Could you speak on my behalf & propose this?

[John David Smith]

Hi Ann,

 

http://communityleadershipsummit.wikia.com/wiki/Mirror,_Mirror_in_the_Twitterverse

Mirror, Mirror in the Twitterverse, where the hell am I, what's happening, and what do I do about it? John Smith - All the side conversations in Twitter during a conference like #CLS12 change our experience and our behavior. Let's use NodeXL to look at everyone's tweets and our relationships with each other to consider profound questions like, "Where do I fit?" "Who else is around me and how are they connected to me and to each other?" and, "Can I make things better?"

Let's use this Etherpad for real-time note-taking.

I'll post some pictures on …  etc to be completed later…

It more or less has to be scheduled at 4:15 and I”ve claimed a slot at that time.

 

I’ll arrive about 1:30 or so…

 

Hop this is OK!  Thanks in advance!

 

John

* John David Smith ~ Voice: 503.963.8229 ~ Skype & Twitter: smithjd http://gplus.to/smithjd

* Portland, Oregon, USA http://www.learningAlliances.net

* Join our Ning Stackathon at http://cpsquare.org/wiki/Ning_Stackathon_project

* "If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer,

*   you are the product." -- Jonathan Zittrain

 

[Kerry Finsand]

How was the Leadership Conference?

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[The Idea Goddess (Ann Marcus)]

The Community Leadership Conference is always interesting and confusing. Interesting because the people that come are there to discuss community management and leadership...but confusing because so many of them are there in conjunction with OSCON, that much of the discussion centers around OS development communities and their...unique, arcane, specific..community structures, orientation, ways of communicating, reasons for communicating, topics they discuss. For those of us managing / leading communities that are not OS focused...and perhaps not even technology focused in their content at all (let's say, for the purpose of argument), there is very different set of needs and observations (it seems to me) from the discussion about communities that are built specifically to support OS development projects. (And I really show my ignorance here because I don't even know exactly what those differences are 'cause I'm in not in OS development...I only know sometimes I have NO idea what people are talking about.) I also recognize that there is a way we behave in person that is different than how we behave online (often) and that can mean a lot of things for leading and managing communities where there is a face-to-face component and those that are only in the ether.

The session that John (and I) attempted was only attended by one brave soul, our own Chuck Kisselberg (God love ya, Chuck!). In fact, I even bailed on the session myself as I wasn't feeling well and didn't attend on Sunday at all (still wasn't feeling great and am having my house painted--which required leadership and management...lemme tell ya!).

So perhaps someone else on the mailing list for this group, John, Dawn, Nate could chime in. Nate threw a shindig on Saturday evening...I don't know how it went..perhaps someone can fill us in.

We did have a few folks indicate that they were interested in joining a local CM group--so I will follow up and invite them.

Perhaps we can put together a steering meeting in September -- even online through WebEx -- and determine a set of topics we'd like to cover and see if we can get some folks to come in and speak. Or if we just want a casual happy hour type of approach, then then we can go with that also. But I'm curious to see what topics people would like to continue learning more about and if/how we can make that happen. 

So...that's my 1.5 cents!

:-D Ann

[Ben Fowler]

Thanks for the great recap. I wasn't there but heard about the inundation of OSCON peeps, as well as the focus on OS communities. Would love to get back to a meetup with the CM group. Keep me apprised. Topics I'm interested in include probably pretty much everything that everyone else here is interested in:

Measuring & Monitoring - Tools and Tactics

Content generation and management

Ways to increase engagement

The social business (integrating internal + external communities)

Policy/Governance/Moderation

[John David Smith]

The conversations I was in on at CLS were good, even though as Ann said, the session we tried to pull together was a flop in the sense that it was “Just Us” in the conversation (and Ann, being visibly exhausted, left!).  I was massively over-extended that week and that day, so I collapsed the next day and wrote up some reflections on why it wasn’t really a flop… J

 

So you don’t have to click on anything, I’m just going to paste what I wrote on my blog:

 

In an open space conference like the Community Leadership Summit, according to Harrison Owen’s second principle of Open Space Technology, “Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.”  But when we don’t exactly like what happens, we always want to know, Why did it happen that way?  I tried to organize a session and (almost) nobody came.  I was bummed and felt like a complete outsider.  On reflection, here’s why I think that happened:

• I had a prior commitment the morning the conference kicked off, so I got a friend to propose a session about the CLS12 hashtag for me in the opening meeting of the conference.  That was not ideal: I looked like I was voting with my 2 feet (thus trying to get away with breaking the open space law).
• Now that I think of it, CLS12 attendees didn’t seem like Twitter-dwellers to me.  Because so many of them are involved in Open Source Software communities, mostly they seem live and work on other platforms, ranging from IRC and email lists to code repositories.
• Everyone was having too much fun talking to each other face-to-face about vital topics like recruiting documentation contributors or “combating assholes” to be interested in looking at a social network graph.  Who could blame them?

