Episode 086 - Nicole Saunders - Walking into an Established Community and an Existing Culture

Chris Detzel: Alright, welcome to another peers over beers i'm krista tool and.

Nicole Saunders: i'm Nicole Saunders.

Chris Detzel: Nicole, how are you today.

Nicole Saunders: i'm good we're recording a little early i've got coffee instead of beer today.

Chris Detzel: Well, you know I already drink my coffee and I had some water but, but it is a Samuel Adams come up.

Nicole Saunders: There we go accounts yeah so I had water in it, but.

Chris Detzel: You know, and I changed my background, so I thought i'd do a little bit of promoting you know peers over beers who knows, maybe have something later I just like to play around with stuff and see what happens.

Chris Detzel: I don't anyways so we were talking a lot about a lot of things, one is you're going on vacation so that's pretty cool.

Nicole Saunders: I am yeah.

yeah.

Nicole Saunders: we're gonna go we're gonna go skiing in Colorado so this people watching a video this this picture here is actually when I I painted it one of those like paint night classes, where you go to a bar and.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: Do you something.

Nicole Saunders: Far this is.

Nicole Saunders: This is not the picture that they had painted that day, but it was a mountain seen, and this is a picture that i'd actually taken in Colorado and so.

Nicole Saunders: Well haven't painted the mountain so i'm gonna i'm going here that's where i'm headed sweet and your painter.

Nicole Saunders: So I didn't know that i'm only really by a hobby.

Nicole Saunders: pretty much the paint night things my mother picked up painting at age 65 and we got in it and going to these classes together and she's like now taking art classes and doing all these things it's amazing.

Chris Detzel: it's crazy, are you.

Chris Detzel: got to do you go to like bars and paint.

Chris Detzel: Because you have to back you know.

300.

Nicole Saunders: actually doing them virtually now so it's actually been kind of fun to like set up in my kitchen be doing a little.

Chris Detzel: You have like a little buzz going on, or is that not really.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah.

Nicole Saunders: I do not find the alcohol helps me.

Nicole Saunders: As an artist so i've been thinking a sparkling waters.

Chris Detzel: Do like sparkling water, you know we could get into that but let's not look good for you, for going on vacation I think that's so important is to can I allow yourself to to get out not think so much about work, although you know, maybe you will, but hopefully you don't.

Nicole Saunders: It is it is so important, I haven't had a really truly good break since the pandemic started so i'm i'm very excited to to go do it That being said, I have one employee ID number, so I might I might say hello to have one off there but.

Nicole Saunders: yeah, why not purely purely social.

Chris Detzel: yeah I have a beer or something or.

Chris Detzel: Coffee I don't know, whatever it depends.

Nicole Saunders: You know.

Chris Detzel: put down a day.

Chris Detzel: So we're talking about a couple things one was and we not to get into this, but it was interesting is when you leave to go on vacation you know, and you have employees, you know it's probably a little bit.

Chris Detzel: Especially pre code probably haven't done a lot of places and spent, maybe, but you know kind of leaving them to fend for themselves in a way right.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I actually so you know, on the one hand, in a.

Nicole Saunders: While we were talking about a little earlier, you know it makes me a little bit more nervous than when I was a team of one, because when I when I knew exactly what weather wasn't going to be happening, well, I was out.

Nicole Saunders: And when you manage people it's a little bit more of letting it go on the other hand, of course, it's it's great to have people that are going to keep everything moving forward and.

Nicole Saunders: And that kind of thing, and I think it's a good opportunity I think it's important for leaders to leave their teams to kind of fend for themselves from time to time, because I think people.

Nicole Saunders: They get a better sense of what meetings are happening because they gotta jump in or they really sort of figure out how to do things independently.

Nicole Saunders: I also think it's a great time for skip levels saris encourage my team to schedule meetings with my boss, while i'm out.

Nicole Saunders: time for them to connect and kind of do that sort of thing so.

Chris Detzel: yeah and that some people are a little bit more motivated to do that kind of stuff than others, I see yeah.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I mean you know everybody's got their thing that they're more or less comfortable with but I try to push everybody to make that make that effort will amount.

Chris Detzel: that's good I like that and.

Chris Detzel: The other thing that we were talking about which I think will spend a lot of time on this episode is kind of thinking about going into a.

