Bringing Community to the Executive Meetings
As employee #9 at Kickstarter, Cindy Au was the company’s second community hire. She rose to lead a team of 30, bringing community all the way to the executive meetings as Kickstarter’s VP of community.
Cindy tells the story of how she built that team, and what led Kickstarter to add community at the executive level, on this episode. Now, more than 2 years out of that job, she also talks about her efforts to find a new, challenging role that moves her career forward. Plus:
- The “a-ha” moment that happened that Cindy started participating in the executive meetings
- Why community success metrics were important to Kickstarter
- How she created a verticalized team structure based around the platform’s strongest categories
Continue reading “Bringing Community to the Executive Meetings”
Only 32% of American adults have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the mass media, according to a 
This episode is being released on Community Manager Appreciation Day 2017. We’re talking about the past, present and future of CMAD, with its creator, digital veteran 
Recently, 
Real name policies aren’t new. Online communities, social networks and comment sections have attempted to require real names before and many still do. One of them is the 
There are probably more senior community jobs than ever before. But many experienced community pros struggle to advance while remaining in the profession, because many organizations fail to prioritize community. This leaves it under department heads who don’t want to scale it and only view it as a low paying role for junior-level people.
Associations are a natural segment of the online community space, because one of the primary objectives of associations has always been connecting likeminded professionals and sharing resources. And yet, according to today’s guest on the show, “most” associations have not yet implemented an online community platform.
As community professionals, we get a zone when it comes to handling problems. We’re so used to fixing issues, that we can forget about outside resources that may be better suited for dealing with an issue than we are. Law enforcement is one of these.
Many online communities are ad-supported. Without that revenue, they may have to reduce their operations or cease to exist at all. Ad blocking is a serious threat, but what’s the best way respond to it?
After managing MetaFilter for 16 years, founder Matt Haughey stepped away from the community in 2015, handing the day-to-day operations over to a long time staff member with a small, paid team.