Community Guy – Jake McKee

ASK: 8 tips for successfully working with your legal team

For anyone who has developed community programs as part of a medium to large corporation, there are two words that can send shivers down their spine: Legal Department. In today’s business culture, the internal legal department has taken on a powerful role, and many marketing and community building employees find themselves at odds with legal. Today’s society doesn’t help much either, with so many people being scared to death of getting sued or causing their company to get sued.

Too often we see projects that bend and give into the demands of the legal department, watering down what could have otherwise been a great project between company and community. Certainly there are times when such bending is warranted and smart, but far more often project leaders simply don’t push hard enough for what they need from their project.

Think about the purpose of an internal legal department – their job is to reduce risk to zero. Their work experience, their degree, and their industry’s culture is one that is primarily focused on removing risk. This desire to remove risk leads to complex Terms of Service, disclaimers, and Non-Disclosure Agreements.

On the flip side, the business and marketing team has a different purpose: to reduce risk to the lowest possible level, while increasing reward to the highest possible level, finding a balance between the two that is comfortable for the corporation.

The conflict between the legal department and the business teams primarily stems from this subtle, yet extremely key difference. In recent memory, the legal department has morphed from an internal service provider, supporting the decisions of the business team, into a group that tends to make more decisions than they influence. When we’re making decisions about the future of the business based on the desire to reduce risk to zero, it’s no wonder we find ourselves with diminishing profits, upset customers, and uninteresting products!

With risky, fear-inducing concepts such as engaging communities and community members, how do avoid being shot down by the legal department? Here are 8 tips for partnering with, rather than working around your company’s legal department.

Respect realities
Perhaps the most important starting point when working with a legal department is to understand that they are actually trying to help you and protect the business. Sure, the current decision making power legal teams find themselves with is a bit out a balance, but there are real issues you need to be aware of. They get paid to think of and worry about things that may never cross your mind. The legal team exists to help you, so don’t get to caught up in trying to avoid working with them or working around them.

Create partnerships rather than friction
Like any other group in your company, the best way to get past the legal difficulties your yet-to-be-launched community project might face is to connect to the legal team and ask them to participate. Ask them to step out of their role as purveyors of yes/no answers (mostly “no”) and have them participate as a team member. This helps them to fully understand the business goals, which helps them find solutions rather than simply telling you to stop.

The core question is not “Should we involved them?” Rather, the question is “When is the right time to involve them?” Each group of lawyers will vary in the best time and way to include them. Some help significantly by being included from the first day, others when there’s a solid gameplan. Either way, don’t wait too long.

Listen to the issue, not the answer
Legal may tell say, for example, “We can’t use Twitter because we’re required to track any and all communications by employees due to regulatory statutes”. This doesn’t mean the Twitter project must stop; it just means you have to look for a way to document the communication. While the legal department may speak in absolutes, it’s your job to see through those absolutes and find a solution that works for all parties. One helpful tip is to ask specific questions in a way that leads to further discussion.

Face the fears head on
Risk is based on a combination of logic and fear. Healthy risk assessment balances both. Unfortunately, in today’s business environment too much risk assessment takes place with a minimum amount of logic and a maximum amount of fear. New communication channels open every day, countless stories of product leaks come across the news wires, and feel overwhelmed by the lack of controls on their corporate communication. In this environment, the legal department is struggling to manage their own fears as well as the fears of the rest of the organization. Understand this, and help them manage them. Acknowledge that concerns of negative user posting on a blog or forum, for instance, are legitimate. Be ready to politely work through these concerns and share a gameplan for how to deal with these issues.

Know your subject matter
If you plan on having a debate with the legal team, make sure you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. As Mike Rowland once pointed out, you should know some of your key legal cases related to social media, such as:

• Anthony DeMeo vs. Tucker Max (Which stated that community owners aren’t liable for their user’s postings)
• Viacom vs. Google/YouTube (Which requires YouTube to turn over user data to Viacom in order to help Viacom prosecute a copyright infringement case)
• Current status of case law around whether pre-moderating user submissions constitutes an increase in liability concerns

Simply understanding some relevant legal issues will not only gain you some respect from the legal team, it will help you have more interesting, helpful, productive discussions.

Ask specific questions
Stay away from questions like “Can I post content online?” which don’t provide enough context to even allow for a “yes” answer. Remember, a lawyer’s job is to reduce risk to zero, so if there is any risk at all, there’s a good chance they’ll say no out of habit. Instead, focus on the specific area you believe there is concern around. Ask questions like “When we post content on our blog, should we be concerned about documenting responses?”

Build processes, don’t ask for answers
Even better than asking specific questions, ask the legal team to help you identify larger issues and concepts on your own. Rather than having to come to them with every iteration of a problem, address the bigger issue together, learning what the core concerns are and how to avoid them generally. This will save both teams countless hours of back and forth.

Trust yourself and your own knowledge
Countless marketing professionals have asked the legal team questions like: “Is this safe for me to do?” When the answer is “no,” they simply accept the answer and move on to finding another solution. Perhaps this is from lack of interest, but more likely it’s from lack of confidence. Most people consider “the law” in the same league as Tax Code: confusing, scary, and understood only by professionals. Trust yourself enough to believe that while you may not understand the full context of why certain legal issues work a certain way, you can ask a lawyer for details. Push back on the legal team, ask questions, and issue challenges. You’ll be surprised how often your “outsider approach” will cause a reframing of the problem at hand. There is a reason why the term “think outside of the box” exists, and it doesn’t apply only to the marketing team.

Remember that the legal team, no matter the industry, is a service provider who is supposed to enable and protect the business. Ask your legal team colleagues for help making your business and projects better, but don’t allow them to make your business decisions for you.

(This content was originally posted at the Online Community Research Network and reposted here with permission)

Case Study: Comics in Community Communication

In 2003, I was working on the community team at The LEGO Company, the maker of those fantastic and wonderfully ubiquitous plastic interlocking bricks. During this period I had a unique challenge of trying to convince my colleagues, smart folks who were solely focused on kid oriented programs and projects that there was value in working with the Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL).

I had a hard time getting on their calendars, much less convincing them that they needed to stop working on the 95% audience and turn at least some of their attention to the 5%.

The Idea
One day over lunch, I noticed four colleagues reading the comic strip in the back of the instruction book included with one of the LEGO sets we were producing that year. Overhearing their conversation about whether the explorer was going to get out the clutches of the tiger in time made me start thinking about the power of visual story telling. Here were four grown adults having an in-depth debate about content meant for kids 7-12 years old!
Using this inspiration to guide me, I worked with one Greg Hyland, an artist and AFOL to create a series of comic strips that told the story, for those uninitiated in the hobby, of it was like to be an adult fan of a”child’s toy”. Together we developed a series of hilarious, relevant four-panel strips that were then printed, color copied and stapled.

(As a sidenote, Greg worked in exchange for a huge box of new LEGO sets that I sent him. He delivered dozens custom designed illustrations for a box of LEGO sets that cost my budget center about $300)

The Internal Roadshow
After assembling the comics into physical form, I put together a presentation, a short video (created by fan clubs, of course), and some other materials that I used for a multi-city, multi-office internal roadshow to “formally introduce colleagues to the AFOLs”.
When I walked into each stop on the roadshow, I threw down a handful of the comics on the conference table and started talking through my presentation. I’d start off the meeting pretty casually, because inevitably the attendees would get so wrapped up in reading and discussing the comic, they’d largely ignore my presentation until they had a question about one of the scenarios highlighted in the comic.

Fairly quickly, I modified the presentation to focus primarily on talking through the sixty scenarios we’d outlined in the comic. Within a few weeks after this roadshow, there was a clear shift in the way colleagues were talking and thinking about the adult fans. To this day, I still hear from former colleagues who reference those scenarios in conversation!

Why comics work
Comic pioneer, Will Eisner, uses the term “Sequential Art” to describe comics. In his book Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud tried to expand this definition but ended up right back at these simple, albeit sterile two words. While this may be a good definition, it misses the point of why comics do such a great job explaining complex concepts. Here are five reasons that might explain that phenomenon:

Approachable – If you had the choice between reading a 60 page TPS report or reading a 60 page comic, which would you be more inclined to do? Exactly. Comics speak to us on an emotional level; they use storytelling rather than fact sharing as a foundation. And who doesn’t want to hear a good story? Evangeline Haughney from Adobe Systems asked that same question and turned to comics to help share research findings in a compelling way with her colleagues.