Chris Detzel: An existing Community like if you're one is be offered a job, like, for you, your zendesk and you kind of came into an existing Community with an existing culture.

Chris Detzel: And it was I don't know how big it was but it.

Chris Detzel: Had you know, several Members or users and things like that, so you know it's pretty established, but you know.

Chris Detzel: We don't we don't hear about this a lot is you know you seem like you, you mentioned pre show is there's a lot of jobs out there senior roles.

Chris Detzel: That they want them to come in to either relaunch a Community that's been existing for a long time or go in there and create programs and and those kinds of things.

Chris Detzel: You know so wanted to dive in a little bit deeper for in that particular conversation because we don't hear a lot about that.

Nicole Saunders: yeah yeah no it's it is really interesting you know, one of the things that i'm loving seeing the comedians right now is that there are a lot more leadership roles you're starting to see more heads of Community director roles like mine, even vpn community.

Nicole Saunders: And, in many cases they're not hiring somebody at that level to come in and launch something new.

Chris Detzel: Right.

Nicole Saunders: And it's taking an established Community and in some cases it's reinvigorating something that's gotten kind of dead, but in other cases it's you know walking into a fully.

Nicole Saunders: fledged Community that has a culture that has programs that have all these things established.

Nicole Saunders: And you know oftentimes they're wanting it to go in a new direction or or do something a little different with it, but there's just not there's not a ton of material out there yet about.

Nicole Saunders: How to step into that kind of role, most of the the content and the education for Community managers focuses on those early stages of planning and starting and launching and getting people excited.

Nicole Saunders: And so i'm really interested to start having more conversations around, how do you come into an existing space and do something with it, what is that all about what what is the strategy look like there, so I think it's a really interesting.

Nicole Saunders: challenge, especially if you're trying to change a culture in a well established Community and now it's not just what the company is trying to put out there, but it's working with all of the existing members all the existing programs.

Chris Detzel: You know what i've heard and and you know let's get into some of the things that you might think about, but I also think one, it depends on the Community right like is it a.

Chris Detzel: Support community and they want to move this Community, to be more of a pure pure Community or you know my thinking as well, do you really want to move the support community has probably some value there, but how do you also kind of create this you know, maybe it's a.

Chris Detzel: This thought leadership type peer to peer type or you know, whatever that is but.

Chris Detzel: You know a lot of times you know i've heard that you know when when a community is there that.

Chris Detzel: I hear people say well you know, right now, we just have a support Community you know we really want.

Chris Detzel: To start this peer to peer network he you know and a lot of times you do that from marketing because marketing wants the leads everything else and.

Chris Detzel: And that kind of stuff you know I started thinking about that a lot, you know what is the.

Chris Detzel: Peer to peer community and moving it from you know support to peer to peer and all that kind of stuff I don't know getting off a little bit, but.

Chris Detzel: But I do think that sometimes that's kind of where that comes from, and it could come from it usually it's from marketing and maybe it used to be in like a customer.

Chris Detzel: Support customer or you know type of stuff I don't know what are you hearing and what are your thoughts around kind of going into a.

Chris Detzel: Community that is maybe focused in on one area, but once can they want to move to that other.

Chris Detzel: Does that make sense.

Nicole Saunders: yeah no totally I mean that's that's what I came into it zendesk it was very much a Community lives in our help Center it's there for our free customers to ask questions and that's where they get support, and that is the role of the Community.

Nicole Saunders: And, to be fair that's not a bad role for a Community, but I think the challenges that a lot of people.

Nicole Saunders: In particular, for me and executives, or you know the people that are looking at like what is what's the strategic positioning of the Community, what what is the role that plays in our ecosystem.

Nicole Saunders: A lot of the promise of communities is that you're going to have all these users are going to be talking to each other and supporting each other and.

Nicole Saunders: Sharing all these ideas and insights all this product feedback and then they launch you know, like a Q amp a support forum and what they see is a lot of users, that come once or twice a year.

Nicole Saunders: And to ask a question, and it gets answered, and then they go on their way.

Nicole Saunders: And it's sort of this interesting thing, where you know people looking for these companies that are like thriving really growing, but then they've set up something that's very transactional and like Why would you go there if it wasn't just to get a question answer yeah.

Nicole Saunders: And I mean there's a lot to be done in support communities to build up you know.

