Rooven PakkiriHead of Social BusinessCollaboration Matters@roovenp

Wired Magazine- 2003Edward Hopper - 1942

Market Presence - putting IBM front of mind

We are all about completely new and original ways of delivering and deploying IBM Connections

#cbdiner 2012

Of the Community Manager

A 60 page report in 6 slides

“The technology is the easiest piece: finding the right technology for your specific use case is challenging, but Community Management is going to be the hardest piece because that skill set and experience does not reside within most companies right now. “

Which begs the question – do you develop those skills inside or source them outside your organisation?

Hold on to that thought - it has a number of interestingramifications…

Let’s get to grip with the role and these new skills first …

“A Community Manager is NOT an IT person, it’s not a ‘Web Expert’, it’s not even someone who claim to be a ‘Social Media’ expert. They don’t exist by the way. Don’t let them fool you, please!”

“The Community Manager might look something like the spider in the web, weaving the web. Yes, there you go, it’s a Weaver – A Weaver Of Relationships!”

“The Community Manager is more like a networked journalist or extremely clever and creative person who can take an idea from nothing and create something beautiful or smart.”

“We see community leaders as explorers, builders and translators – charting new paths for their organisations in a complex new environment”

The Job Description

Wow! That’s some job description

The Explorer

The pace of change has become dramatically faster as networked communications on a massive scale flatten the access to information.

Community leaders need to excel at and relish the role of explorer – not only discovering emerging environmental factors, but also exploring the behaviour, interests, and goals of their community members.

This curiosity is critical to helping communities and the organisation that sponsor them.

The Builder

Communities and relationships will rarely , if ever, be perfect.

Successful communities are built by those who have a predilection for action and who will experiment instead of waiting for perfect timing .

While planning is important…. trying to predict what a community will do and be before it exists is impossible.”

The Translator

New technologies often seem like fads to enterprise stakeholders. They need to have a discussion of realistic opportunities and risks in their own language in order to effectively understand and offer support in this space.

Ensuring that different constituencies can understand each other and making sure stakeholders know how to evaluate the opportunity and risks in a community approach.

The rise and importance of the Community Manager

Gardener

Cheerleader

Traffic Cop

Mediavore

Empath

CRUSH TROLLS

Piñata

Concierge

Sculptor

Spam Warrior

Sponger

CRUSH TROLLS

Those leaders that can evangelise and bring the value of communities into organisations are seeing their work rewarded with increased budgets, recognition and new opportunities

My goal from the output of this discussion is to use it to inform our Community Manager Job Description – in our Collaboration Garden

To get things going here are some questions I would like you to consider:Q- Do you agree with the report that the Community Manager is the hardest piece of the Community Management puzzle?Q - If the corporate cupboard is bare, how will companies solve the problem of sourcing of Community Managers in the short term?Q - Who will the Community Manager report to?

Questions