Universal – Due to their visual format, comics have an ability to transcend language . After all, seeing a businessman trapped under a huge pile of paperwork is clear regardless of the language used. You could probably take out the words from the comic adaptation of Moby Dick and still pick up much of the meaning.

Expression – Comics combine imagery and content to deliver impressive clarity for their message. Look at the two versions of the 9/11 Commission’s findings: One was delivered in traditional text form while the other was delivered as a graphic novel. I’m not sure how the numbers play out, but it’s a safe bet that those who read the comic adaptation had a vastly more emotional experience seeing a dry report brought to life.

Imagination – Through abstraction people engage with the content much more deeply because they can more easily put themselves into the scenarios depicted. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko is a book about magic chopsticks and a pixie spouting career advice, yet as you read the pages, you find yourself wondering where magic chopsticks can be found!

Desire – Because of the reasons outlined above, content delivered in comic form is simply more enjoyable to consume. Comics can turn a dull product manual, for instance, into an entertainment experience. The Nintendo Wii game “No More Heroes” actually delivers their gameplay instructions in the form of a comic, which makes learning the button combinations part of the experience, rather than something to get through before the game actually begins.

Using comics for community workCommunity professionals have a range of activities they’re responsible for but one of the most foundational is the task of communication. Whether bringing information from the company to the community, connecting colleagues to community members, or delivering community feedback into the company, communication is a keystone of any community professional’s daily to-do list.
That said, what better way for a community professional to increase their success than to improve their communication? And what better way to improve their communication than to utilize comics, which pack more punch than plain text alone? Outlined below are four scenarios where using comics may help to improve community interaction. What else can you think of?


Social Outreach
Whether you’re pitching bloggers or introducing yourself to an existing community, comics can be a fantastic and fun way to introduce yourself and your company. The brilliant folks at Capulet Communications did exactly that when they used comics as part of a blogger outreach program for Brothers Printers. They grabbed photos from the Flickr streams of various bloggers and worked them into a comic strip that they then emailed to each blogger.
Tell me you wouldn’t respond, and respond positively, to someone sending you something like this!

Introducing the Team
While we’re thinking about introductions, why not put together a short comic that introduces you and your colleagues to a larger community?

When you, as a company/brand employee begin to engage with communities, it’s important to let a bit of yourself come through, to share some of your personality. This helps build a certain “reality” around you that helps community members believe that you’re honestly interested in engaging and helping them, not just performing marketing activities on the sly. Build a comic strip (or strips) that use humor to share a bit about you, and also about your team members. While you can’t necessarily say “I’m a nice guy who loves to play paintball with friends” to any positive effect, you can show through a comic story a funny paintball incident that others can identify with. Comics make you more approachable because they are more approachable.

Explain Complex ConceptsUsed effectively, comics can distill large amounts of knowledge into a small footprint. Imagine, for instance, the amount of text that would be needed to explain how to create a mini-hovercraft rather than the few comic panels shown below.

Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks of working with community is taking the business realities that you face and distilling them into explanations that both make sense to community members and that also generate support for those realities. Rather than simply typing up a long blog or forum post, how about turning that discussion into comic form? It will probably make your point more effectively and it will definitely be a much more enjoyable exchange.
Help create offline Word of MouthThe AFOLs comic generated an amazing reaction among internal colleagues and clearly helped increase their understanding of the adult LEGO enthusiasts. The AFOLs were constantly asking the community team for help and tools for explaining to the outside world that they weren’t “weirdos” simply because they had a unique hobby. What better way, we thought, than printing and distributing a comic that fans could hand out to friends, family, co-workers, and attendees at their events?
With some minor alterations of the comic, we made it print ready and distributed 10,000 copies to various fan groups and clubs around the United States. They handed these out to other adults who voiced interest in learning more about joining the ranks of adult LEGO fandom as a way to encourage them to join the community.
We also released a PDF version that was quickly translated into multiple languages by the fan community themselves.

Of course, one factor to consider when printing copies is the number you print and the way you distribute them. Fans love collectibles, after all, and they want to keep a copy of the “artifact” for themselves. One lesson learned is that we should have sent around a small number of copies to fans first, given them a chance to let the excitement of receiving the artifact wear off, then distribute the bulk of the comics to be used for giveaways. As it was, the AFOLs often had a hard time tearing themselves away from their copy to give it out as intended!
Comic Creation ResourcesIf you’re interested in getting started making your own community communication comics, here are a few places you might want to start.
Author Scott McCloud has produced three amazing books about comic creation, all of them told solely through comic form. Start with Understanding Comics and work your way to the other two. Scott also has his own Web site at: http://www.scottmccloud.com
When you’re ready to start building your own, these are two tools that you can use. Both are cheap and easy to use.

• Comic Book Creator (PC)
• Comic Life (Mac) (If you have Mac OS 10.4+, you have Comic Life already installed. You can also pull it off your 10.4 installer disc)

(This content was originally posted at the Online Community Research Network and reposted here with permission)

Community Netiquette: How to Avoid Stepping on Virtual Toes

Most of us know that in the typical online community, it’s not kosher to post blatant marketing materials. But when confronted by other more nuanced issues, such as how to introduce ourselves (or our company) to a community, or how to react to someone calling us names, things get a little murkier. This guide shares some of the basics of conducting yourself properly when engaging on behalf of an organization within the existing Social Web, with tools and communities your company has created and especially with those it hasn’t.

Initial Engagement
Nowhere is that old phrase “you only get one chance to make a first impression” more relevant than when a company representative engages with a community base for the first time. Come out of the gate too strong and you’re written off as too “sales focused”. Too meek and mild-mannered and you’ll be considered a bit player in the company, and only marginally interested in actually helping the community. Finding the sweet spot means developing a balance between strong willed but willing to listen.

Figure out your objective
Before diving into new social groups, figure out why it makes sense to engage with each group. Good community netiquette dictates that you participate with, not market to each community, and that’s no quick or easy task. If you’re not prepared to do the hard work, or you’re not clear on why you want to connect with a particular community, figure that out first.

Read archives, do a search
If there was one issue that most members of just about any community would agree on, it’s that members (especially new ones) don’t search the archives nearly often enough before asking a question. In fact, this issue can often bring even the most steady of community elders to the brink of anger.

Do your research before you engage. Spend at least an hour or two digging into the archives. Run searches on key terms and projects you’re interested in. Learn a little about the membership. Pick up on a few of the inside jokes.

Introduce yourself
Before you engage with the community at large, always track down that community’s leadership, be it a webmaster, an elder member, or administrator. Introduce yourself one-on-one and ask for their “blessing”, so to speak for engaging with the community. Explain to them what your purpose is, that you understand their community’s culture (more on this in a second), and that you understand and respect their rules. Understand what might concern them (or the community members they’re representing) about your participation and address those concerns directly and quickly. Make it clear that you want to be a “good guest”

This will almost always create support for you and your mission from the community leadership. Showing them the proper, and deserved respect will encourage them to help you better understand how to approach the community.

Remember, you’re a guest in someone else’s house. Act accordingly.

Be a person
Your personality is the biggest, best tool in your toolbox when working with communities. Our natural human response when working with people outside our company (or perhaps even those inside our company too) is to put on the “business face”, to try to present ourselves as a cog in a larger machine. Don’t believe me? The next time you’re presenting something to a group of colleagues outside your direct group, pay close attention to how your body language changes when you go from chatting with someone sitting next to you and how you stiffen up physically and verbally as you start presenting.

Community members want to work with a person from a company, not the cold corporate entity in the sky. They want to know that there are people who work at the company who are honestly interested in the product at least as much as they are. Show them you’re a real person and not a robot – meet them in person, or at least post a photo of yourself. Share a few bits of personal data about yourself (nothing too out there, of course). And for crying out loud, share a link to somewhere on the Web that isn’t your corporate site. LinkedIn, your business blog, or even your (work safe) Flickr stream are all great options. Of course we’re talking business casual personality sharing here, not car wash t-shirt sharing.

Ongoing Engagement
You’ve made your initial introductions, done your community research, had your first interaction with the community, and maybe even let the community get to know you as a person. Flash forward a few weeks or months; what are the best ways to continue to engage in the proper way?