Nicole Saunders: motivating other people to answer things but it's true and it's you know from that we've been working with very heavily at zendesk is how do we maintain the integrity of that great.

Nicole Saunders: You know peer to peer support and the the we don't like to call it ticket deflection we call it ticket interception.

Nicole Saunders: That we you know the the support that happens in the Community.

Nicole Saunders: But then also build it out so that you're not just answering transactional questions, but having other kinds of conversations and I think the other interesting question, there is, how do you drive users to Community for more than just when they have a problem.

Nicole Saunders: yeah right, how do you create an atmosphere where people aren't just showing up when they're stuck or they're frustrated, but also when they have an idea or when they want to just sort of discuss um so yeah it's an interesting challenge it, you know for us it's been a lot of.

Nicole Saunders: Some of it's just changing how you position things on the site right like what's what's the copy, how do you introduce people to it, but for us a lot of it has been launching new programs and expanding the content types that we offer and what is encompassed by Community.

Nicole Saunders: moving from just being a forum into a fully fledged set of programs that we're launching user groups, and we do virtual events now and all of these things that weren't happening before in the Community.

Chris Detzel: write all this down it's good stuff.

Nicole Saunders: taking notes.

Chris Detzel: taking notes, but yeah I have to record.

Nicole Saunders: recorded yeah you.

Chris Detzel: know it also helps me to kind of think about some of the things that you're saying, because.

Chris Detzel: I like so i'm going to kind of will i'll dive in here because I think one is ticket interception I love that it's a great idea because.

Chris Detzel: It just kind of the deflection pieces I don't know It just seems overused and everything else.

Nicole Saunders: Well, you don't want your customers asked questions.

Nicole Saunders: You just want to get them answered in a different way right.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah and that's that's that isn't it interesting, so the interception pieces more of hey you know we kind of put it that way, then it's a different way of answering is that right or what tell me a little bit more about interception.

Nicole Saunders: I think it just changes the goal right, and I think our tendency has been I mean this is totally like a semantic thing right.

Nicole Saunders: But deflection sort of implies that you're trying to prevent your customers for getting in touch with you right.

Nicole Saunders: or like you're trying to prevent that question from hitting support which I guess you are but.

Nicole Saunders: it's not that we don't want to still have that conversation with them it's just that we want to have that conversation in that public forum.

Nicole Saunders: yeah where that information can then be available in other ways um I think it's also a recognition that most people don't have one question and show up and you to get and gets answered or not once we were working through something.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: And you might get part of the answer in the forum and then find a partner like well Okay, we got you two thirds of the way here, but now you're going to actually need to talk to the agent to get these.

Nicole Saunders: last couple of nuggets or the specifics, for your account or something and so we're intercepting the question we're getting sentiment answered, but it recognizes that a lot of those conversations are more complex and it's not just going to be.

Nicole Saunders: A bounce away, but in fact it might be sort of like a network of people that work in answering this user.

Chris Detzel: like that, and you know let's be clear, I think there's huge value in.

Chris Detzel: In support communities, so you know.

Chris Detzel: meeting people you know, whenever you know I hear like executives talk about well, we have this support Community well.

Chris Detzel: there's some value there, and people are going there for a reason and then, if you look at even.

Chris Detzel: You know, some opportunity for the business is it's all about you know if it's open and public it's all about getting that answered quickly from Google, because when people search at the end of the day, it's Google, you know so.

Nicole Saunders: Totally yeah.

Chris Detzel: So there is a huge opportunity and, for me, you know that's what we have today, but I am also thinking about.

Chris Detzel: kind of that next step of you know, the different it's a different user so today our our our.

Chris Detzel: Community in our product is very kind of complex right, I mean it's extremely complex and so definitely a community that teaches people how to use it and.

Chris Detzel: Things that they did no go deep into the product and Raven blogs and content, you know videos and all these kinds of things is highly important so that's now established, but now it's kind of thinking about well.

Chris Detzel: that's good you know I like that, but I want to start thinking about brand awareness, I want to think of think about you know.

Chris Detzel: Networking I want to start thinking about you know, like we do today, for example, you and I are talking I also talked to others that are leaders within the Community space.

Chris Detzel: To get the word out to show people how we use, so I want to start doing that, with the real to Community or whatever I call it right, you know it's it's we're going to have the support community.

