Community Manager Techniques: the Knights of NININi!

As a community manager my day to day quest can be summed up by NiNiNi!

After fifteen years and helping build five major communities, the following quests are written above my desk (as adapted from the Berkana Institute):

• Name: a day should not pass without naming the people in your community, be that a shout-out at the start of an event or a tweet/blog/slack message saying why others in the community should listen to this person.
• Introduce: once you’ve started to identify (name) the key champions in your community, you need to introduce them to like-minded champions.  These connections between key community members is the foundation stone to building a community.
• Nourish: as time passes don’t forget to nourish your named and connected community champions.  It is easy to become obsessed with recruiting new community members.  Growth of you community is nowhere near as important as making sure your core members are engaged and the core connection hubs.
• Instruct: no community can grow from its early days unless new community members are inducted and instructed into how the culture of the community works.  Always be educating and creating opportunities for your champions to be recognised on stage to provide training.
• Nirvana: of you are doing your job as community manager well (naming, introducing, nourishing and instructing) then you will start to hear common ideas emerging.  Your ability to listen and bring that idea to the wider community so the community can sell Nirvana together as a community
• Iterate: to do the above everyday, over and over again you must take care of yourself.  Find time as you iterate  (year on year) to make sure you are right with the world.  The community are incredibly perceptive and if healthy are always talking about how you are helping lead.

Next community blog post will be on the stages of group development (storming, forming, norming, performing, adjourning) and how they apply to you as a community manager in the ebb and tide of your community.

~ by dfflanders on March 29, 2017.