Community Guy – Jake McKee

2008: Year of the Kick Ass

While I like the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, I never seem to a) track them through to the end of the year to judge success, or b) follow through much past the third week of January (perhaps the reason I never end up tracking them at year’s end).

There’s lots of discussion about what people would like to see in the industry in 2008, Geoff and Ben are just a couple. Instead of sharing what I’d like to do in 2008, I thought I’d share what I will do in 2008.

1. Stay Inspired.

I’ve been working on “community stuff” for nearly 8 years now and find myself struggling to stay interested. Yes, I still believe I have one of the best jobs in the world (save Pool Boy at the Playboy Mansion, or Mr. Scarlett Johansson) but I’m also a challenge junkie. Community work was a different ballgame a few year ago when it was “new” and “unknown”.

So this year, I’m taking on two new projects are that both grand in scale, huge challenges, and exactly what I want to do when I watch this video and my blood starts jumping with excitement. (More on both of these projects soon)

2. Helping out

Kinda cliché, I know, but in 2008 I want to give back. While I’m not at all flush with cash at this point in the startup biz, that’s exactly the time when karma dictates that I should help out. I’ve already determined that I’ll be funding at least one Kiva loan per month this year.

It’s not just about money this year either, it’s about the time. Whether it’s bugging my sister to let me watch her kids while she and the husband go out, or spending more time answering email/blog/twitter/LinkedIn Answers questions people have, I’m your huckleberry. And speaking of which…

3. Less speaking, more doing

Both in 2006 and 2007, I spoke at quite a few events. These events were great for meeting a ton of people, sharing my vision for customer interaction future, and learning a ton about what others are doing. But they are also a huge drain on my mental resources, and keep me away from the house (and the baby) far more than I’d like.

Over the holiday break, I did a great deal of soul searching and realized that my favorite part of the speaking gigs is always the Q&A, either at the end or throughout the session, depending on the particular session. So this year, I’ll be declining more speaking engagements than I normally do and putting that same time and energy into other methods of participation, including:

• One of the two projects mentioned in point #1 above (more later)
• More (well, better) blogging on Community Guy
• Increased frequency of participation in discussion like this one
• The addition of the “Ask the Community Guy” feature here on this blog.

Sounds like a lot, but when I’m not spending so much time in airports or at conferences, it shouldn’t be an issue!

4. Improve my photography

I’ve been an aspiring wannabe photog for some time now. 2008 will be the year that I get good. I have a stack of how-to books that I’ve been trying to get to, have a really great new all-purpose lens in the mail, and a one-on-one instructor just waiting for me to schedule with her. I also will be participating as much as I can in projects like 26 things (or an alternative if they’re now gone).

UPDATE: Photojojo.com has posted 19 New Years Resolutions for your photography. Clearly I’m not alone on this one.

5. Maintain my optimism

As wonderful a year as 2007 was, there were several issues that gave my eternal optimism a run for its money. I’m the kind of person who, in the face of disaster, has a hard time thinking of anything but the opportunity that disaster presents. (”Yes, I know your house just burned to the ground, but think of how much fun it will be to spend the insurance money on brand new furniture!”) I like that about myself and I’ll be damned if any silly issues are going to take that away, or even threaten to do so. I’m sure this will help keep me on track.
There’s more I’d like to include, but that’s more than enough to keep me busy this year.

So what about you? What are you going to be doing this year?

Best Customer Relationship Building of 2007

One of the more sad notes of 2007 was that we had to put our annoying, yet loved dog to sleep. Lucy was my wife’s dog, and had been with her since she was a brand new puppy – literally 1/3 of my wife’s life. The first night I meet my wife, the dog was there. Across the country, Lucy moved with us. Throughout my many, many overnight trips Lucy has made my wife feel safe at home. I’m not a huge fan of dogs after a massive biting incident at 7 years old, but I still came to like her.

We’ve been boarding both our dogs at a great place called Tailwaggers Country Inn for years. They’re more expensive and further away than any other option, but they are the type of company that sends custom photo postcards of your pets when you’re on the road for an extended period.

