In Before The Lock

Erica and Brian return to Failtown to tell tales of some of their biggest screw ups. We innovated these failures so that you don't have to.

• #Fail
• • Episode 6: So far, so good
  • Flip Video Camera
  • Vanilla Forums Community Blog
  • Brian's Twitter thread on the Admin rank fail
  • Adam Nichols

• Sponsored by:
• • The Localist event platform aggregates, automates and analyzes all of your events, so you can grow your community
  • Vanilla cloud-based customer community software. Drive loyalty, grow sales, and reduce service costs

All about community measurement - Part 2: Targeting specific stakeholders, designing effective reports, and telling compelling stories.

• Designing Reports:
  • 1-page PDF report
  • Erica's weekly Chatter report
  • Remove The Legend To Become One
  • Resource: Community Metrics Template
  • Resource: Quarterly Update Template
  • Tableau Viz of the Day

• Telling Compelling Stories:
  • The Seven Basic Plots
  • Erica's Blog: Story Time

• Sponsored by:
  • Vanilla cloud-based customer community software. Drive loyalty, grow sales, and reduce service costs
  • The Localist event platform aggregates, automates and analyzes all of your events, so you can grow your community

All about community measurement - Part 1: Building a framework to measure performance, defining KPIs and health metrics, and partnering internally to accelerate your efforts.

• Framework for measurement:
• • What are the business problems (Goals) you're trying to solve?
  • • "We need to reduce our support costs"
  • What is the approach (Strategy) you will take to meet those goals?
  • • "We will build a self-service support community"
  • How will you measure (KPIs) the performance of your strategy?
  • • "Dollar value of community-served support queries"
  • What data (Metrics) will you need to calculate your KPIs?
  • • "# Visits, Survey Results, Cost Per Case, Community Cost"
• KPIs, health metrics, and program-specific measurement:
• • Resource: Community Metrics Template
  • Erica's blog: It's All About That Data
  • Mark Finnern's blog: Best in Class Enterprise Community: Salesforce Trailblazers
  • Holly Firestone (Theme Song)
  • Jessica Chen
  • Lindsey Zibell

• Sponsored by:
  • Vanilla cloud-based customer community software. Drive loyalty, grow sales, and reduce service costs

Building a Superuser program, selecting the right members, and launching it into the world.

• Superusers:
• • Resource: Sample Superuser Guidelines
  • Erica and Brian's Vanilla Conversations Talks
  • Participation Inequality
  • Celebrate your Superusers
  • Holly Firestone (Theme Song)
  • Tuvy Le

• Sponsored by:
  • Vanilla cloud-based customer community software. Drive loyalty, grow sales, and reduce service costs.

Our live session at the 2020 Virtual Comm Chat Summit about our biggest fails unironically ends in failure due to severe weather, Brian pivots to live Q&A, and Bella saves the day.

• #BlackLivesMatter
• Failure Stories:
• • The intention of this episode was to swap stories about the biggest fails we've made in our careers and share lessons learned. We will publish those as a separate episode. Thanks to the audience for being gracious as the storm wreaked havoc on our plans!
• Bella:
• • When all else failed, just look at that face!
• Community Books:
• • Building Brand Communities by Carrie Melissa Jones
  • Social Customer Experience by Dave Evans and Joe Cothrel
  • Social Media Marketing by Dave Evans and Jake McKee
• Learning vs. Experience:
• • Steve Jobs on consulting vs. owning results

• Sponsored by:
• • Comm Chat by Commsor is a private network of community leaders who believe the best way to impact the world is through community

Understanding users' motivations, designing community gamification and swag programs, and triggering Erica with U2 puns.

• Ranks, rewards, & reputation:
• • Resource: Community Gamification Template
  • Erica's blog post on fun
  • PlayStation ranks
  • Alteryx ranks
  • DataRobot ranks
  • Trailblazer ranks
  • The Real World
  • Jamie Johnston
  • Jon Wishart
  • Oliver Bierne
• Swag:
• • Holly Firestone's blog on perks and swag
  • Running socks
  • Cold weather kits
  • Top Contributor card game
  • Custom brewed beer
  • MVPJs
  • Valentines candy
  • MVP Summit kit
  • Custom shoes

• Sponsored by:
  • Khoros software and services help you win, serve, and grow customers across social marketing, digital care, and branded communities.

Defining "customer experience", cultivating a customer-first culture, and building a program to meaningfully improve across key touchpoints.

• #SaveFerris:
  • Ferris Bueller knew how to create an amazing experience
• Customer Experience:
  • Jeff Bezos on customer-focus
  • Shipping the org chart
  • Cartoon: customer satisfaction metrics
  • 100 of the Most Customer Centric Companies (2019)
  • Resource: Customer Journey Program Template
• Sponsored by:
  • Khoros software and services help you win, serve, and grow customers across social marketing, digital care, and branded communities.

Assessing if your company is ready for community, crafting a vision, and building your plan to gain alignment.

• Building a vision:
• • Marc Benioff
  • "Community is a numbers game." - Joe Cothrel

• Building a plan:
• • Resource: V2MOM
  • Okrtemplates.com
  • Resource: OKR Planning Template
  • Resource: Plan on a Page Template

• Sponsored by:
  • Khoros Syndication allows you to amplify community content throughout search, purchase, and support in a simple, scalable way.

Living in lockdown, trends and predictions for the industry, and how empathy will guide us forward.

• #covidlife:
• • Erica's recording setup
  • Brian's recording setup
• Trends and Predictions:
• • "The worst time to plan for a crisis is during the crisis" - Brian on Twitter
  • Erica's blog post - On the Other Side
  • Erica's interview in The Social Influence
  • Brian's interview in The Social Influencer
  • Brian's interview in Community5 Home Game
  • Brian on Peers Over Beers Podcast
  • Brian on Conversations with Community Managers Podcast
  • Nike's epic #playinside tweet
  • Okta CEO on their virtual conference (subscription required)
  • 1. Twitter thread
  • Bill Johnston
  • Holly Firestone

• Sponsored by:
  • Khoros' Atlas Community is a community for community professionals to connect with peers, share best practices, and discuss digital customer experience.

Navigating a layoff, how to approach looking for a job, and that time Erica didn't hire Brian.

• Brian's layoff experience:
• • Brian's LinkedIn announcement
  • Brian's commitment to help
  • Lili McDonald
  • Dani Weinstein
• Looking for a job in community:
  • CMX Job Board
  • CR Network CMGR Profiles
  • Resource: CV Template
  • Resource: Leveling template
• Sponsored By:
  • Khoros software and services help you win, serve, and grow customers across social marketing, digital care, and branded communities.