Take one, leave one
Community members expect everyone, company reps included, to pull their own weight. Communities are driven largely by the amount and type of participation by their members, and now that you’re a member, you’d best be pitching in and helping out. Giving as much as you take is not only good community etiquette, it’s what enables you to continue asking for help from the community.

For every request you make of the community, give back equally. Need to have help spreading the word about a new product? Ask the community for help, but make sure that you also deliver something they’re interested in. What should you deliver? Good question! This is where your relationship with the webmaster or the community elders comes in handy. Just ask; if they haven’t told you already they’ll be sure to fill you in on their needs for free product for contest prizes, information about company developments, or official recognition of activities they’re running in the community.

Follow-up & respond
There’s nothing worse than a “drop in”… a blogger, forum poster, or commenter that swings by a community, asks for help or pitches a product then disappears never to be seen again, until the next time they need something. Proper community etiquette dictates that when you post content in a discussion that you participate until the natural conclusion of that discussion.

If you post a blog entry or forum thread, watch the discussion for people asking follow-up questions. Then answer them. If you jump into an existing thread, be prepared to see how people respond to your opinions. Community is about conversation, and conversation is not a one-way transaction.

Let a question breathe
As employees of a company responsible for a product or service that brings us into a community, our natural inclination is to pounce on open questions and problems immediately, solving them or eliminating the issue so fast that it’s not even noticed by those who are behind in their reading.

Like good wine, however, community issues benefit by being left alone for a period of time. This allows other community members to answer them first, giving them an ability to look good in front of their peers. Further, answering questions that have gone unanswered for a period, say 48 hours for instance, helps showcase you not as someone with nothing better to do than answer forum questions, but as someone who is willing to take time out of their day to pitch in and help out when and how you can.

Cautiously use inside jokes
Every social group, large and small develops its own inside jokes. These jokes are bonding elements, bits of cultural history that help connect community members over time and space. LEGO fans for example, have had an endless debate about whether space themed models are better than castle themed models. At in-person events, you hear cries of “Space!” “No Castle!” ring out regularly. It’s a bonding ritual.

While this is amusing for community members to exchange these jabs, when the company rep tries to participate equally it comes off like the parent who tries to use their child’s modern slang – it just looks silly.

That said, being able to use one of those inside jokes as a sly reference to your clear understanding of the community itself can be fantastic. LEGO enthusiasts go nuts when they hear the CEO of the LEGO Company make reference to the fact that he’s always felt Space had a leg up on Castle.

Communication
Communication is the backbone of any community group, and it’s one of the most important skills for a company representative to understand before jumping into community engagement. (For more information about communities and communication, see the OCRN whitepaper entitled “9 Tips for Inspired (and Inspiring) Text Communication”)

Everything is global
These days it’s hard to find a community that is restricted to users from a single country who speak only one language. The global nature of the internet combined with the widespread interest of nearly everything from knitting to tech support to gadget lust means that great communities attract large audiences.

• Understand what kind of global breakdown the community actually has. If half the membership is outside your own market, you will approach your conversations far differently than if there’s only a few members from outside your market.
• Your own language, even if you only speak English needs to be globalized. Using terms like “we” and “us” to mean “North Americans” can and will turn off those outside North America very quickly. Cultural references that won’t be understood outside your market need to be explained or even dropped all together.
• Even if your product is sold only in certain markets, you have influencers and interested parties outside that market that should be respected. Even though Apple’s iPhone launched as a US-only product, there were thousands of Europeans lusting after the device who helped build momentum in the US (and then eventually parts of Europe)

Identify yourself
It’s generally considered sketchy for a company employee to participate in the community without fully and completely identifying themselves. This includes:

• Avatars and/or Username: In many systems, the username and/or avatar is the first connection community members will make with you. Choose a username wisely. Consider RobotMan123 vs. LionelATdell – which one tells a story?
• Profile: Before posting anything, fill out your profile, whatever that means to the particular tool you’re using. Add some details about yourself, and open up your persona to the world. (Remember, business casual!)
• Content: If the social system you’re using has the ability to add content (such as photos on Flickr or applications on Facebook), spend some time to build out the content. Showcase your interest in the community by actually participating.
• Signature lines: In forums especially, add a footer (either through the site’s My Account area or manually on each post) that clarifies who you are, where to find more information about you, and who you represent. Please, skip the massive corporate legal disclaimers!

Typing in all caps
It doesn’t matter how excited you are about your topic, there’s never a need for entire sentences of all caps text. The use of all caps is generally understood to signify yelling or anger, and as such, needs to be sparingly, if at all.

Only quote relevant parts of message
There’s enough reading we have to do online already, help your audience out by quoting smart and selective bits of the prior messages you are responding to.

Use a URL shortener
When posting URLs that are even slightly long, use a URL shortener such as:

• TinyURL
• MooURL
• SnipURL
• bit.ly
• cli.gs

These services all perform a similar function: they take a long URL (think Amazon product page) and turn into a very short URL that’s easier to use online or in emails. Long emails can actually break the design of many social sites, which can be irritating to community members who are trying to read content through a messed up design. Some users actually consider posting overly long URLs an act of spamming.

UPDATE: From Bill Ward in the comments: “One thing about URL shorterners though to watch out for: some people see them as URL hiders. If you post a shortened URL to a sales page, better make it clear in the text what it is you’re pointing to! Some people might resent being cookied or having you receive click-through bonuses from a shortened URL.”

Reference existing posts
Show that you’re paying attention and that you’ve done your research by referencing existing posts when you post content.

Official Avatar
Whenever possible, work with the social site webmaster (remember, by now you’re good friends, right?) to create an official, site specific avatar image that shows that you’re an “official” company representative. This helps to visually and quickly showcase your affiliation and ensure that you’re presenting a bit of pride around your company.

Grammar is a sign of respect
Web communication is notorious for poor grammar, bad spelling, and rambling sentence structure. In fact, it’s so bad that simply spell checking your postings and re-reading the content before hitting submit actually makes you look more professional and shows that you’re interested in making a good impression. (For more information about communities and communication, see the OCRN whitepaper entitled “9 Tips for Inspired (and Inspiring) Text Communication”)

Marketing & Sales
To wrap up any discussion of Community Netiquette, it’s a hard requirement that marketing and sales is mentioned. A great many words could be written about this point alone, but it all comes back to basic point: Stop selling and start participating.

In a community environment, overt sales tactics are almost always flatly rejected initially, and tricky to pull off successfully even after a solid relationship has been established. The best rule of thumb is to help cultivate an environment where community members ask you to sell to them, where they ask you to give them information on products. It will happen, but only when you let go of the idea that if you’re not pitching you’re not selling. Participation is sales.

(This content was originally posted at the Online Community Research Network and reposted here with permission)

ASK: 9 Tips for Inspired (and Inspiring) Text Communication

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: text-based communication is extremely difficult. In face-to-face communication, you have three forms of communication taking place at once: words (verbal), voice (vocal), and body (nonverbal). This provides an incredible level of nuance. The meaning of a conversation can change significantly with a fleeting eye roll or minor voice inflection. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that “people overestimate both their ability to convey their intended tone when they send an e-mail, as well as their ability to correctly interpret the tone of messages others send to them.”

As tough as it is, text-based communication is also crucial to effective community management, whether through email, message boards, blogs, blog comments, or any number of other forms. Although sites like Utterz.com make it easy to record a quick video or audio message, text still remains the core communication platform for the Web.

In day-to-day community building work, communication is perhaps the most crucial skill to possess. Yet it’s probably the least represented in terms of formal training with most community professionals. Ask a community manager about their formal education and you might find a single business writing class, maybe a speech class, or perhaps a creative writing class.

To help improve your community communication, here are 9 tips for creating inspired (and inspiring) text communication.

1. Every community communication is practice for the next .

If you communicate with your community regularly, you are probably a bit nervous about messing up and saying the wrong thing. (If you aren’t nervous, you’re not taking the communication seriously enough.) It’s hard to know what will trigger a positive or negative reaction amongst the readers, even when you’ve been interacting with the community for years. Your community evolves and changes over time, as does their response to you and your words. Every time you communicate with the community members, publicly or privately, individually or collectively, step back and ask yourself some basic questions:

• Did the communication drive the goal of the communication?
• Was the communication reflective of a tone that readers were comfortable with?
• What were the parts that were misunderstood or required clarification? How could I eliminate those issues in the future?
• Did the communication inspire conversation and enthusiasm?