When we called to cancel the Christmas boarding reservation for Lucy (and for our other dog, since the in-laws volunteered to watch him), it came up that Lucy had been put down. Brief condolences were exchanged, the reservation canceled, and we all moved on. The person on the phone was very sweet and considerate.

But just a few days later, we received a flower delivery…. from Tailwaggers. About Lucy. The dog.

Now think about this for a second – we called to tell them their customer was dead, never to return. They weren’t ever going to make money off of our stays with Lucy. Granted, we have a second dog, but with only one, the in-laws are likely to continue watching him, thus eliminating our need for Tailwaggers all together. Yet, they spent ~$80 to send us a huge and beautiful flower arrangement. Hardly seems worth is, considering, right?

Wrong.

They know their customers. They know that dog people like my wife are highly likely to replace the dog with a new puppy. They know that dog people tend to talk to each other about the things that do good by their pets…things like Tailwaggers. They know that when they create incredible experiences, they create Word of Mouth exchanges that are just dying to get out (such as this very blog entry).

So thank you Tailwaggers for turning a sad moment into a moment of amazement.

Favorite posts of 2007

2007 was one hell of a year for me, ushering in a new company, new clients, and of course a new baby who has now become a toddler. I joined Kiva and funded my first loan which has been recently repaid, then gifted my family via Kiva for Christmas. I racked up tens of thousands of air miles, spoke at a number of conferences, and met a lot of new people. Overall, it’s been a fantastic year.

As is apt to happen, I’ve put together a collection of my favorite Community Guy entries from 2007. I know, a bit played, but it was fun to review the archives for the last 12 months. Hopefully you’ll get a kick out of it too.

So without further ado, my favorite posts of 2007!

The Social Community Ecology
Over the course of 2007 I spent a lot of time looking at and speaking about ecology and balance as part of the community equation. More to come on this subject in 2008.

5 Minutes with a Marketing Manager
I asked some of the smartest people I know a simple question: “If you had 5 minutes with a marketing manager, what would you tell them about social

Six Techniques for Safer User Generated Content Campaigns
By far one of the funnest projects this year was working with eModeration to develop a whitepaper that was extremely well received.

Tools for the household, not the individual
I was struck by how much “waste” happens when multiple people from a single household are using the same data set. 2008 is going to prove to be interesting on this front… more soon.

The perfect customer interaction support tool
I know what I want… why is it so hard to find?

AMA gets it wrong in an ethically questionable way
As a member of the AMA this year, I found it largely unsatisfying. They spent a large majority of their efforts pitching me on a wide variety of expensive conferences and sessions. Needless to say, I won’t be renewing my membership.

Blogging and the Public Square
Being called a “modern day slave trader” has a way of getting your blood up, but the ensuing discussion was interesting and certainly made me think.

Intelligence community gets social
Even the CIA (and more broadly, the intelligence community) jumped into the online social waters this year. I posted a few thoughts on how I thought they might be able to best help their efforts.
“Heroes” does character blogs right
I love character blogs, but only when they’re done right. Few actually do it right, but Heroes pulled off a huge win.

Disposable camera model for community growth
What if we thought about social software the same way we think about photography? What if our first community engagement efforts followed the disposable camera model, rather than the professional photographer model?

Twitter suddenly becomes relevant
What makes a conversation tool like Twitter interesting? Having people you actually want to hear from using it and connected to you. Twitter was largely pointless to me until several of my friends joined up all at once. Instant interest!

Rant: Online Etiquette Tips
Because you can never get enough help trying to make the non-personal communication more effective.

Supporting digital culture means supporting the writers
Yep, we’re still dealing with an influx of reality programming, but I still believe that it’s crucial to support the writers.

Picnik makes me feel all fuzzy inside
For as much as I drooled over Picnik this year, I have to give them a shout out. Use it. You’ll love it.

Playing on the floor

I know Christmas has passed, but I’m still in the Christmas spirit, so I’m passing along a great Christmas story my friend Jeremy Leonard shared with me last week. As a continued supporter of the LEGO products, and as a former employee (and kid who said from the age of 7 on that he’d one day work at LEGO), I get a lot of these great stories coming my way. I love every one of them.

