyond what is primary and often looking “outside of the box”.
We often gather a great deal of information and we need to be able to sort out the important information. Knowing that you had a 150% increase in community members from Spanish speaking countries may not be the first thing you notice, but it is information you should be aware of.
Creativity:
The art of looking at a problem, and coming up with unconventional ways to solve it.
While as above, being analytical and understanding appropriate data points is important, the application and management of that information in products/communication etc. should not be “dry” or “cliché”. Community management isn’t a formula, it is not a rubber stamp, one needs to see problems and find useful, simple, unique, integrated and proactive manners in which to solve them. The creativity in your problem solving and implementation will help with you and your communities identity.
Knowledgeable:
Ultimately one should attempt to be the center of the community knowledge base. It cannot be expected that one knows everything, but we should know how to find it all out.
The community will have an expectation that the fearless leader of the group should know just about everything. Often this can be quite challenging due to the sheer amount of information that one might be expected to know, but it is very important as it creates a sense of credibility (see selflessness). At the very least one should know how to get the requested information and be willing to say “I don’t know, but here is where you can find it”. However, one should not as an individual focus their responsibility on sharing this information at all times with everyone (a community or business cannot scale appropriately if the knowledge is only held by one person), but on occasions share it in a proactive fashion to encourage the learning of others, and at all times provide it upon direct personal request.
transperancy
April 8, 2011
Today I happened across Facebook’s Open Compute project, coincidentally the same day they made the project public – ah, the joys of the Internet, and real time news – and it reverberated inside of me like reading Macbeth does to Shakespeareans, or a Classical Music buff listening to Bach.
This here is how modern companies should be focusing on not only sharing ideas with customers, but listening from them, taking their worthwhile suggestions, and implementing them, and becoming the proverbial pane of glass.
Today’s society expects, and demands such transparency. I am sure that more traditional business managers and owners would frown on such an approach, “we have developed this leading technology, we want to keep it proprietary”. Really? And loose the advantage of utilizing your greatest source of innovation (your customers) to help you steer your business to where it can improve upon?
Not only is the Open Compute project such a boon from a PR perspective, a great “give back” to the Social Media community, it is a genuinely wonderful way to spur on further development, Jonathan Heiliger even says in their intro video that he wants their ideas to be torn apart by customers, tell them where they are doing things wrong so they can improve them further. What an honest way to approach a project “I haven’t made this perfect, tell me where I can do better” – I hope he can be rewarded by some of the responses.
This act by Facebook really shows to me that they “get” Social Media – I know that sounds ironic, many would argue that they are Social Media, but in my mind they haven’t had the best background in understanding that users are your commodity, and focusing your company towards that – through unannounced (and unwanted) UI changes, a CEO that at times has presented himself in a manner that doesn’t always portray the image as being personable (although I am sure he is), and the genuine lack of community that Facebook can create, a place of centered expression, and not communal extension.
The Internet is one global community, we all need to participate in it, help ourselves and each other grow, and often by “giving back”, we can gain a whole lot more.
Doing is the new talking.
August 29, 2010
With the burgeoning communication revolution brought upon by social media, how can one still maintain a positive public image? There are countless review sites, blogs, forums and numerous other forms of on-line communication whereby your businesses reputation can hang in the balance of an over opinionated 13 year old prepubescent keyboard warrior.
What to do?
Well – lets start with what not to do in your communication.
Don’t be flowery.
Don’t exaggerate.
Don’t be artificial.
Don’t be egotistical.
Don’t say something will be done, when it might not be.
Don’t be afraid to take the heat.
Don’t write a novel, when a sentence will do.
Don’t wear a tin foil hat.
Don’t be defensive.
Don’t be boring.
Some things you should do
Be Human.
Analyze if a public response is worthwhile.
Do something.
Fix the issue.
Show compassionate.
Pack some humor.
Act humble.
Talk may be cheap, it is cheap, but on the Internet, it can be expensive.
Online Social Hierachy
August 29, 2010
In days of yore, hierarchy (or “class” if you will) was a clear cut, easily defined item. Bourgeoisie and the proletariat, rich and poor, “well networked” and seclusive, most knowledgeable and most intellectually “challenged”, powerful and submissive were usually respectively synonymous.
Today, things are much more complex if you wish to divide individuals into “classes”, it could be argued that the breadth of “class” is greater than it has ever been, but also it is much more difficult to define. Is the person at the top of the hierarchy the person with the most economic might? The most intelligent professor? The individual with the greatest social influence? or perhaps those with the most political power?
Each of those categories are easy to define in terms of who holds the “upper hand”, but those that are at the top of each of those respective pyramids can be vastly different individuals.
Thats all well and good, but what does it have to do with online media? Well as we are more and more influenced by friends in our consumption of our media, those creating media need to find those at the top of the Social Hierarchical pyramid and leverage them. These individuals aren’t necessarily famous (although they might be, Vin Diesel, Aston Kutcher are good examples), but these are the people that cause people to gravitate around them, they are gifted with a natural sense of “sociableness”.
Utilizing the concept of “6 degrees of Kevin Bacon” comes into play here, as social networks lower our communication barrier and make us more connected, if you find those that are “most connected”, and influence them in such a manner that they are willing to organically share their experiences with your product/service/ability to operate a BBQ you will more effectively “touch” more people.
Formula wun
February 15, 2010
Schumacher is going to win. His triumph this year is not going to be the overwhelming complete utter massacre of all opponents, like we have come to expect from the greatest racing driver in the world, but he will still win.
Outside of his raw driving talent, which few can equal, his feedback and integration within a team have always been exemplary, in fact it were these skills that made him gain the record for the number of drivers championships. He could drive like few others, but the way in which he built a team around him for the goal of winning was far more impressive. This time, Michael doesn’t need to build a team around him however – they are already there.
His strongest competitors this season will be Hamilton, his own teammate – Rosberg, both Red Bull drivers as well as both drivers from Ferrari. I expect Button will be simply out-classed by Hamilton. Other predictions include, Renault, turning up with no sponsors – may as well turn up with no car, but if they can cobble something together, expect Kubica to drive the wheels off it. Williams, the perennial underdog, should be expected to retain that very title with a lackluster drivers line-up. I expect Force India will be the strongest of the middle-markers, and has the distinct possibility of causing a couple of upsets, Vijay Mallya is a charismatic and endearing leader.
All in all, I can’t wait for the first wheel to be turned in Bahrain, the combination of some improved rules (for the better), the best drivers lineup there has ever been in a Formula one grid, the return of the best driver, ever, some interesting new names coming to the paddock (Campos/Virgin/US), and some coming back after quite some time away (Lotus/Mercedes).
Travel, cooking and web 2.0+ 