This may only take 30 seconds, or it make take 20 minutes. Make the time to assess; the rest of the tips below are only as good as you are at applying them. How will you know how you’re doing if you don’t continue to self-monitor?

2. Spend time on the relationship.

Everyone has that friend, the one that only calls when they need something. The only time they email is when they want you to forward their resume to your boss. The only time they invite you to dinner is when they want you to invest in their new business scheme.

When you reach out to your community, are you that friend? Are you only communicating when you need something or have something to sell?

Don’t forget to build your relationship with your community and your core community contacts before and after you need something, rather than only when you need something. Use Facebook gifts to wish your contacts a happy birthday (Facebook alerts you on the sidebar). Jump into community forum discussions that don’t necessarily have anything to do with your business. Drop an email to one of your community contacts sharing a link to a Web site that you think they might like. Spend time paying attention to the person, rather than the business opportunity and it’ll yield far more in the long run.

3. Write honestly, then dial it down.

Great writing rarely happens on the first pass. Whether you’re writing a forum post or a press release or a novel, you’re going to need to take at least two passes over the content to make it zing. When you write a first draft, you’re setting the structure and laying out the core elements of the communication. The second draft focuses on presentation, cleaning up the content to be conveyed in a way that actually represents your intended meaning.

One issue in particular with community communication is how to convey excitement. In online textual communication, the dividing line between enthusiasm and marketing babble is a thin one; too much excitement and you are a cheerleader, not enough and you’re only interested in “doing your job”.

Here’s a proven three-step process that helps find that delicate balance.

Step 1:
Write the first draft in the exuberant tone that you want it to sound like. Make it as upbeat and over the top as you are really, honestly feeling. Let your own enthusiasm come through, being honest and trying not to add marketing speak. If you were telling your buddy over beers about the cool new project you’re working on, how would that sound in your head? Write that down.

Step 2:
Take your first draft and cut out half the exuberance. Seriously, remove half of the exclamation points, half of the statements like “we’re so excited!”, and half the reasons to buy.

Step 3:
Take one more pass through the copy to clean up the grammar, correct the spelling and ensure the content zings. Take a break, read through it one last time and then fire it off.

Wasn’t that easy?

4. Share your mood and context.

Setting the proper tone in textual communication is tough. Individuals read your content with the mood they’re in, not the mood in which you created it. Without any other vocal or non-verbal cues, jokes are too often misunderstood as insults. Brevity is mistaken for a lack of interest. Clarification is mistaken for a lack of respect. Enthusiasm for dishonesty.

In order to avoid mistaken implication, share your mood up front. Start off an email message with “You’ll have to forgive me it’s been a rough day” or a message forum reply with “I only had a few minutes between meetings, but I thought it was important to reply.”

In addition, share with your readers a bit of your personality to help contextualize the reality of both you and your interest in the communication. BzzAgent recently sent me a “BzzKit” for a new product and it included a campaign introduction letter that started off with:

As a longtime vegetarian, I figured the last thing I’d ever Bzz about was a burger. But when I heard we’d be spreading the word for the new Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Burger, my heart skipped a beat. Like most of the other vegetarians at Central Hive, bacon is the meat we miss the most.

Not only have a learned a little something about the writer’s personality (crucial in building trust), I’ve understood the vantage point he’s writing the rest of the letter from.

5. Let your personality shine through.

Speaking of learning something about the writer’s personality…

Every time you post a public or private community communication, you’re adding to your online persona – the perception community members have of you, and indirectly the company you work for. Since textual communication is a cornerstone of community engagement, your written communication has significant influence on this persona and thus your reputation.

As modern day consumers, we trust people and are leery of companies. The way we make a distinction between a “person” and a “company” is based on the depth of this persona. As you communicate, let your personality shine through. You don’t want to over do it, a small insight here and there is fine. Share enough to let your readers feel like they’re learning about you, that you’re a real person with real dreams and stories and aspirations. If you truly love the product you’re working with, let the reasons for that come out, honestly and emotionally.

6. It’s not a one-time shot.

Imagine meeting someone at a cocktail party. Rather than a pleasant conversation that unfolds over a period of time, your new acquaintance instead decides to spend 30 minutes delivering an overview of all the things you might be interested in knowing.

Certainly it’s encompassing, but is it good communication? Probably not.

For the sake of efficiency, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to convey everything the audience might need to know in a single communication. While that might be less work for you, can also be less effective for your readers. Don’t be afraid to break the communication into multiple parts. With email, introduce yourself first and ask if the recipient would be interested in hearing about your project before dumping it all on them. In forum posts, focus on one issue at a time, creating multiple separate threads. In blog comments, address one point and then wait for a response before following up.

7. There is no privacy.

Every single communication you develop that is sent outside the walls of your company has the ability to be published for the world to see. Community managers regularly see emails sent to and meant for a single individual forwarded around the community or even published as a community forum post.

While this kind of pass along activity can be more than a little scary, it’s easy enough to safeguard against any ill effects.

• Include the relevant context of your email so that it’s completely clear to anyone what your content is referring to.
• Never ever name call, gossip, or vent to community folks in writing. Only in rare cases will you actually do this at all, but never in writing.
• Make it easy for pass-along viewers to find the specific references, such as Web site addresses.
• Don’t share top secret information in writing or with people you don’t trust.

Additionally, include copy such as “Between us…” or “For your eyes only…” so that it’s clear that you don’t necessarily want to see the content floating around on the Web. Honest mistakes and misunderstandings seem to be the biggest cause of this kind of information sharing anyway, so be clear from the onset about where you draw the line. Including this copy also makes it less palatable for people to share because it makes them look like they broke your trust.

8. Don’t let it get to you.

The veil of online anonymity creates far too many situations where common courtesy is all but forgotten. The nicest people jot off terse responses forgetting to consider the feelings of the person on the other end of their message. It can be infuriating to hear people trash the project you’ve just worked 80 hour weeks for 6 months to launch.

We all know we’re not supposed to “email mad” because the moment we hit the send button, we’re going to regret it. The same idea applies to all community communication – you can’t let your emotions get the better of you. Try these techniques for getting a handle on those emotions:

• Step back from the keyboard: Give yourself a break, even if just 10 minutes to break the connection between your brain and the communication.
• Pass it off to a colleague: If you work with a team, consider asking an unaffected colleague to address the issue you’re dealing with. At least ask them to write the first draft. Their approach is bound to be more reasonable and less emotional, which will help get you back on track.
• Ask someone to review: If it has to be you responding and you know you’re angry, ask someone, anyone to review your communication. If they think it sounds reasonable, send it. If they can sense the “tone” being overly negative or harsh, clean up the communication.
• Get it out of your system: Find someone to vent to, let it all out, talk about it until you’re not all that interested in the issue anymore. Take a 15 minute break then try writing a fresh communication from scratch.

Not writing anything, regardless of the level of significance of the issue, is better than writing something you’ll regret later.

9. Review. Your. Writing.

“Fire and forget” has, sadly, become the norm for far too much online communication. It’s amazing the number of grammatical and informational mistakes that can be found in blog posts, forum discussions, email messages, blog comments, wiki articles around the Web (and in my own writing) that could have been caught easily if only the writer had bothered to read over their content once before hitting the “submit” button.

To round out the 9 tips for inspired (and inspiring) text communications, remember that great content takes more than one pass. Write it, take a break, re-read it and make adjustments, and then re-read it once more to make sure it’s ready to post. Yes, you’re busy, but taking a few minutes to clean up your content now saves countless hours cleaning up after a misspeak later.

Bonus tips:

• DON’T: Use your Blackberry to generate community communications. It’s too easy to incorrectly represent your position, imply a lack of interest, and showcase grammar issues. Wait until you get back to a full-sized keyboard.
• DO: Consider your response time. Immediate responses say “I’m paying attention”, quick but not instant says “I’m busy, but this is of interest to me”, whereas long delays say “I’m not interested”.
• DON’T: Use the word “personally” if you don’t mean it. Don’t you love getting form email that say things like “I wanted to personally invite you to next week’s event…” If it’s a form letter, you’re not personally inviting me.
• DO: Use a specific sign off when using instant messaging. Say goodbye when you’re messaging someone, don’t leave them wondering if you’re still there or if you’ve just lost interest. The rules of good communication apply even when your conversation consists mostly of words like “LOL” and “brb”.