I have always meant to tell you that last Christmas I bought each of my kids the 2nd generation of MindStorms. I thought they would love it because they are very computer literate and they like building things.

It turns out that they do love the kits, but not because they love robots. It is because they love playing with me. I don’t think they would care if built birdhouses, we get to sit around and combine hardware, software, testing and adjustments. If I lived 30 years ago, we would be doing this with old cars in the driveway.

This is a wonderful lesson for the world of product/service design too: Create a great product, put it in front of people and see what happens. Just because it doesn’t do exactly what you’d planned, adjust. Success might not come in the form you originally envisioned, but success is success.

Addictive Monetizing

It was a crisp fall day in Texas in the year 1999 when our team at NVision Design, high on the growing success of our game Frogapult, released another email forwardable game Elf Bowling. These were the days when you could still send .exe files via email, and the stats were incredible. With a 1mb size, we were sending terabytes of data per day that Christmas season. For years afterwards, I could ask people if they were familiar with Elf Bowling and literally 2 out of 3 would say they were. In fact, I believe I interviewed at LEGO asking the same question.

The success of the game, and the pure game development genius of my friend and co-worker, Matt Johnson inspired a fantastic follow-up.

During the dot com bubble bursting crazy, the gaming properties (under the brand name “NStorm”) were sold off to another company who made several follow-ups. On top of that, apparently they’ve made a movie this year too. That’s right, a movie based on foul-mouthed elves being used as bowling pins for Santa. If you’re asking “What the f….”, then you’re asking the right question.

When I stumbled across this brand new, $9.99 movie in the checkout aisle at Tom Thumb, it trigged one of my favorite mantras: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. The movie is horrendous and hardly seems worth the effort. Were the new NStorm owners so hard up for money that they felt they had to monetize every. last. drop. of all that is (or at least was) good about the Elf Bowling name?

A new mom recently told me that after seeing her toddler “dancing” every time a particular song came on the radio, she was looking into dance classes for her. The toddler. Classes.

Sometimes it’s better to just let things play out naturally. When we try to monetize absolutely everything for our own personal gain, it doesn’t seem like it tends to serve anyone involved worth a damn.

Happy Holidays, Travel Safe!

Friends, family, clients, contacts – both real world and virtual: have a great holiday break. Travel safe and try not to get your reindeer caught in the garage door.

See you late next week!

Interview: “We” Show

Aaron from the “We” Show interviewed me recently about… well, you guessed it: community stuff!

It was a fun interview to do, and was great catching up with Aaron. (We met at Community 2.0 earlier this year) Check out the 20 minute interview and let me know what you think!

Last chance for Wikinomics & Now Is Gone giveaway

That’s right, I’ll be choosing the random winners of this week’s book giveaway later tonight. Here’s your chance to get a shiny new copy of Wikinomics and Now is Gone.

How do you win? Tell others about CommunityGuy.com. Here’s the two ways you’ll be entered:

• If you’re a blogger/twitterer/etc., simply post a link to CommunityGuy.com (and maybe a few kind words) and email me the direct link (jake@communityguy.com)
• Not a blogger/twitterer/etc.? Simply email a friend/colleague/etc. and cc: or bcc: me so I can see it.

Of all the entries, I’ll pick two random winners. Of the two random draws, the one with the earliest submission date gets to choose first. Deadline tonight!

Community Contest Trophy – Thanks, Sean!

The ever talented Sean Kenney has delivered once again on his tradecraft. Sean is an amazing LEGO sculptor who creates incredible works of art with LEGO bricks.

If you remember, one of the prizes in the recent Community Contest was a custom-made LEGO something. Sean came up with a brilliant trophy using the Ant’s Eye View & CommunityGuy.com logo. Very cool. Make sure to drop a comment here if you are impressed. If we sufficiently stroke his ever so humble ego, maybe Sean will help out again with a future contest!

Community Book Contest Winners!

After a few last minute entries last night, I selected two random winners for the Community Book contest. And the winners are…

Alison St. John
Greg Williams

Congrats you two, I’ll follow-up directly ASAP to arrange the details! Alison, start figuring out which book you’d like… you’re in the coveted “First Responder” seat.