But even though I was disappointed that the session wasn’t “popular,” learning the following made it worthwhile for me:

• In the scramble, it was impressive to find that Marc Smith, who was in Italy for a conference, somehow found time to help out behind the scenes.
• Discovering some useful hashtags, like #CMGRCHAT by looking at the Social Network Graph generated by NodeXL.
• Messing around with the data and practicing using the NodeXL interface in someone else’s company — stimulated by their questions– is a productive learning strategy.  I think NodeXL is pretty workable as an analytical tool, but it is too sophisticated and (given my skill level so far) too complex to use as a window or mirror for a real-time discussion about a conference or community.
• I was grateful that Ann Marcus showed up, but she was figuring out what how Twitter might be useful, so the SNA angle was pretty opaque.
• Sitting with Chuck Kisselburg, peering at a discussion about #ICANN, confirmed that seeing a community or group of known people (to him) is entirely different from looking at strangers.  Chuck recognized many people in the ICANN conversation, but I didn’t know that many people at the CLS conference.

Even though the schedule for Sunday seemed completely relevant and interesting, I decided that I was just too over-committed, so I didn’t make it to the second day.  Maybe I learned that I’m pretty much of an outsider in the open source community world.

I’m continuing to explore techniques & tools for visualizing communities that use Twitter.  I’ve collected data from #CLS12, and from each of 3 days at #OSCON.  I’m firmly on the side of “you have to be one to know one” (reports from insiders who get it are the most important source of information) school, I keep thinking that the metrics and external measures side is massively important.   Would love to talk more about it with anybody.

 

John

* John David Smith ~ Voice: 503.963.8229 ~ Skype & Twitter: smithjd http://gplus.to/smithjd

* Portland, Oregon, USA http://www.learningAlliances.net

* Join our Ning Stackathon at http://cpsquare.org/wiki/Ning_Stackathon_project

* "If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer,

*   you are the product." -- Jonathan Zittrain

 

[Kerry Finsand]

Thanks everyone for the recap.  I should be able to put together at least a happy hour in September. 

Cheers

Kerry 

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 6:06 PM, John David Smith <john....@learningalliances.net> wrote:

--

[Chuck Kisselburg]

Hi John.  Nice recap!  Thanks!  While I haven't had a chance to spend time with NodeXL, as of yet, what stood out for me, when looking at the general ICANN network, was a confirmation of who the solid, traditional players within that community have been.  It also illustrated others, who I value as solid community players, were also participating in some form, but would have probably missed.  That is what I found most interesting about NodeXL's potential.  It also allowed me to see, in a quick way, the impact certain messages may have.  So I appreciate you willing to explore NodeXL!

 

Regards,

 

Chuck

[Chuck Kisselburg]

I always enjoy CLS, so was glad to attend this year's sessions as well.

 

While CLS is typically geared around managing communities for open source developers, I always appreciated the skill set required for community management.  Where else can one be at the crossroads of so many different disciplines?  It is that mix of understanding the business, being able to communicate at both the business, management/executive, support, customer, client as well as marketing/sales and being an honest, level-headed mediator, while maintaining a strong level of integrity.  It is that combination that makes a community manager a unique person in my mind.  It is for that reason why I take so much from listening to others at CLS as well as from those within our own group.  (It should be noted I purposefully left out the word "technology" because the same concepts apply to managing non-technical communities.  I was pleased to see someone in attendance who will be managing a community that has nothing to do with technology, but the same principles apply.)

 

The top gem I walked away with deals with trying to define the distinction of "community".  Is it all marketing/social networking-based?  Over the years that has been a fuzzy distinction, especially when people/organizations know they need a community but don't fully understand the role of a good community manager.  While the topic was NOT defining the difference between CM or sales/marketing, the gem came from something one of the attendees mentioned during a discussion.  From my perspective, this is a succinct elevator pitch defining community management vs marketing/sales.

 

"A community manager creates passion, not business leads."

 

To me that nicely summed up the whole distinction.  I find it succinct, yet explanatory enough such that, as with any good elevator pitch, quickly gets the idea across while opening the door for a productive conversation.  For me, that succinct elevator pitch has been missing from the discussion, hence a gem.

 

Regards,

 

Chuck