Chris Detzel: But I want to start getting data people together, whether they're cios ctos or directors of data governance or whatever talking about.

Chris Detzel: Not real to per se, but more about you know how they solve data problems at the end of the day, could be other technologies could be you know just.

Chris Detzel: Putting a strategy together could be all those kinds of things and I want to have conversations like this, I want to just talk to them and and then I want to start building content around that because really you think about how much bigger that opportunity is rather than.

Chris Detzel: Just that support Community that is solving this the product problem that's all we're talking about is the product and the problems that people are having.

Chris Detzel: it's good, and we want to continue to solve that and we want to solve that at scale, because at the end of the day, you know our.

Chris Detzel: Support agents aren't gonna be able to handle that skill, as we get bigger and bigger and bigger, but I also want to be kind of this.

Chris Detzel: encompassing community that you know i'm allowing our customers our potential customers our you know the data.

Chris Detzel: influencers out there, bringing those people together and it's in having those exciting conversations about the data problems that people are trying to solve does that make sense.

Nicole Saunders: No absolutely I mean that's The thing is that you know your customers are you know whoever's your audience are going to questions about that thing you do.

Nicole Saunders: yeah but it's.

Nicole Saunders: it's always going to be tied to what they're trying to do with it right.

Nicole Saunders: Yes, what's their business problem of the other things and.

Nicole Saunders: You know people absolutely need those answers to those technical questions.

Nicole Saunders: Yet, but they also want to know how to connect that into their bigger business problems or their you know, whatever.

Nicole Saunders: Again, depending on your kind of community when we think about the B2B use case but I got applies for any kind of.

Nicole Saunders: Where you know there's there's the support piece, but there's also the talking about the broader thing and.

Nicole Saunders: Not that every brand community has to become the destination for their type of audience right some some groups do that really well because the destination for you know content marketers and.

Nicole Saunders: Even people that don't use the products will come to that Community for that resource and I don't know that you have to go that far right um.

Nicole Saunders: I think it's great when when companies are able to do that.

Nicole Saunders: But you do need to be able to talk about those bigger conversations, if not just like hey how do I use, you know, like presenters can I use this to do take it in, but like.

Nicole Saunders: what's the best way to do that right, and how should How should we structure my support organization, how should I.

Nicole Saunders: scale my support organization and in setup zendesk in a way that scales, with it, and that kind of thing so Those are some of the things that we look at you know it's it's interesting as.

Nicole Saunders: part of my debate has been how big the role of the forum is right, and is it that the forum is the Q amp a place, and these other conversations make more sense in virtual events and podcasts in more synchronous conversations.

Nicole Saunders: And sort of have tried to understand like how much of that can happen in the written format in the forums and some of that I think depends on your technology or tool and help how much that enables that kind of thing as well, but.

Nicole Saunders: So it may depend on the audience few.

Nicole Saunders: But i've definitely seen like there's a lot of a lot of organizations that have that support forum in place and trying to pivot that.

Nicole Saunders: it's like a big heavy ship in the middle of waves in the ocean it's very hard to I think get all of those users and that culture that's built up in the Community to shift, and I think you can do it.

Nicole Saunders: But anything has happened very slowly and incrementally over time with a lot of concerted effort or the other thing that i've seen successful is when people actually like.

Nicole Saunders: turn the lights off for a period of time whether overnight or a week or two and then come back and do a relaunch and a full like okay we're doing things differently we've got a different structure we've got different.

Nicole Saunders: Design all of these things, and in that sense kind of go back to a lot of the material we're talking about the beginning of.

Nicole Saunders: How do you launch a Community right and treating it almost as though you're launching a new Community with a bunch of existing content and people ready to go.

Chris Detzel: You know what i've been thinking about this and i'm not sure if I never know if it's the right thing to do, you just kind of try that.

Chris Detzel: So with our platform.

Chris Detzel: We can have we have multiple license so I can have this Community over here, and then I can do this I don't know if it's a subdomain or they give me additional domains, or whatever.

Chris Detzel: And I could start another Community over here does that make sense.

Chris Detzel: And then, it looks you can design it differently, you can design it.

Chris Detzel: So my thought is maybe it's two communities that still funnels into the same data and everything else, but from a.

