Big Mo' and The Bears. If you watch sports, as many will do this with the Super Bowl on Sunday, you know that games can change direction. Something happens and momentum changes quite suddenly. A team that was piling up scores suddenly becomes tentative and defensive, as was the case with the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship game, even though they held on to win the game. A team that is getting badly beaten inexplicably begins doing good things again.
An alert game announcer notices these changes, and comments on them often in advance of the results having changed significantly. Usually in football, it’s a turnover, such as a fumble or interception, that opens the door for the other team to change the outcome. Sometimes it’s a dumb penalty that incites the other team to action and gets their collective head back in the game. You can probably guess that I’m really thinking in terms of our dreadful economy. Our retirement funds probably aren’t too far away from getting back to work. » Momentum matters | Community, Incorporated | ZDNet.com. » What do community managers, you know, do? | Community, Incorpo. WebWorkerDaily » Archive Online Community Managers: What Do They. In my post from earlier this week, Online Community Manager: Yes, It’s Really A Job, I talked about how online community manager jobs continue to be a hot position for web workers despite the current economic conditions.
The Monday post was in preparation for a talk that I gave at Oregon State University yesterday to a mix of students and other people from the business community in Corvallis who were interested in learning more about community management careers. I wanted to follow up on Monday’s post with a few more details about community manager positions along with a copy of the presentation that I used for my talk. The day-to-day responsibilities of a community manager contain an interesting mix of tactical tasks and strategic planning for most community managers, and the work usually falls into four areas: Facilitation. Content. Evangelism. Evolution. What suggestions do you have for someone who wants to become a community manager?
Web Community Management Tips. Whether intentional or not, Bob Garfield from NPR’s “On the Media” reopened an old wound when he questioned the need for user comments on newspaper Web sites. The “comments issue” is polarizing. Die-hard community advocates believe comments are an integral part of the online experience. Detractors draw a straight line between user comments and the apocalypse. It’s a contentious topic with very little middle ground. However, this latest flare up offers an opportunity to redirect the focus to some of the time-tested best practices for managing Web communities. Derek Powazek (whom we recently interviewed for an unrelated piece) offers an excellent starting point with “10 Ways Newspapers Can Improve Comments,” and Cory Doctorow’s “How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community” is also recommended reading. I’ve also picked up a few bits of wisdom from my own experiences as a community manager: Nurture the Good — The majority of people want to do the right thing.