(This content was originally posted at the Online Community Research Network and reposted here with permission)

ASK: Career progression in Community Management

(This is part of Ask the Community Guy, an ongoing series of questions posed by readers for Jake, the Community Guy)

If you’re interested in more information about hiring or becoming a community manager, check out this collection of entries where I cover the topic in further detail.

(And to provide context, YS is referring to strategy development type vs. day-to-day type community management type)

Fantastic question!

One of the reasons I truly love community development as a career path is that you get to work with most parts of a business in some form or fashion. Community engagement will lead to discussions, debates, and projects with everyone from PR to marketing to manufacturing to customer service.

As such, the career path options tend to open up pretty wide. Effective community management means that you are learning from each department you deal with. The better you do your job as a community manager, the better you position yourself to say to colleagues, “hey, I really like what you guys are up to… what would you think about me joining your group?” Even at a new company, you will have experience working with these other groups in a way that most people haven’t had. Making “career switches” doesn’t mean starting over.

Of course, you may want to stay involved in the community efforts of your own company. You may be able to build a team of community development professionals, moving yourself off the front lines. Perhaps your Ambassador program grows to a large enough footprint that you’re able to focus on it full-time. Perhaps community events become a significant part of your business and you take over those efforts. Perhaps community gets rolled under the PR team and you work with that team to create newer cooler activities.

The most important point to keep in mind, however, is this: if you are a frontlines community employee, the day will absolute come where you are just tired of being on the frontlines. Community development professionals tend to encourage a 24/7/365 availabilty for access and their own participation. While this may work well, over time it wears you down. Guy Kawasaki once told me “if you make it to 3 years [as a community manager] you’re good, 4 years you’re great, and 5 years you’re stupid”. There is absolutely a point of diminishing returns and after a few years, staying on the frontlines actually starts to negatively impact both the company and the community. So it’s healthy to think about where you’re moving after the current position.

That said, have a good time in your community role. Pay attention to where your industry is going, and what else your company is doing. Who knows, after working with product design or marketing or customer service, you may find interest in what those colleagues are up to.

ASK: Creating a great resume

(This is part of Ask the Community Guy, an ongoing series of questions posed by readers for Jake, the Community Guy)

Dovetailing the conversation about Community Management jobs, I thought it was a good time to also discuss creating a great resume. I have this conversation regularly with people of all ages, skill levels, and backgrounds. In fact, I had this very conversation last night! I should have written down some notes to make writing this post easier!

A great resume is a great story.

Let me repeat that for effect: Your resume tells a story about who you are, what you know, how you think, what kind of a person you are. Like so many things in life, first impressions matter, and your resume is very often your first impression to a potential employer.

Over the years I’ve seen literally hundreds of resumes, and hired somewhere around 50 people. I’m always shocked how many people simply don’t think much about their resume. Basic, obvious, glaring errors:

• Using the default Microsoft Word resume template without any changes
• Significant and/or numerous misspellings (One guy spelled his first name wrong one time. Seriously.)
• Comic Sans font
• Funky color, canned stock art/images
• Every character on the page being the same 12pt size

The list goes on, but you get the point. The story these resumes told was: “I’m a lazy, uninspired potential employee”. Not exactly the makings of a must-have employee. You’re the foremost expert on you

So then what story should a resume tell? That’s easy:

• I’m smart, and I can do anything you put in front of me.
• I have enough experience in life that it more than makes up for any short comings in industry specific experience.
• I understand what you’re looking for.
• All those other losers might as well go home, I’m the one you want.

Design
Here’s a fun exercise: ask some friends for their resumes, download some off the web, and open up a few of the default Word templates. Print them all out, shuffle them, then haphazardly spread them out on an open surface. Blurs into a sad mess of black and white nothingness, doesn’t it? How do you ensure your document stands out? Add some design elements!

CAUTION: If you’re not a designer, hire one. Do NOT attempt to design on your own if you don’t know what you’re doing. No design elements are better than bad design elements every time. There are plenty of designers around that can help you out for relatively little money. Ask them for a nice header graphic, a standardized font treatment suggestion, and/or a simple logo. Simple.

Additionally:

• Watch your weight – The relative size (weight) of the various sections of your resume (including your name) aren’t created equal. Your name deserves more weight than your section headers. Your section headers deserve more weight than the content below them.
• Add some color - Adding a well design splash of color can really make the resume pop, but should be contained within the header. The color of your content should be dark gray or black. Period.
• Consider the printer – If I had to guess, I’d say that 85% of the people you’ll send your resume to will print it out. If you’re lucky, you have a 50/50 chance that they’ll print in color. Make sure that your design looks as good when printed in black and white as it does in full color on your computer screen.
• Don’t get funky with the margins – Assume that everyone that views your resume will print it and that their printer won’t handle non-standard margins. Also check how your header and footer print out on several different printers.
• Use your space intelligently – Space is limited (more on this below), so think about the best way to use the header and footer areas for additional content. Can you, for instance, move your contact info into the header area?

The last point on design is perhaps the most crucial. Your resume should be one page. No more, no less. One page. Seriously. I don’t care how much experience you have or how much you want to share, if you can’t tell your story in one page, you need to rethink your story. You’re not writing your auto-biography, you’re trying to create a marketing piece that drives a potential employer to invite you into their office to share further details.

One page.

Content
If you’re going to keep it to one page, let’s look at what shouldn’t be include first.

• College details – Unless you’re applying for your first job after graduation, nobody is interested in what your GPA was or how many years you served on the student council. Once you’ve graduated, including this type of content screams “I don’t have anything else to talk about!”
• Intern positions – Unless you’ve only been at one post-graduation job, don’t include your internships. Wrap up your accomplishments into the rest of the document. (More on this below)
• Personal interests – Save it for the interview, slick. And even then, go easy. If they ask what you do in your spare time, share the thing furthest from the job you’re applying for. Shows you’re well rounded and whatnot.
• Old, old jobs - If you’re last three jobs cover two decades of career activity, drop the rest. Or if you include them, do so as nothing more than a one sentence reference saying “Previous experience: XYZ Company, etc.” Don’t do this unless you can include 3 or more positions.
• Objective – Yeah, yeah, we get it. You’re looking for a great position that will help build your career. Skip the obvious, it’s a waste of space. This kind of content is wonderful fodder for your amazing cover letter.
• Skills section – Well, you won’t be dropping this as much as retooling it… keep reading.

Telling a great story has little to do with relaying dates and facts. It’s about emotion, excitement, amazement. Your goal isn’t to lull your potential employer into a soft sleep with your accurate retelling of the times and dates of our career. No, it’s to make them excited, giddy about picking up the phone to setup your interview.

Build your resume around your accomplishments. Focus on what you learned, what you were responsible for, what kind of projects you completed successfully. Break down your content into three areas:

• Key statements – develop 3-6 core statements about what you’ve done, what you are known for, why you’re a bad ass. These lead off your document. Put your biggest accomplishments right up front, don’t hide them in the content later on.
• Professional Experience – List out your latest jobs, just like normal. The difference is that you want to share details about what you actually did, not what you were in charge of. Pick the best 5 or 10 projects and/or accomplishments for each role. Don’t list any more than three jobs, and weight them where you put much more information in the current position and far less in the position that was longest ago.
• Additional Experience – In a couple of sentences at most, lay out any extra stuff that you’re just dying to put in. If you have a series of older, cooler jobs at great companies then just list the companies. Include a brief mention of roles you’ve played in industry associations, and maybe a brief mention of a “normal” hobby.

Personally, I’ve only done minor tweaking to the resume for specific interviews. Instead, I design it to clearly represent my career and then write the best cover letter possible. Andy agrees that the cover letter is crucial.

Would it help to see this in action? Check out my (highly outdated) resume.

Other stuff
Here’s a few other random suggestions to keep in mind:

• Save as PDF file, never a Word .doc file. If you have the skillz, you can actually see all the changes made to a .doc file. Lord knows you don’t want your potential employer to see that you padded your resume in the first version then decided against it. Don’t believe me? Check out these examples, or learn more about Word and security.
• For employers or job boards that require Word documents, pay special attention to what you’re actually submitting. There are potential problems with track changes, private data, and more. I’ll actually copy and paste content from my working document into a new, fresh document. This nearly guarantees that legacy content issues aren’t a problem.
• Use a useful file name so that your potential employer can easily find it on their cluttered computer desktop or in a file folder somewhere.
• Consider your email address (and domain name). Nobody’s interested in hiring bitchprincess@smackmyyak.com. Nor do they want visit www.smackmyyak.com to learn more about you.

