Marie Connelly is not a Guru.

The topic of training for community management has been coming up quite a bit lately, and after a #cmgrchat back in November, it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

As you likely already know, The Community Roundtable, WOMMA and ComBlu will begin offering training and certificates for three levels of community management later this month. (Full disclosure – I recently joined The Community Roundtable, and while I haven’t been involved in this project, it probably goes without saying that I wouldn’t be a member if I didn’t think they were providing a valuable resource to the field of community management.)

It seems as though reactions to the new training program have been fairly mixed, at least within our own little bubble. Jeremiah Owyang and Connie Benson (who’s an instructor in the program) have some good posts about why this program matters, and what it is or isn’t setting out to accomplish. Without belaboring the point, there are a few things I want to add to the conversation here:

First, don’t worry about the certificate.

All due respect to everyone involved, but I think the certificate part of all this may end up being a bit of a red herring – what really matters is the training itself. Plus, I think certification implies a level of technical competence in a field that may not be as relevant for community management as it might be in other areas, especially on the web.

I also think fears that a certificate or some kind of formal certification will have a significant impact on the way community management positions get filled are probably unfounded – as anyone who’s hired a community manager can tell you, experience counts for a lot.

No really, you can teach empathy.

I won’t pretend my English degree qualifies me to dive into the nature vs. nurture debate, but I really was surprised by the “you can’t teach empathy or compassion” reaction to the idea of preparing people for a career in community management.

I’m not trying to be glib, but I honestly can’t think of that many people I would describe as completely devoid of empathy. Perhaps I’m grossly underestimating the number of sociopaths interested in a career in community management, but I think by and large, the first step to being a successful community manager is, you know, actually wanting to be a successful community manager. (Okay, maybe that was a little glib.) It’s by no means the only necessary skill or qualification, but it does strike me as a pretty important one.

In all seriousness, I think empathy is often a function of context, both in terms of setting and subject matter. Health is something I’m pretty passionate about, and I’ve spend a lot of time immersing myself in the world of patients and practitioners, attempting to understand the challenges they face here in the US, and around the world. That’s not something I knew anything about when I started working in this field as perfectly healthy 23 year old, but the more I learned about the challenges and obstacles people encountered in accessing and providing care, the easier it became to empathize with situations outside of my own personal experience.

So, yes, there is some basic kernel of empathy that you need to have in order to be able to say to yourself, “Wow, that must be hard,” but I’d like to believe that most of us do possess that, and if someone wants to activate it, and spends the time and energy identifying opportunities to exercise that skill, I really do think there’s a strong likelihood that they’ll succeed.

Why not help them learn how to identify those opportunities?

Speaking of which, let’s stop reinventing the wheel.

When I first heard about this program, I thought, “I really wish this had been around four years ago.” Many (if not most) of us who have been doing this work for a little while are largely self-taught community managers. We learned from our experiences and our failures, and from whatever we could find out there on the web from other community managers. If you were lucky (and I was very, very lucky) you may have had an opportunity to learn from managers, coworkers and employees who all had some experience in the field as well.

Here’s the thing about experiential learning, though – it’s invaluable and hard won, but it is hard won. And honestly? Not everything needs to be hard. Let’s help make it easier for people trying to figure out things like what metrics they’ll want to track, or the basics of social listening tools, or how to put together an editorial calendar that’s appropriate for their organization.

When you have to figure out–and advocate for–all these things on your own, it takes a lot longer to get them done. That’s time not being spent on your Someday list of to-dos and features.

Selfishly, I want to see more of what’s on that list for other community managers. In my mind, that’s the biggest potential for a program like the one The CR, WOMMA and ComBlu have put together: it can help all of us move forward as an industry. We all learn and benefit from innovative community solutions and creative implementation ideas – so let’s get more of them.

What’s next?

Clearly I’m a fan of the idea of “community management training” generally, but it’s worth pointing out that the syllabus for the WOMMA Community Specialist level is pretty impressive – it looks like three weeks of solid fundamentals from people who really know what they’re talking about.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see what’s covered in the Community Manager and Community Strategist levels and where things go from there, but on the whole I think training is something we should all be talking and thinking more about. As our communities and organizations grow, our community teams will need to grow with them, and how we build our own teams and mentor those new to the field matters: the success of our industry depends on us doing it well.

Embarrassing fact: I have been trying to write this post since August, and it’s become pretty clear to me that I’m using it as a bit of an excuse to put off all the other posts I’ve been meaning to write, so here goes.

The past few months have been busy. Even when things haven’t been busy, they’ve felt busy, because that’s what starting a new job feels like. This summer I accepted a new position with an organization called GHDonline. GHDonline is focused on improving health care delivery through global collaboration and they have a large community of health care implementers from around the world who come to the site to exchange knowledge, information and resources to help patients and improve care. It seemed like the natural next step after nearly four years of building online communities over at WEGO Health, and while the transition hasn’t been easy, it’s been interesting, challenging, and actually pretty fun.

