photo credit: airinnajera

Are you familiar with the board game, Monopoly? It’s a classic.

Boardwalk and Park Place are the two most valuable properties on the board. They cost the most and, as such, deal the biggest blow if you land on them when they are owned by someone else.

This makes them the most coveted color scheme, or group of affiliated properties, in the game. They are also the last and third to last spaces on the game board, in the order of movement from where you start. In other words, you pass by all of the other properties first.

There is a tendency, or a temptation, to hold out for these properties. You don’t want to land on them and then not have the money to buy them. There are 8 different color schemes in the game and if you get too invested in the other ones, you may not have the resources to capitalize on the magical dark blue combo.

photo credit: John Cronin’s Flickr Page

Whenever I can, which is mainly when he is on break, I play “Call of Duty: Black Ops” with my brother, who is a college student.

Since community management is what I do, I often relate things to the practice.

Having spent countless hours playing online multiplayer, there are traits that I often see in players that would not translate well, if those players wanted to work in this field.

I’m going to call these traits the “Call of Duty” test. If you play “Call of Duty,” and you play the game this way, then you may not be cut out to be a community manager.

photo credit: aussiegall

I know it is tough to look at things from a truly long term perspective, but you need to try.

I’ve now been directly managing online communities for 12 years. I’ve been involved with moderation of communities for probably 14. And I’ve been on the web for 17 years. A long term perspective doesn’t mean 3 years. It means more than that. Ideally, we’re talking decades.

Long term perspective doesn’t just mean looking backwards, either. It means looking back and looking forward. Not forward 6 months, not forward 2 years, but forward 10 years.

When someone says that a platform has died, most of the time, this just means that they lack the perspective. They are chasing the wrong things. Once in a long while, this statement is actually true, but in those cases, it is generally a particular website that is coming to an end, that has announced it’s closure, and not the idea of the tool in general.

One of the reasons that words matter so much is that different words prompt different emotional reactions from people. If you call someone a spammer, they are more likely to react defensively than if you said that they were advertising. Even though, when it comes to the action, these are the same thing.

Let’s take this post for example. I would be willing to wager that, based on title alone, a good portion of those who open it will be predisposed to disagreeing with me, even before they read what I had to say, simply because I used the word censorship instead of “removing bad content” or “banning members.” Not everyone will have this reaction, but some will.

This post is partially inspired by a survey conducted by The American Assembly at at Columbia University (via Jonathan Bailey via Government Computer News). Spurned on by the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) legislation, they asked 2,303 adults in the United States a series of questions.

photo credit: ra_hurd

I like Quora. I really do. But, why is it that I can’t go more than a few days without seeing someone asking, on what is essentially a forum, why forums are dead, how forums can be saved, why people don’t use forums or something similar?

I can only answer this question so many times. There is not enough time in the day for me to tell you that forums are not dead. I have other things I want to do.

That may be one reason I created areforumsdead.com. Day or night, 365 days a year, you can check to see if forums have died yet. It’s updated in real time.

Jokes aside, forums are not dead and they are not dying. Forums will only die when we no longer wish to have threaded, text based discussion. Since that is part of the backbone of most community and social platforms, forums are doing fine.

photo credit: Roy Montgomery

When you have a unique level of experience in a certain area, have written a book about it, author a blog on it, speak about it at conferences and events and regularly offer thoughts on the topic on other platforms, often when asked, there’s a lot of good. But, there are also a few unfortunate side effects.

I want to talk about one in particular today, which is that when you recommend something, some people take it as you saying that your recommendation is the only way to accomplish said task. And if it doesn’t match with what they do, they are offended and feel as if their knowledge and their skills have been challenged.

When, in reality, all you did was make a simple, general recommendation for a certain set of circumstances, they take it in a polarizing way, believing that you are saying that all other methods of accomplishing the goal are garbage.

photo credit: proudcanadianeh

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.

In honor of the day, I thought that I would take a moment to talk about a few things that I am thankful for right now, as they pertain to managing an online community.

I have a lot to be thankful for, both professionally and personally and this is not meant to be an all-inclusive list. Just some things that popped into my head as I pondered the question, “what, related to what I do with online communities, am I thankful for right now?”

Online Community Management as a Maturing Industry

When I started, the Community Manager role didn’t really exist. 99% of the platforms, tools and software that are now available – were not available.

In forums, I have met the majority of people that I consider close friends. One of my best friends is Jared W. Smith.

I’ve mentioned Jared here on ManagingCommunities.com numerous times, including in my article on how much I love when people who have worked under me go on to do great things.

I have known Jared for over 10 and a half years. Last Saturday, he married Stephanie Coccaro in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and I was there.

I drove 4 hours to Raleigh, North Carolina, flew to Charlotte, North Carolina and then to Savannah, Georgia. Finally, I drove another hour in a rental car to Hilton Head Island. I really wanted to be there.

photo credit: Ross Griff

In my last article, I talked about the Community Manager job title and how it can mean a lot of different things to different people. I’d like to continue that discussion today by reflecting on another trend that I have noticed.

I am hearing about companies that have training programs for community managers – and many of them. They hire people, put them through a training program and, bam, you have a community manager. This seems to be in contrast to how many other management type positions are handled.

For example, you don’t really hear of companies hiring dozens of marketing managers and running them through “marketing manager training.” There are basic skills and expertise that are expected to apply for the role – the companies don’t train them in those basic skills.

photo credit:
InterContinental Hong Kong

I have been managing online communities for more than 11 years. Given my experience, I am afforded a long range perspective on the profession of online community.

I have happily witnessed the popularization of the Community Manager job title and I am always meeting people that have it. I have loved watching the profession grow because online community is something that I am passionate about and something that I believe in.

The reality, however, is that the Community Manager job title means very little, in terms of understanding what someone actually does on a day to day basis. When someone says that they hold the title, it really doesn’t help you to learn what they are responsible for. The title itself has become a giant umbrella at many companies and one community manager at one company may have completely different responsibilities from a community manager at another company.