Chris Detzel: Customer standpoint, you know you could or from a user standpoint, it looks different it's called something different, has different URL but it's you know from the same platform, you can you can create some logic in the back end to kind of separate the two right.

Chris Detzel: And then you know start creating it is from scratch, but more of a kind of a whatever type of peer to peer or you know that.

Chris Detzel: You know, higher level type of conversations right, because I believe that and i've asked several people on our Community today again it's a support to them.

Chris Detzel: i'm like well what business problems are you trying to solve with real to master data management I don't know yet as business people, you know and i'm like well.

Chris Detzel: you're in this thing all day long and you're using it and you don't know why you're using it.

Chris Detzel: No i'm just trying to implement it or i'm trying to you know the tech kind of people, you know doing stuff and i'm just like Okay, so that audience probably will never be the right audience i'm not saying you.

Chris Detzel: can help them understand like kind of business outcomes and goals and things like that, but it's a different people right like so if this person to.

Chris Detzel: You know admin for a real to mdm and they're doing stuff probably not the same as a director of enterprise architecture, or you know, a cto or whatever director of whatever the data governance or something.

Chris Detzel: That they're yes these real to but, so I think I wonder if it would be a really matter relaunch but a new launch in a sense, because depending on your like for us, I don't know I would want to take away that support.

For all right.

Chris Detzel: So kind of keep that, as is in a way, but have somebody else manage it night crystal so somebody manages that piece, but then I can go off and do these other things that really kind of you know.

Chris Detzel: Just thinking out loud, but I think you know the experience and the people that you're trying to you know you know from a pure pure type stuff or different i'm not saying you can't do peer to peer for support forums and things you can and i'm trying to do some of that but.

Chris Detzel: When you want that higher level conversations I think it's one it's probably a different audience, you know what I mean.

Nicole Saunders: Well, knowing what those like different personas are in your Community right and.

Nicole Saunders: Somebody that is a.

Chris Detzel: You know.

Nicole Saunders: Support agent that's trying to implement a tool versus a.

Nicole Saunders: You know, a director, or something like you're going to be different.

Nicole Saunders: offerings and so you know I think the question is, do you have different offerings in the same community space, do you have different.

Nicole Saunders: Kennedy spaces in some cases we have it all together different Program.

Nicole Saunders: You know, for example.

Nicole Saunders: A lot of the executives that we talked to they want community in the sense that they want to talk to other negative two are also customers of our business but they don't want to go spend time on forums and.

Chris Detzel: never even do that.

Nicole Saunders: Right, and so the Community offering there is, you know, a curated time boxed conversational meeting that we set up for them, as opposed to forums that's still Community that's still there, offering for communities what fits for their persona.

Nicole Saunders: yeah because I think that's, the question is like really understanding what are all the different personas you serve.

Nicole Saunders: And what is the appropriate Community offering for that group and and helping to build and develop that, and you know so maybe what we're really calling out here is that.

Nicole Saunders: A lot of places to have Community that serves one persona really effectively and then, when you start adding, on the other, personas you can't just sort of like rinse and repeat, you have.

Nicole Saunders: to figure out how to.

Nicole Saunders: curate something specific to that audience and what.

Chris Detzel: Their needs are.

Chris Detzel: I think it's like you can look at it as a product right like.

Nicole Saunders: mm hmm.

Chris Detzel: yep no product, for you know, a curation for executives in the space program for these people in this space that program, for you know what I mean like and you can do it by roles, or I don't know whatever.

Chris Detzel: But I think you're right is it all depends on your audience and having that narrowed it down and who those people are.

Chris Detzel: there's so so much things to talk about because you're right my my thought is, and I think you've said this before, because you kind of a content person in the past and.

Chris Detzel: probably still do a lot of that.

Chris Detzel: is even those higher level conversations, how do you capture that and how do you get you know.

Chris Detzel: Your court, it can you, you know, have you know write those if it's blogs, then write those blogs on the behalf of that person That said, these things you know or.

Chris Detzel: If that's why I think podcast or webinars or those kinds of things are very from a content standpoint, are very valuable and very helpful because you can.

Chris Detzel: You can just get all kinds of quick hit videos videos soundbites blog content Q amp a I mean you can get a lot of shit you know from just one piece of one one program you know what I mean like.

Nicole Saunders: And so anyway.