And when you’re ready to send out your tasty new resume, take a look at my thoughts on finding a community job or visit the Community Guy Jobs portal.

Community Manager Employement & Employees

Last week I wrote several different posts about community management positions. To make it easy to find them in the future, I thought I’d bundle them all together.

How do I hire a Community Manager?
Looking to hire a community manager but not sure where to start or even what you’re looking for? This is a great place to start.

Hiring a Community Manager: Follow-up
Through the comments in the post above, several great questions were raised. The discussion continues.

ASK: How do I become a Community Manager? (Working Pro)
If you’re already in the workforce but are interested in changing positions within your current company or joining a new company.

ASK: How do I become a Community Manager? (College Student)
If your school doesn’t have a community management program (most don’t), here’s some tips for making your own opportunities.

ASK: My tips for a great presentation

(This is part of Ask the Community Guy, an ongoing series of questions posed by readers for Jake, the Community Guy)

In the last few years I’ve presented to more audiences than I can remember. Literally. I try to refine my presentations every time I give one, and feel like I’ve gotten pretty decent. I still see people like Guy Kawasaki or Barack Obama speak and realize I’m just a n00b at all of this public speaking stuff. Andy’s post suggesting that we all pick up a copy of Presentation Zen got me thinking about what techniques I’ve learned over the years. Hopefully they’re of some help!

(These techniques are not at all unique, and certainly didn’t come only from my brain. I’ve begged, borrowed, and stolen as many ideas as I can from every speaker I stand in front of. Guy Kawasaki’s Top Ten List format is brilliant and Derek Powazek’s design style is inspired, for example)

How I create my content
Typically my presentations, whether client research findings or conference keynote, start on the white board. I start free forming a running list of ideas, thoughts, points, and issues that may be relevant. This includes everything from major points to minor factoids.

Once I come across a point that I see as “significant”, I write it down on an index card and lay it on the floor. (I may also thumb through an old stack of cards from an previous session) Pretty soon there’s a bunch of cards laid out on the floor. I take a first pass at culling them down a bit, putting them in some sort of order, and identifying anything that might be missing. I’m a very visual person, so seeing this all laid out in front of me really helps.

Once the cards are in some sort of order, I’ll start talking through the theoretical presentation, shuffling the order of cards, adding new ones as needed, and dropping cards that don’t make sense. This is a good test run for the practice part of this game. (Keep reading for more on practicing) It also helps you get a feel the length of time your content will take to present.

Time constraints
A huge part of creating a great presentation is ensuring that you come in on time. No audience likes watching the presenter hurry through the last 15 slides in 2 minutes because they ran out of time. I tend to plan content for no more than 75% of the time allotted, although typically I plan for more like 50% of the time allotted.

Throughout the planning process, I’ll develop for that 50% target (i.e. 30 minutes of content for a 1 hour time slot). This helps me to ensure that I’m focusing on the truly important issues, but it also makes it easy to deal with the “oh yeah!” content that pops in during the rest of the development.

Creating the presentation deck
Once the cards seem to be in order I see the presentation building out in my head, I sit down and start knocking out the presentation. I use Apple’s Keynote software, an alternative to Powerpoint ,which I consider vastly superior. I strongly suggest taking a look at this app if you’re on a Mac.

The first step is to start transferring the content of my final index card selection to individual presentation slides. As I do this, the presentation starts to take form in my head, and I can better see the connections between slides. This is the stage where I start to refine the words on the slides.

Once I have the slides collected together, I design each slide individually. A few of my style choices/tips:

• Every deck I build uses a solid black background with bright white text. In most rooms, when you’re presenting visually, they turn the lights down. Powerpoint’s default white background feels like a spotlight in the audience’s collective eyes. White text on black also pops much better.
• Font choice is typically Gill Sans, Keynote’s default font and one of my favs from college design school days. It’s a fantastic font. I use Courier New for occasions where I’m sharing things like “content from an email message”. I never use the Windows default font set simply because it’s far too common. When people recognize it, it doesn’t give them the sense that I’m an expert in my field. After all, if I’ve simply opened up Powerpoint, just like they could do, what makes us all that different, right?
• I almost never use bullets and/or bulleted lists. The only time I use them is when I’m trying to specifically convey the feeling of overwhelming amounts of data. If I have a series of similar points, I put them on a series of separate slides so that the audience is focused on what I’m talking about, not the rest of the list.
• In the past, I’ve not used slide or element transitions at all. Nada. None. I personally don’t think that Powerpoint transitions are at all usable. The Keynote developers, however, have done an amazing job creating transitions that I can actually use to help me deliver my point rather than providing “fun”.
• The only place I put a logo/watermark is on the opening slide that sits there waiting for me to start the presentation, and on the last slide that prompts the audience for questions. Putting it anywhere else is just clutter that says “I don’t believe enough in my content to sell you, so I have to pitch you while I’m presenting too”.

Content wise, I really only do two types of slides:

• Punch the point - text only slides that have either one number (for a stat) or 3-7 words that form a key point. These slides don’t have any image, and literally only have this single point. The lack of additional content, such as a supporting image, helps to convey the message “this is damn significant”.
• Evoke an emotion – full slide image with a black opaque bar with white text overlaid. The text is the statement that I want to hear people repeating afterwards. The image helps to make them smile, or subconciously hammers home the point I’m making, or otherwise helps them stay engaged in the presentation. I often spend upwards of 60% of my presentation deck creation searching and selecting just the right images. I use primarily my own photos, iStockPhoto.com, and Flickr’s Creative Commons feature in their advanced search.

A note about photos
I can’t stress enough how much value I place in the usage of photos. I can’t remember the number of people who’ve remembered my point later on because of the picture, or who’ve told me after the presentation how much the photos helped me tell a story. Speaking, whether to an audience of 5 or 5000 isn’t about delivering information. Speaking is about making people excited about what you’re trying to convey to them. Stunning visuals create a emotional reaction, and emotional reactions keep your audience engaged. Spend the time, and money if necessary, to find the best images you can.

Check out an example from a random presentation deck.

Practice makes perfect
By the time the deck is completed, I have a pretty solid grasp of how the presentation will flow and what I’m going to say. I don’t write out my speech because, for me, it’s largely a pointless effort. Since I’m not going to memorize the speech, I don’t really gain much by writing it all out. Instead, I talk through the presentation with my dog as the audience several times getting comfortable with the content.

That comfort level is the important part for me. If I’m confident in the content, I’m more easily able to focus on reading the room, tweaking the content as I go to have the greatest impact. I also have a gut feel about how much depth I can go into as people ask questions along the way.

During this practice period I also find myself tweaking and rearranging slides as I find the “natural flow” of the content.

Picking the right tools
A huge part of a successful presentation is actually being able to have your presentation visible by the audience. It’s amazing how many presentations I’ve sat in while the presenter futzes with the projector or the laptop. I try to get into the room early to setup and test before the audience appears. Here’s what I pack with me to every presentation I give:

• USB thumb drive with my presentation (both in the Keynote format, as for bigger presentations, a PPT file I’ve exported from Keynote and then tweaked in Powerpoint in case I have to end up using a PC)
• Standard DVI-to-VGA converter that comes with the MacBook Pro
• DVI-to-RCA video converter, in case I have to plug into a TV or TV like connection
• Kensington wireless controller (love this thing!)
• AT&T ExpressCard (for internet access – never, ever trust that they’ll have internet access for you, or that you can actually get it to work even if they do)

One of these days I’m going to invest in a nice wireless mic I can bring with me, just in case.