I won’t pretend to have it all figured out, and I’m sure each transition from one community to another has its own unique quirks and challenges, but I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned so far:

• It’s not all about you. The nicer version of saying this is: when you’re in transition, so is everyone else around you. Your old coworkers, your new coworkers, you old community members, your new community members…you get the idea. Everyone’s going to have an adjustment period, and I think trying to keep that top of mind as you leave a community, and get started somewhere else, can be pretty important. Be nice, be patient, be yourself.
• You’re going to make mistakes. Somehow, these mistakes will seemed more frustrating when during the transition period from one community to the next. I should know better, I thought. Maybe so, but how you handle the mistake is usually the most important part, so take a deep breath, get some good advice, and then figure out what to do about it. It’s easy to feel like the stakes are high in early interactions with new community members, new moderators and new team members, but that doesn’t mean those first emails and conversations will define your relationships completely.
• You know more than you think you do. Sure, every online community is different. We’re all unique and beautiful snowflakes. But most online communities face the same kinds of challenges – if they didn’t, how could we have such a great community of community managers? Some of these common bonds are pretty obvious, What kind of content and conversations are most interesting for members? How can we create richer engagement? How do we keep members coming back?  Other connections are harder to anticipate, but you’ll be surprised what jumps out at you, and what you didn’t realize you already knew.

I think what I’ve learned so far is most applicable for those who, like me, are going through this process for the first time, so I’d love to hear what other advice you would give to community managers getting ready to start up somewhere new?

Hey, look at that!

Some things have changed since my last post back in July. If you could only see my draft folder, friends…

While I’ve got a couple of posts in mind that I want to get up here soon (community transitions, community metrics, and community managers & control are all rattling around in my brain right now), after the #cmgrchat a few weeks ago, and yesterday’s Facebook prompt from WEGO Health, I thought sharing a little bit about my new workspace would be a good way to get the blogging juices flowing again.

It’s a little blurry, but you can see the vitals:

• Laptop: portability is key. Also, now that I think about it, the last time I regularly used a desktop computer it was one of those old iMacs that had the handle on top of the monitor…Yes, it was exactly like Rory Gilmore’s. Don’t hate.
• Second monitor: absolutely necessary for all those metric-tracking spreadsheets, but also incredibly helpful for having immediate access to a steady stream of tweets throughout the day. Don’t worry, my new coworkers already tease me about this.
• Notepad: Yes! I am a big fan of pen and paper notes. It can be frustrating because I type so much faster than I can write, but I find the trade-off is worthwhile, particularly for in person meetings. Not having my laptop means fewer distractions, which does help keep me focused on the task at hand. I also don’t like the physical barrier the laptop creates between you and the other people you’re meeting with – I think it’s harder to connect when you’re sitting across from someone and there’s a big screen is in the way.
• Multiple coffee receptacles: Or, you know, maybe I’ll start drinking tea again one of these days. (Ha.) Sadly, the green tumbler is currently empty, but happily the black mug is now half full of espresso. Whee!
• Water bottle: Multiple coffee receptacles makes staying hydrated super important, right?

Yesterday, while reading Richard Millington’s great post on how most online communities are designed for lurkers, I felt a familiar impulse: the knee-jerk reaction to come to the defense of lurkers.

I’m sure you all read Richard’s post too, and I think he makes a fantastic points – it’s easy, especially for new communities, to prioritize new members over active contributors. Most communities are optimized to get folks signed up. After that, it’s all up to your community team, and their strategy, for getting people truly involved.

Still, I’m a fan of lurkers.  Here’s why I think they matter, particularly for health communities:

1. Lurkers read. Vanessa DiMaura wrote a great article about this last January – lurkers are often “active readers”, and they see themselves as a part of the community even if you haven’t been counting them.  They’re loyal members of your site, have a stake in what you do, and see your content as relevant and valuable to their every day lives. In a community of patients or practitioners, providing information and conversation that helps members find support and solutions is often an important goal in and of itself, and lurkers help your community accomplish that.
2. Lurkers share. Whether they share your community’s content online in trackable ways, or they mention it in person, they’re spreading awareness of the topics your community is most passionate about.  When you’re writing about a misunderstood illness, or important new research for your disease, more eyes is a good thing – even if they don’t jump into the conversation right away (or at all).
3. Given the right opportunity, lurkers will engage. They’ve been reading your blog, or following your conversations, for a while now. They’re the long-time listeners who become first time callers. In online health communities, the ability to remain anonymous is often important. But if you add community polls, ways to like or vote up content that isn’t tied to a login, or other “low barrier” engagement tools to your site – more of your lurkers will be able to speak up.

Maybe I’m a fan of lurkers because it feels like rooting for the underdog, but I believe that lurkers are an important part of any online community.  Not everyone is ready to share their story right away, and many in the online health community describe the process of revealing their diagnosis and identity online as a coming out process – it’s a challenging decision, and there are very real risks.  But when lurkers become contributors, they can become some of strongest advocates for the community and it’s mission – they understand where their whole audience is coming from, not just the section of the crowd that speaks the loudest.

Image courtesy of gregthemayor on Flickr