Chris Detzel: that those are things I think about a lot because.

Chris Detzel: You know I guess when you're just a few people one person whatever you know you've got to kind of be scrappy and you know.

Chris Detzel: Eventually you've got to become more strategic and scrappy but you know still i'm not there yet right but.

Chris Detzel: I don't know, I think, to me it's always about capturing that stuff and then starting to get it out to the public and to the you know the branded stuff you know I don't know I mean just to get a lot of.

Nicole Saunders: It yeah I think that's super important you know we've been talking about that on our team as we've been talking about certain terms like what are the artifacts they get.

Nicole Saunders: Out of all of this stuff and you know you put so much effort into putting together something like a webinar or a Roundtable discussion or something.

Nicole Saunders: It should be more than just that one time thing right, and you know, obviously, the low hanging fruit is like okay we'll make that on demand.

Nicole Saunders: And then think about how you share that on demand piece, and then one of the things we've looked at doing is.

Nicole Saunders: Getting written transcript and identify hey are there snippets of this that we should cut out and be like here's a in encapsulated question and answer, is there a support Article that video could get embedded in.

Nicole Saunders: yeah should we write a support Article you know and publish it in the help Center that says that and.

Nicole Saunders: You know, one of the things i've been kind of playing with on and off for a couple years is, how can we start to give credit to the Community members.

Nicole Saunders: who contribute knowledge.

Nicole Saunders: That we eventually turn into a knowledge base, Article right we're where we're crowdsourcing the information that we're starting to present in our official documentation.

Nicole Saunders: And that's something that i'm you know i'm still wanting to build out and figure out really how to build out at scale.

Nicole Saunders: But I think it's really interesting when you can start to bring in that knowledge and then surface it and promote it on their behalf to.

Nicole Saunders: And so there's you know all of youth committee conversations are so rich and it's so important to think about what is the next step, and how are you going to take that even further and continue to surface it and highlight it and make use of it and I think you get a lot more bang.

Nicole Saunders: For your buck when you start looking at things that way.

Chris Detzel: yeah I think i'm always about curation just you know what is you get all this content and you solve a big problem so i'll give you an example.

Chris Detzel: is one of the big problems that we have is a lot of big problems in the product is this thing called workflow.

Chris Detzel: Management and so you know how do you build workflows how you do all this other stuff and for the last I don't know eight months the number one search word on the Community platform is workflow.

Chris Detzel: Like could we do some workflow stuff you know questions answers videos whatever and so i've been maniacally focused in on.

Chris Detzel: You know workflow management workflow how, how does it work, you know, and all this stuff and so you just recently, now I have we did a.

Chris Detzel: webinar just basically a Community show, is what I call it in December, and from that one Community show, I have four blog articles to the last one went out or the.

Chris Detzel: yeah the fourth one went out today I capture that Q amp a push that out on you know the Community, and then I did another had another expert do a.

Chris Detzel: in depth, you know kind of just this really technical workflow.

Chris Detzel: thing you know, a webinar and then you know what I will do is create a page one pager that has all the blog the videos the Q amp a so you curate all that stuff and then.

Chris Detzel: Over time it's going to be the number one search thing, not just on our Community, but probably on Google as well, and I think it's important to not not just push out that content but find it, you know, make it easy for your.

Chris Detzel: guests and folks to get by creating those one pagers or whatever, with all that rich content on that one topic.

Chris Detzel: You know me i'm so sorry I just got off there, but I do think it's important to really maniacally focused on what the problem is.

Chris Detzel: Just one or two little Q and a's is not going to work, you know it helps, I guess, but how do you just kind of solve that problem just.

Chris Detzel: One big chunk here's the problem you get there over time, you know, took us months to sell those blogs, because you know going back and forth, but you know, at the end of the day, what's going to happen is.

Chris Detzel: Five months from now, you know, three months from now we're going to have so much content on that topic that hey you know this Community thing is doing really well.

Chris Detzel: And I want to figure out a way to start capturing that at the higher levels, you know, whenever I have a real to Executive Council, and you have CEO and cto talking about all kinds of cool stuff you know what I mean and you're like.

Chris Detzel: You know i've written down some shit but you know, like how do I do the same, you know I want to do the same thing i'm doing with the because, for some reason it's easier with this.

