From an UNconference came an UNChallenge, The #NoKidHungry 30 Day UNChallenge. For those of you not familiar with No Kid Hungry, it is a campaign of Share Our Strength and is on a mission to eliminate childhood hunger in the United States, where 1 in every 5 children goes hungry.
The following is a guest post by Cathy McPhillips and the start of our UNChallenge for No Kid Hungry. Though it sounds like I missed an absolutely amazing Community Manager UNConference, and missed a chance to speak about my favorite non-profit, Share Our Strength and their No Kid Hungry campaign, I'm so excited to join in post-#cmgrUN and meet the newest advocates working to help end childhood hunger.
When people come together, they can accomplish more than any individual. It's not about you, and it's certainly not about me. It's about "WE". This was a message I delivered at Community Manager UNconference in Chicago last weekend. As a community manager, we face this often.
We humans like to herd up. From the times of cavemen and their clans, to the tribes of native America to the teams and communities of the modern world, we like to group together. Our modern herds are more sophisticated and our environment more complex than the herds of our ancient ancestors.
We just kicked of the fourth Community Manager UNconference in Chicago at Enerspace Coworking. Stay tuned here as we share tweets, photos and possibly a live Google Hangout On Air. We'll pull in and post everything in real time, or internet real time. Be sure to follow #cmgrUN hashtag and @myCMGR on Twitter.
"Respond without thinking and you will damage your community. You are held to a higher standard than your users, and you should hold yourself to one, as well." -Patrick O'Keefe, Managing Online Forums I first read Patrick's book a couple years after I had been moderating a high traffic tech forum and shortly before I began strategizing to set up a new forum.
I remember the first time I heard about the reptilian brain. The part of your brain that works instinctually. Think about it. Do you think when you have a baseball heading at your head? No! You react by putting your hands up and duck. Do you ever think about the stairs when you walk up them?
Ok, Couldn't resist that opening coz I know y'all are now singing that song in your head and having it stuck there for the rest of the day!! We are excited to be headed back to Chicago this weekend with #cmgrUN UNconference!! For those of you that don't know, Chicago was our very first #cmgrUN last year!!
"Make a decision. Every day, decide that a fiercely local community is your goal, no matter what." -Sarah Robinson, Fierce Loyalty Let me be fully transparent, right away. I was on the Street Team to launch this book back in September. That being said, I'm not exaggerating when I say I've read it seven times, cover to cover.
A great thing happend when we hosted 12 hours of Community Manager Hangout #cmgrhangout for Community Manager Appreciation Day #CMAD. That great thing was, we were able to invite community managers from around the world since during that 12 hours, every part of the world was involved as part of their normal work day.
As community managers, we all understand the role influence plays in growing our community. The scalability of how can you get members of your community to influence others, is not quite as understandable or universal. Or is it?
It was one year ago today I left Chicago, headed to New York. The flight was into LaGaurdia and I used Google Maps to find public transportation to my Aunt's house in Bloomfield, NJ. What I soon, or 3 hours later, realized is, the MTA bus, subway, PATH and NJT bus, was not the most effective way to get there.
One of the many ideas behind #cmgrhangout (to me) is to share ideas, strategies, and methods behind the best community management initiatives out there. As Scoop.it 's community manager, I'm constantly coming across web curators and community strategists using the web in ways I never thought of to make big things happen.
"There's more to being a community manager than a little social networking. You need a thick skin, a pleasant personality, and the ability to organize and prioritize." -Deb Ng, Online Community Management for Dummies If you're considering a career in Community Management, I highly recommend Online Community Management for Dummies by Deb Ng.
What Community Managers Can Learn From Librarians After Brew returned from a Translator focused lab session with librarians earlier this week, we chatted about how many parallels there were between community management and librarians.
Have you ever done something for the first time after years of wondering what it would be like? For me, at age 45, I hired a coach for the first time. Coach Jennie. Wonder why, after all these years, I decided to work with a coach?
Oxpeckers and rhinoceroses. Sea anemones and clownfish. Moray eels and cleaner shrimp. Movies and popcorn. Just kidding on that last one, but really. Nature is full of symbiotic, interdependent relationships. Some are obligate, requiring each other for survival, while others are simply facultative where their relationship is mutually beneficial but they can live without each other.
Link Building Tips For Community Managers After reading a post from Sean McGinnis this week ( Link Building Techniques That Work), two things made us think of community managers: 1) community managers involved in developing content for their site or are involved with SEO, should know about these; and 2) many link building practices sound like what community managers do every day.
A funny thing happened. After years of working out of my house, I now am working from an office Monday - Friday. I take the same bus every morning. I stop at the same coffee shop every morning ( The Bean NYC, if you were wondering).
Yesterday I shared a video composed of pictures to give you a small taste of the vibe at #cmgrUN, today I wanted to let you know how attendees describe the event. Many thanks to Alexandra Dao, Eric Herberholz, Gary Nix, Hillary Boucher, Kristie Wells, Krysta Gahagen, Laura Horak, Megan Murphy and Monica Wright for sharing their thoughts!
When was the last time you read a book and it made you want to tell all your friends about it? Let's keep this to business books, other wise at least half of you would say 50 Shades of Grey. Now, what was the last book you told your friends about?
What does it look like when community managers come together in an environment where they can, as Laura Horak says, hack community? Well, we've been to Chicago, New York City and San Francisco with the best of the best. It looks something like this:
Have you ever thought of hosting events? It's not easy, but it's not as daunting as you may think and the rewards make every bit of effort worth it. I'll never forget the first event I hosted. It came at the urging of Sarah Evans and Kelly Olexa when I attended one of their tweetups in the Western suburbs of Chicago.
Do you consume or create? It's probably both. Consumption allows us to learn and provides inspiration. But without the creation, we break the chain. Creation based on too much consumption, dilutes the essence of creation. Look for inspiration in your consumption but always leave room for creation. Take a self analysis.
Tim McDonald graciously invited me to be one of the "speakers" at the My Community Manager Unconference in San Francisco. What I loved most about this invitation, apart from finally being able to give him a big hug (not virtual), was that there were no slides required.
