The Historian

In the chaos of bring a major expansion I sometimes get one or two people who ask, "How do you do it?", "How to you stay calm when it seems like chaos?" and "I don’t know how you don’t just lose it sometimes".

I rarely talk about my spiritual beliefs. I’m just one of those people that feels like it is a very personal thing and I don’t want to seem like I’m forcing what I think on others. That said, it is at the core of my ability to weather the storms of the players.

At about nineteen I came across a copy of "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" by Dan Millman. Little did I know then the impact that it would have on my life. The title of this post, applies to a main character in the book, which I encourage you to read. No, I’m not going to review it here, but only touch on one aspect of its greater message: "Accept emotions completely, let your feelings be; just don’t let them run your life".

I do get angry with people. Sometimes very angry, but I try to not let it run me. In fact I try to maintain a good sense of humor. I also try very hard to understand their perspective.

So are they really mad at me? At the root of all their complaints they want the same thing we do: "A game that works well and is fun to play". Yes, they typically have a very specific thing that is most important to them, but honestly, all the complaints boil down to that one truth.

And in that, we are on the same side.

Sphere: Related Content

Earlier in the month Stuart Foster of Mashables dropped his "5 Essential Traits for Community Managers" and to be quite honest a few of us felt like he missed the mark. So I posed the question to the group of CMs I know around the gaming industry.

What do you think the the "5 Traits" should be?

This is my interpretation of their responses. They may not totally agree with what I’ve written since all communities and Community Managers differ, however these were the traits that were mentioned most often in their responses. I’ve divided them in to Primary and Secondary traits. The Primary were mentioned significantly more often than the Secondary and are in many ways tied together.

Primary Traits

Empathy: Most of us agree that we need to see things from the emotional perspective of our community. It is our understanding of their wants and needs that helps our companies make positive changes.

Community Managers need to feel what the community feels. If there is a significant change to the dynamic of the community, such as a policy change, the CM needs to feel it as it they were the community and understand the emotional impact on the community.

Communicator: We also tend to agree that communication is an important trait. The fact is that this is a large component of our jobs. We are either talking to the community or to our companies.

Communication is perhaps the most important trait. We need to be very good communicators. It isn’t just a matter of being a great speaker or writer. We often need to be able to express complex things in basic of terms so that most of the community is able to understand. Conversely we need to communicate the Community’s message to our Companies.

Perspective: This is different from empathy in that we need to be able to separate the emotions from the logical using common sense and personal experience. We need the perspective to present the right information to the community and our companies.

This is the tough one and one that can only be learned by doing. Each community is different and even within a given community there may be sub-communities that are different. The situations where you will need to use this trait will be just as unique. You can only rely on your judgment to make the best choice, for the given situation.

Advocacy: Simply put, influencing outcomes and the culmination of the three previous attributes. Sometimes this means we are advocating for the community with our companies and others for the company to the community. Either way, it is an important part of being a Community Manager.

We are the champions, the ambassadors and the evangelists. It is sometimes our jobs to ensure that the message is heard and fully understood.

---

Secondary Traits

Organization: We are masters of information and we need to keep it all together.

We deal with a lot of information and often have any tasks on our plates. Without a way to manage our time and priorities our tasks, nothing will get done. 

Analytical: Seeing beyond what is primary and often looking “outside of the box”.

We often gather a great deal of information and we need to be able to sort out the important information. Knowing that you had a 150% increase in community members from Spanish speaking countries may not be the first thing you notice, but it information you should be aware of.

Knowledgeable: We should try to be the center of the community knowledge base. We can’t know everything but we should know how to find out.

The community expects us to know just about everything about our company and products. Often this can be quite challenging due to the sheer amount of information that you might be expected to know. At the very least we should know how to get the requested information and be willing to say "I don’t know, but I will find out".

---

Ultimately these are but a few of the traits that you might expect to find in a Community Manager. It is my hope that this post opens a dialog to help further define what it means to be a CM.

Finally, one more thought. To say that "Community manager is the new it position in social media" is a misnomer. Many of the Community Managers I know have been doing the "Social Media Thing", long before it was called "Social Media". We just saw it as an aspect of what we do… reaching out the community in the best places to find them.

I would like the to thank the following people for their input. Keep in mind that may not agree 100% with my view, but this was based on their responses. I encourage you to seek them out to hear their perspective. They have helped me grow as a Community Manager and I am better for knowing them.

Jeremy Preacher: http://jeremypreacher.blogspot.com
Dan Gray: Community Manager http://bifftheunderstudy.wordpress.com
Sanya Weathers
Iain Compton: Community Manager http://www.antipwn.com/blog 
Joe Pishgar
Mathew Anderson: Community Manager for Quest Online, LLC. http://www.igda.org/wiki/User:MathewAnderson
Evan Berman
James Baldwin: Lead Moderator • The Chronicles of Spellborn & 2moons Twitter
Jill Henderson
Maggie Olsen: Community Manager – Vivox, Inc.  http://voon.vivox.com
Abel Bascunana – Ex-Community Manager, forever… unless they pay me A LOT.
Benoît Faverial
Kathleen Sanders
Katherine Connell
Meghan Rodberg: Senior Community Manager, Turbine http://twitter.com/lalalalalemon

Sphere: Related Content

I wanted to expand on the very short response I gave to Martin Reed of Community Spark. The comment was in reply to his comment on on looking beyond your core community members.

“the last thing you want to do is focus on a small core of your super members at the expense of the overall community”

My response was to give that core a name

“The ‘bubble’. The world that only includes those who post, not those who lurk or, in the case of gaming, never hit the forums. A Community Manager needs to see past the bubble.”

How often do we get stuck, inside that bubble, only seeing what is going on right in from of our faces?

It really shouldn’t be that way.

With all the ways to track and monitor social media today you should be able to get additional information about your community. In my case, I’ve got tools set up to watch for keywords related to the many games that Acclaim publishes. Everything from Blogs to News outlets and even twitter posts. I’ve registered with pseudonyms at as many fan sites and guilds sites (those that let me in) for our games as I can. All of this gives me additional insight beyond my community’s bubble.

It also allows me to respond on a very personal level to our players and fans. There is nothing more pleasing than to find a blog post about one our games, make comment and to pass the link along to our community. And the owner has to like the additional traffic and personal response. But that just scratches the surface. I’ve caught issues with games by twitter posts, helped with easy support issues and generally made myself available to anyone who want to talk to me about anything to do with our games. All in an effort to see beyond that small core of super members.

I encourage you to push past the bubble and think of new ways to find and listen to your community.

Sphere: Related Content