Chris Detzel: You know community that I have today that maybe there's just so much content around it and people were willing to share or.

Chris Detzel: Our organization is smart and that stuff you know, but how do you go outside of that you know to do that, and the last thing i'll say is because you mentioned this and I think it's important pieces.

Chris Detzel: i'm starting to get or push customers to present and maybe like this one guy he's a director of technical architecture, or something like that you know, one of our companies.

Chris Detzel: And he said, Chris i'll do it so he's going to present you know how real to.

Chris Detzel: mdm and the business outcomes how it's changed what they are, you know the implementation and all these kinds of cool things and I was like.

Chris Detzel: Perfect i'm gonna write two or three blocks around that on his behalf and get this Q amp a that people ask video on the throw some you know, or you know i'm going to.

Chris Detzel: produce lots of content on his behalf so that's that's our first time to ever do that you know and i'm so excited about it, hopefully doesn't cancel.

Chris Detzel: out, I mean but it's on the books and stuff, so I think you know, trying to think about that, but at the higher levels is is for some reason harder I don't know.

Nicole Saunders: What you know to kind of bring it full circle with like our conversation about serving all the different personas really what it sounds like you're talking about is.

Nicole Saunders: figuring out what kinds of engagement work for each persona or each group.

Nicole Saunders: And then building out the content motion around that and starting to figure out how can you have some of those repeatable processes and how can you replicate those things where.

Nicole Saunders: Maybe this audience mostly engages in the forum and this audience most engaging webinars and this one, mostly engages and more like Roundtable discussions, but then, how do you pull the same kinds of information out of each of those.

Nicole Saunders: yeah share it back out because there are probably learnings.

Nicole Saunders: From that executive Roundtable.

Nicole Saunders: course that are relevant to other audiences those audiences are going to ever get to go to that Roundtable so you're going to figure out how to how do I publish that how do I share that.

Nicole Saunders: How do I generate that conversation for this other group and get them talking about those those topics that are relevant to them so.

Chris Detzel: yeah right, you know.

Nicole Saunders: Just just something simple like building up that kind of ecosystem.

Nicole Saunders: Right.

Chris Detzel: You know it's it's weird because you know I can go into organization easily and start building out a Community I know exactly what to do, I know, all those things but.

Chris Detzel: You know one thing that you know is I don't know if it's difficult but because if you're doing it about the product, we have, I can find product information, whether it's on.

Chris Detzel: You know there's different parts of the organization there's some smart people that know all about the product and how to use it there's.

Chris Detzel: You know there's probably videos somewhere that I can use and redo or write some stuff around but there's nothing around thought leadership and nothing around.

Chris Detzel: You know, we have one or two thought leaders in our organization you can't rely on the cto and founder for all of that content, you know what I mean you have to.

Chris Detzel: play so the harder part is is thinking about going outside of the organization and finding it could be customers, which is.

Chris Detzel: A little harder but it's still you know, probably easier than finding non customers right, you know because.

Chris Detzel: And then there's probably people, you can pay to do that, that are thought leaders in that or maybe they want to be part of whatever you're trying to do, but you know those relationships and those conversations at.

Chris Detzel: Our level is is hard you know, like i'm not saying you can't do it we're doing it today we're making content for our for leaders and Community managers that you know that want to learn about Community things but.

Chris Detzel: Even that's hard right somebody has to kind of go out and say Nicole, you want to do this so So do you want to do this, or whatever right and.

Chris Detzel: By doing that for your organization, I mean why couldn't work, you know what I mean like how if I spent all my time.

Chris Detzel: Just calling people or emailing people or linkedin people said hey Nicole, you know your your data governance guru you know let's get on the phone and record this conversation studies, but I mean you still have that setup and everything else you have to do you know.

Nicole Saunders: Well that's.

Nicole Saunders: I think there's a lot of Community you know, at the end of the day, it's not that complex it.

Chris Detzel: it's not.

Nicole Saunders: getting people to talk to each other and share information that's useful to both of them, but that doesn't mean it's not.

Nicole Saunders: Hard right and it's because it's time intensive and you know I think I might even mentioned some of the previous podcast but I saw david's banks person on linkedin a couple weeks ago he's been doing a lot of these sort of like little.

Nicole Saunders: quips or one liners about Community and he was saying, you know community is built by things doing things that don't scale.

