Community Guy – Jake McKee

Inspiring 2009

It’s New Year’s Eve, and that means our thoughts turn to the new year. Here are two very crucial ideas to remember for 2009.

Here’s to being totally fucking amazing in 2009.

3 New Jobs Openings & 4 Job Seekers

2008 is winding down & we have three new Job Openings posted.  Check them out or post yours.

Community Job Openings:

• *NEW The Blog Council Executive Director (Chicago)
• *NEW Come build the best Recycling/Reuse Community (Seattle, WA)
• *NEW Blellow Community Manager (San Antonio, TX (But you can work from anywhere!))
• Community Development Consultant – The CHAMP Program (New York)
• Community Manager – The CHAMP Program (New York)

To see all job openings: http://www.communityguy.com/jobboard/

Community Job Seekers:

• Social Media professional and Community Manager
• Emerging/Social Media Expert seeks job in NYC area
• Community manager/ social media professional seeks position in Southern California
• EXPERIENCED MODERATOR REMOTE WORK (OHIO)

To see all candidates: http://www.communityguy.com/jobseekers/

Best Photos of the Year

Frequent readers of my blog know that I’m a huge fan of fantastic photography. One of my favorite blogs, the Boston Globe’s “The Big Picture” photoblog. Most days throughout the year, this site collects and shares an incredible lineup of amazing photos around that day’s topic. But in celebration of 2008, they’ve collected their favorite photos from the year in three parts. Amazing, spectacular, incredible work.

• 2008 in Pictures, Part I
• 2008 in Pictures, Part II
• 2008 in Pictures, Part III

What about you? What were your favorite photos (that you took or that you saw others take)?

Thank you, fine readers

As the year winds down, I wanted to take a minute to say thanks to all the readers, supporters, and participants here on CommunityGuy.com.

I have been fascinated, humbled, inspired, corrected, and excited by your comments, emails, cross-links this year. Thank you for encouraging me to keep blogging when work got crazy this past fall and my blogging slowed down. Thank you for spreading the word about the Community Guy Job Board. Thank you for challenging me in on my posts.

In short, thank you readers!

There are some pretty significant changes coming to my company, Ant’s Eye View in 2009 and you readers will be the first to hear about them. Stay tuned, it’s going to be a crazy ‘09!

Have a wonderful holiday, kiss your family, take a break from the social media influx, and find as many opportunities to smile and laugh as you can.

Happy Holidays!

(Photo by Balakov)

6 Jobs, 1 New & 6 Seekers, 1 New

It is still not too late to find a New Job for the New Year.  9 days left!

Post on our Job Seekers Board – http://www.communityguy.com/jobseekers/

Community Job Openings:

• *NEW Community Moderator (San Francisco, CA)
• Community Development Consultant – The CHAMP Program (New York)
• Community Manager – The CHAMP Program (New York)
• Virtual Assistant with MySpace Experience (Miami,FL 33101)
• STILL OPEN! Community Engagement Manager (Annapolis MD)
• STILL OPEN! Community Content Manager (Annapolis MD)

To see all job openings: http://www.communityguy.com/jobboard/

Community Job Seekers:

• Social Media professional and Community Manager
• Emerging/Social Media Expert seeks job in NYC area
• Community manager/ social media professional seeks position in Southern California
• EXPERIENCED MODERATOR REMOTE WORK (OHIO)
• Looking for Online Community Manager/Moderator Job (Gainesville,FL or Remote)
• Seeking writer/blogger/community manager Opportunities (UK Based) (Edinburgh, Scotland (UK)

To see all candidates: http://www.communityguy.com/jobseekers/

VIDEO: Measuring Community ROI

Two interesting watches on the topic of Community ROI:

Confusing the blogging concept with the current ecosystem

Paul Boutin published an odd, and fairly short sighted article in Wired. His basic premise is that three things are driving blogging to irrelevance:

• Twitter and online video making publishing even easier than blogging once made publishing
• Blogs have detractors
• Big “blogs” like Engadget and Huffington Post, there’s no chance that you’re going to get Google Juice off your blog

Here’s more from Paul:

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

When blogging was young, enthusiasts rode high, with posts quickly skyrocketing to the top of Google’s search results for any given topic, fueled by generous links from fellow bloggers. In 2002, a search for “Mark” ranked Web developer Mark Pilgrim above author Mark Twain. That phenomenon was part of what made blogging so exciting. No more. Today, a search for, say, Barack Obama’s latest speech will deliver a Wikipedia page, a Fox News article, and a few entries from professionally run sites like Politico.com. The odds of your clever entry appearing high on the list? Basically zero.

While these things might be true as facts, they’re certainly not a conclusion. Not having the ability for my blog to hit the top 10 in Technorati doesn’t dictate that blogging is dead. It indicates two things:

• Technorati needs to be fixed or replaced
• I need to reassess my need to have my blog hit the Technorati top 10

But here’s the real foolishness of this article:

Further, text-based Web sites aren’t where the buzz is anymore. The reason blogs took off is that they made publishing easy for non-techies. Part of that simplicity was a lack of support for pictures, audio, and videoclips. At the time, multimedia content was too hard to upload, too unlikely to play back, and too hungry for bandwidth.

The entire ecosystem of social activity includes a great many tools. Perhaps text communication is losing some predominance in the face of other communication opportunities, but saying it’s “not where the buzz is anymore” just shows you’re not thinking about anything other than buzz. And really, what’s the point of that?

Read this before the end of the year

Flickr’s George Oates wrote an amazing article about the lessons the Flickr team has learned over the years. This is, quite literally, a must read for anyone dealing with online community.

George introduces the article:

People don’t like being told what to do. We like to explore, change things around, and make a place our own. Hefty design challenges await the makers of websites where people feel free to engage; both with the system itself and with each other. Embrace the idea that people will warp and stretch your site in ways you can’t predict—they’ll surprise you with their creativity and make something wonderful with what you provide.

At Flickr, we’ve worked very hard to remain neutral while our members jostle and collide and talk and whisper to each other. Sharing photos is practically a side-effect. Our members have thrilled and challenged us—not just with their beautiful photography, but by showing us how to use our infrastructure in ways we could have never imagined.

It’s only in hindsight and with analysis that the strategies I share in this article have emerged.

Seriously, what are you waiting for? Go. Read. This. Article!

6 Jobs – 2 New & 2 Hot, 5 Job Seekers

Only 17 days left until 2009.  Post your open Job to the Job Board – http://www.communityguy.com/jobboard/

Community Job Openings:

• *NEW Community Development Consultant – The CHAMP Program (New York)
• *NEW Community Manager – The CHAMP Program (New York)
• Hot Job STILL OPEN! Community Engagement Manager (Annapolis MD)
• Hot Job STILL OPEN! Community Content Manager (Annapolis MD)
• Client Services Manager – Leverage Software (San Francisco)
• Virtual Assistant with MySpace Experience (Miami,FL 33101)

To see all job openings: http://www.communityguy.com/jobboard/

Community Job Seekers:

• Emerging/Social Media Expert seeks job in NYC area
• Community manager/ social media professional seeks position in Southern California
• EXPERIENCED MODERATOR REMOTE WORK (OHIO)
• Looking for Online Community Manager/Moderator Job (Gainesville,FL or Remote)
• Seeking writer/blogger/community manager Opportunities (UK Based) (Edinburgh, Scotland (UK)

To see all candidates: http://www.communityguy.com/jobseekers/

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