Personal presentation
Lastly, a few points about how I actually present myself while doing the presentation:

• I put my phone on vibrate and put it in my bag. I also take my keys out of my pocket to eliminate rattling and an option of something to fiddle with.
• I put my bag off in a corner so as not to trip over it or add on-stage clutter.
• Clothing choices are one step above the audience I’m presenting to, although I always try to ensure I’m presenting wearing my wildly comfortable Nike AirMax 360 sneakers. I also dress as much for what everyone else in the room is wearing as for what they expect I’ll be wearing. If they expect to see a “Web guy”, then a sports coat might not work. If they expect to see a strategist rich with corporate experience, the sneakers might not play well.
• I do my best to never put my hands in my pockets. To the audience you look uninterested and amateurish. Same goes for crossing your arms.
• After I’m done setting up, I find “the spot”, that place where I can stand and feel the most comfortable and where the audience can best see me. I like to walk around, walk up to people asking questions, so I’ll pretend I’m doing just that (covertly) to make sure there’s no hidden cables on the floor.

Prepare your computer too
Before the big day, I spend a few minutes prepping my laptop too. Here’s what I do before each gig:

• Clear off the desktop. I usually have a bunch of miscellaneous stuff on my desktop and I’ll create a folder on the desktop called… wait for it… “Desktop”, then drag all the contents of the desktop into that folder. Once the presentation is over, I can drag it all back out again, but it helps me look more organized to my audience (if they catch a glance of my desktop) if it’s empty.
• Close out any and all other applications. Nothing like having top secret or personal emails shown to your audience because you forgot to close out your mail application. There’s also nothing like having an IM window popup mid-presentation from your rowdy college friend saying “Hey you bastard, what the f**k are you doing?” Yeah, that’s literally happened to me.
• Restart. Don’t just wake your computer up from sleep mode, restart it. It only takes a second and man can it save you. Especially if you’re on a PC.
• Charge the battery. Just in case power isn’t close by or I kick my power cord out of the laptop, I don’t have anything to worry about.
• Use Safari for Web content. I have both Safari and Firefox on my laptop, but I only use Safari for presentations. I tend to have a bunch of toolbars turned on, my bookmarks bar in full use, and a ton of tabs open. I don’t necessarily want to show Client A what I’m working on for Client B. Rather than trying to clear out all the tabs and constantly turn on/off the toolbars, I just use Safari instead for presentations. And speaking of web browsers….
• Clear the browser history. I always clear the surfing history in Safari before the presentation, even if I’m not planning on using Safari during my presentation. You never know when you’ll be jumping online to show something, so be prepared. You probably don’t want to show the audience that you’ve been hanging out on that Hello Kitty fan site, after all.
• Run through your sites. If I’m going to be using the web during my presentation to show off sites, I’ll first clear the history, then run through each site. This ensure that I know if the site is having problems before the audience is waiting on me. It also updates the URL auto-fill and caches the pages.
• Print out a copy of your presentation – you never know when your technology is just going to up and leave on you. If you don’t have some to refer to, you’re going to be going cold and that’s a recipe for disaster!

Have fun!
Above all else, I try to have fun with each speaking engagement I do. When you have fun, the audience does too. When you’re smiling, your audience will too. When you’re having fun, you come across as more believable and you appear to clearly be the expert in the matter. And isn’t that the point?

Additional resources
While we’re talking about presenting techniques, check out these additional sources of help, inspiration, and insight

• 6 tips to learn from Steve Jobs, one of the greats.
• Beyond Bullet Points: The book and the site. Author Cliff Atkinson has created a very cool subscription based set of resources including a support forum.
• Presentation Zen: The book and the blog. Both are fantastic.
• List of 70+ resources for Powerpoint/Keynote usage and presentations generally.

ASK: How do I become a Community Manager? (Working Pro)

(This is part of Ask the Community Guy, an ongoing series of questions posed by readers for Jake, the Community Guy)

Question: via yndygo: “How do I become a Community Manager? Honestly, there are many of us ‘not so young’ folk who are completely enamoured of the Social Media and Online Community development, but without the entre to break into this field even though we would, given the opportunity.”

Answer: This question extends the conversation earlier regarding how to hire a community manager [1][2], and the “How do I become a Community Manager (college student)” edition. For the purposes of this entry, I’m going to focus on the corporate/strategy type of community manager, versus the community manager of the forum facilitator/moderator style.

So you’re looking to change careers and “community manager” seems like a fun option, eh? Good for you, it’s a great job. But before we jump into the tips for getting such a job, I have to ask the question…. are you sure you really want the job? Don’t get me wrong, I love community work and my community manager time was some of the best of my career. But it’s a tough gig for several reasons:

• It’s a 24/7/365 job -with most communities, the members tend to participate more when they’re not working… which is also when you aren’t working. In 5 years of community work, I’m not sure that I had a 3 day weekend off… that’s when the community had time to put on events!
• It’s a beating – It’s a fun job, but it’s a tough job. There’s a strange vibe where the company members don’t quite think you’re focusing enough on the business, the community tend to think you’re focused too much on the business. Remember Night at the Roxbury? Yeah, you’re the girl in the club.
• It takes time to make an impact – There are no quick solutions, and tenacity is a massive must-have.

Still here? OK, good. Maybe you have what it takes after all!

This question is harder to answer specifically because of the all possible scenarios the question may be asked under. Are you moving laterally in your current company? Are you trying to get into an entirely new company? Do you have some connection to community in your current job but are looking to do that work more? I’m making some bold sweeps here, so your mileage may vary. Pay attention to the key point and adjust for your own situation.

Remember the #1 Community Manager Skill
Above all else, a community manager has to be tenacious, chipping away at concerns that both the customers and the company might have about community work. Show that you have tenacity, that you’re going to make this happen whether “they” like it or not.

(This skill is irrelevant without fantastic communication skills, however, so be sure to temper your tenacity with your communications skills. Keep reading for more on communication)

Pick a goal
Being a great community manager is predicated on believing in the work you’re doing. It’d be hard for me, a very anti-smoking person, to be a good community manager for a tobacco company. Pick a company/service/community/business/industry that hold some interest to you personally. Set a goal in your head of what kind of community work you’d like to do and the type of company/industry you’d like to do it for. Narrowing your focus helps you increase your effectiveness at learning new skills and thus getting a new job in a new field.

Learn the Landscape
This may seem obvious, but once you’ve chosen a goal start digging into the busines. If you’re trying to make a move inside your current company, start learning about the existing community or the potential for community. Understand the business from the perspective(s) you haven’t been as involved with.

If you’re looking to change companies, get up to speed on the industry. Read the trade publications, met people already in that space, join industry associations. Basically soak it all in.

Prove your own knowledge
Whether you’re looking to change industries or simply move to a different group inside the company, it’s crucial that you prove your skills. Anyone can say they are ready for a new career or position, but the only ones that make that move are the ones who show they’re ready. This means you’re going to have to find ways outside the scope of your current position to make this happen. Here’s a few methods:

• Volunteer for cross-functional team projects that connect you to areas of your current company you wouldn’t normally work on. (This doesn’t necessarily need to be “community” work… being able to show that you’re able to effectively take on new challenges outside the scope of your training)
• Start a (business) blog that showcases your interest, knowledge, and understanding of online culture and community building. This isn’t the place for anything other than a brief glimpse at the personal side of your life.
• Look at your current company (or the company/industry you’re trying to get into) and develop some ideas about how you can add community/social components to the existing business. Share the internally or via your blog.

Figure out what employers are looking for
The first step is an easy one: figure out what employers are looking for. I wrote about this earlier, as have others. Check job descriptions for similar positions, keep an eye and ear open for what employers are talking about, and ask other community managers how they found their current position.

You’re likely to face one of two situations:

• Your target company understands enough about community to know what they need. You need to first figure this out. Try to connect with people from the company (hopefully the specific team) via LinkedIn or Facebook. (Do NOT rush into this until you’ve done your research)
• Your target company has no clue that they need a community manager, or they don’t quite understand what community management is all about. In this case, you’re going to have to start building your profile as a knowledgeable person; start a blog and write about the industry, maybe even the company and suggest some ideas for how they can use community management to further their business goals. (Again, don’t rush into this, do your research first. Maybe even have an insider vet your content first)

Get involved
Being able to tell an employer specifically how their related community functions is a crucial piece of selling yourself. Since you’re likely changing careers or getting into an area you don’t have a lot of experience in, you want be able to sell yourself as a subject matter expert. How better to do that than actually becoming a subject matter expert?

One note of caution, however: don’t hit too hard with “I’m a member of the community and therefore I know everything”. That vibe can be a real turnoff to a potential employer, making them wonder if you’re just a crazed fanboy/girl who has no interest in finding balance between community and company needs. You get involved so you can drop tidbits that show you “get it”, not to bash them over the head with your knowledge of who the community trolls are and what the inside jokes mean.

Be willing to work like you’re 25 again
If you’re changing careers, you’re in for one hell of a lot of work. Prepare yourself.
Be sure to check out the classes that I recommended to college students. Whether you actually take those classes at a local school or simply head to your local bookstore to stock up on the subjects, start learning.

Join a practitioners group
There are plenty of places around the web where you can listen in (and join in when the time is right) to conversations from industry practitioners. Here’s a few of my favorites:

• IOCMA – International Online Community Managers Association
• Facebook group: Community managers
• Facebook group: Online Community Roundtable

Build your online persona
It’s suprisingly easy to convince many people that you’re a community expert – make sure you’re everywhere they might look for you. Create profiles on all the major sites (or have an answer ready about why you skipped signing up for a particular service). Use them regularly, keep them up to date. Share them in your email footer and your business card. Here’s a few of my must-use services:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• MyBlogLog
• Flickr

This list is just a few that I find important, but don’t stop paying attention to what new cool sites and services are popping up.
Start a fan club
Nothing shows an understanding of community development like actually developing a community, and nothing teaches you group dynamics like being part of one. Find something you’re interested in, whether photography or collecting antique throw pillows and start group focused on the subject.

If a group already exists around the subject you’re interested in, join and volunteer to help out. Plan an event, organize the members, start subject matter conversations, and/or build some online support tools. Just get involved.

Volunteer
Pick a charity, local event, concert, or anything else where you can pitch in. Building stamina for being on your feet all day long, talking, interacting, smiling, and remaining positive is a crucial skill to learn. This is another place where you can learn a metric ton about group dynamics, especially as relates to volunteers and volunteer work. Managing and working with people don’t have to be there is radically different than managing and working with people who are getting paid to be there.

Speak publicly
I don’t care where, and I don’t care what about… just start getting up in front of crowds and speaking. I’ve never been to Toastmasters, but I’ve heard fantastic things.

MC a concert or poetry reading. Present a topic to high school kids. Give a group presentation to your current colleagues. Just get out there. Speaking publicly does several things for you:

• Removes your fear of speaking in front of audiences, and helps you learn how audiences (both online and offline) react to different messages
• Teaches you how to simplify ideas into bite sized chunks
• Gives you confidence in yourself and your message

Read, Read, Read
There is more online content about community development than you could ever read in a lifetime. Start reading; this is your textbook. Start with these blogs (in addition to this one, of course!):

• Social Customer
• Brains on Fire
• Web Strategist
• The Viral Garden
• Logic + Emotion
• Online Community Report

But whatever you do, find the part of community management that gets you all giddy and do more of that. Don’t lose your passion!

ASK: How do I become a Community Manager? (College Students)

(This is part of Ask the Community Guy, an ongoing series of questions posed by readers for Jake, the Community Guy)

Question: via several college students over the years – “What college courses should I take, and what activities should I do if I’m interested in a career in community development?”

Answer: This question extends the conversation regarding how to hire a community manager [1][2]. When I first started getting this question a few years back there weren’t any college curriculum focused around online community development as a practice. There are more and more building these days, but it’s still very early. So assuming your school is one of the many that doesn’t have such a program, what should you do and what classes should you take?

Before we jump to that, it’s important to understand the key components of community work. No matter what type of work you do within the context of “community development”, you need to have a working knowledge of these issues:

• Fantastic written communication (I can’t stress this one enough)
• Public Speaking and solid oral communication
• Marketing understanding
• An understanding of group dynamics
• Solid understanding of online culture and trends

Also, be sure to check out Jeremiah’s Four Tenets of a Community Manager.

Classes to take
These are a few of the suggested “core” courses. Take a hard look at your school’s course catalog; chances are you’ll find some very interesting and applicable classes scattered around the various colleges.

• Sociology: This is a good place to start. Dig deeper than then 101 class; see if there’s any focusing on group dynamics. This may actually be the place to focus your degree.
• Speech: Take every speech class you can afford and can make time for. Obviously it helps you learn public speaking (and removing at least some of the fear of standing up in front of people), but it also helps learn to encompass big ideas in small, convincing pieces.
• Writing Classes: If I’d known how much I’d be writing in my community career, I would have taken far more of these classes. Between blog posts, emails, fan forum posts, memos, whitepapers, presentations, and more, I probably spend 40%+ of my work time writing something. Your school may have courses specifically tailored to blogging, or business writing, so be sure to check that out. Here’s two key types of classes to take regardless:
  • Creative Writing: Being able to express personality through writing is a crucial part of a community manager’s role. Whether you’re learning how to write a short story or a forum post, being comfortable expressing emotion and telling a story is a fantastic skill.
  • Business Writing: I’m not typically one for writing old school business documents, but you can’t bend (or break) the rules if you don’t know what the rules are.
• Psychology: A few 101 courses couldn’t hurt. After all, community work is about understanding people and learning how individuals get excited, inspired, and upset.
• Ecology: There are surprising similarities between nature’s ecosystems and online community ecosystems. There aren’t always direct comparisons, but there’s much to learn from this field.
• History: The obvious reason for this is that sage advice that “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it”. Knowing your history helps you identify patterns, tell better stories, and connect seemingly dissociated pieces. All very helpful tactics for community management.

Build your online persona
As a college student, you’ve likely heard plenty about the importance of keeping an eye on how you present yourself online, so I won’t belabor the point. At least not too much. You know the basics already: employers google you before hiring you.  That story you posted on MySpace about the donkey you met in Mexico might entertain your buddies, but your potential boss might not be so impressed.

Specifically related to online community development, you’ll be developing a “face” to the world for your company. If you’re doing good work, you’ll often find yourself more recognized than the CEO, more believable than the PR team, and more reliable than the customer service team. You don’t want the huge setback that would likely happen from the discovery of the Mexico story.

If you’re just dying to share the Mexico story, and content like it, use an alias or a password protected site like LiveJournal or Vox.

Start a (business) blog
Fairly obvious, but start a blog that showcases your interest, knowledge, and understanding of online culture and community building. This isn’t the place for anything other than a brief glimpse at the personal side of your life.

Start a fan club
Nothing shows an understanding of community development like actually developing a community, and nothing teaches you group dynamics like being part of one. Find something you’re interested in, whether photography or collecting antique throw pillows and start a campus club focused on the subject.

If a group already exists around the subject you’re interested in, join and volunteer to help out. Plan an event, organize the members, start subject matter conversations, and/or build some online support tools. Just get involved.

Learn HTML
Yes, there are plenty of tools today that allow you to create web content without ever having to learn anything about coding, but understanding this fundamental web skill can come in handy. You never know when you might have to quickly hand code a web page, modify some existing code, or post in a forum that doesn’t have a WYSIWYG editor. HTML is the core tech foundation of the internet. Learn it.

Volunteer
Pick a charity, campus event, concert, or anything else where you can pitch in. Building stamina for being on your feet all day long, talking, interacting, and remaining positive is a crucial skill to learn. This is another place where you can learn a metric ton about group dynamics, especially as relates to volunteers and volunteer work. Managing and working with people don’t have to be there is radically different than managing and working with people who are getting paid to be there.

Speak publicly
I don’t care where, and I don’t care what about… just start getting up in front of crowds and speaking. I’ve never been to Toastmasters, but I’ve heard fantastic things. MC a concert or poetry reading. Introduce a speaker at a campus event. Present a topic to high school kids. Just get out there.

Speaking publicly does several things for you:

• Removes your fear of speaking in front of audiences, and helps you learn how audiences (both online and offline) react to different messages
• Teaches you how to simplify ideas into bite sized chunks
• Gives you confidence in yourself and your message

Join a practitioners group
There are plenty of places around the web where you can listen in (and join in when the time is right) to conversations from industry practitioners. Here’s a few of my favorites:

• IOCMA – International Online Community Managers Association
• Facebook group: Community managers
• Facebook group: Online Community Roundtable

Read, Read, Read
There is more online content about community development than you could ever read in a lifetime. Start reading; this is your textbook. Start with these blogs (in addition to this one, of course!):

• Social Customer
• Brains on Fire
• Web Strategist
• The Viral Garden
• Logic + Emotion
• Online Community Report

That’s a good start. Pay attention, ask questions, listen to smart people, and most importantly, get started!