Nicole Saunders: Right it's those high touch activities and it's so true and that's the end of day what makes it hard and and really the sort of the brilliance of Community teams is how do you do.

Nicole Saunders: So much with a handful of people, how do you engage.

Nicole Saunders: 10s or hundreds of thousands of customers and have these conversations and generate all of this content with.

Chris Detzel: A handful of people in three or four people or whatever right yeah.

Nicole Saunders: yeah yeah and that's really I think the magic of what Community managers do is they figure out how to support all of these different things, and I mean you know you think about it it's like.

Nicole Saunders: we're supporting answering support questions in a forum we're pretty thing video content we're producing written content we're producing events we're doing user recognitions we're doing around it, you know there's.

Chris Detzel: it's fucking crazy.

Nicole Saunders: Though many function it's wearing all the hats right.

Chris Detzel: it's insane it is that that's the beauty of community, but you know, I think, can I bring that around is.

Chris Detzel: You know, we would have to focus in on the things that are going to matter, the most want to our Community, but also to the organization.

Chris Detzel: So you get also think about business outcomes business impact versus also you know your Community so your community itself, so you just have to be smart about what you can and can't do.

Chris Detzel: And that's very difficult Nicole like because I want to do all this stuff I have all these ideas, and I want to do it, I know I can do some of it, but what happens is.

Chris Detzel: You know I have this program over here, I have this program over here and then somebody else to give me more responsibility to do this thing over here and now, all these cool programs that I did I can't scale it and I can't create.

Chris Detzel: These quick hit videos or these things you know, on a regular basis, because I don't have time and I get burned out things like that, so you have to worry.

Chris Detzel: about that.

Chris Detzel: Think about that.

Nicole Saunders: And that makes me to get two things you know one.

Nicole Saunders: We sort of started talking about these all these leadership roles that are out there and like that head of Community that director that VP like that person's job is really to figure out hey our Community team could do 100 things.

Nicole Saunders: That would all be amazing to help our customers strategically what makes sense.

Nicole Saunders: yeah order should they happen in how you know where do we.

Nicole Saunders: Do the most, but the other thing is that I think organizations really need to be prepared, that when you hire that person or those couple of people.

Nicole Saunders: That team is going to need to regularly scale because, as you launch each of these programs.

Nicole Saunders: it's very hard to go to Community members and say hey we know you love this thing, but we don't have bandwidth this quarter so we're just going to put it on hold right like a Community becomes a living organism.

Nicole Saunders: If you go in and say we're going to stop supporting our forums users, probably aren't going to stop posting.

Nicole Saunders: Right probably not going to stop having this conversation.

Nicole Saunders: there's gonna be frustrated that you're not as engaged.

Nicole Saunders: And so I think that's another key thing.

Nicole Saunders: is for you know teams and leaders to be prepared that like i'm going to hire this person they're going to come in they're going to put it, the other strategic plan of how to build this out and make it more.

Nicole Saunders: But then, as those program launched we're going to be the hire additional people to keep those programs.

Nicole Saunders: Going it's most of these things are not something that you can set for debt and that's one of the real truth of communities.

Nicole Saunders: These are things that are very high touch and you can touch hundreds of thousands of people with a smallish team.

Nicole Saunders: But you got to be prepared to support it and really give some thought to what you do launch because, once you do it's out there and it's alive and that it needs care and attention, whether you know you've prioritize it or not so.

Chris Detzel: You said some smart things today and I appreciate that.

Nicole Saunders: Well, thank you that's pretty good for a morning.

Chris Detzel: it's great for the morning I I The last thing I think about this is, as you kind of scale that team and, and you know you do some really cool things in community.

Chris Detzel: The other piece I think you're in it's not a big long conversation we should have today, but it could be is you know.

Chris Detzel: We have to always think about, you know as the business, you know grows, or what if it doesn't grow, you know and how do we become.

Chris Detzel: You know, a core piece of the organization, because people come and go leaders come and go some leaders believe in it, some leaders don't and so you know you have a skill, you have a team of 578 people you know.

Chris Detzel: they'll be like what the hell is this Community thing and what's the value seriously like that's what happens, I mean it's happened to me.

Chris Detzel: And they'll start cutting you know because it's like Oh yes, seven people oh my God, you know, like.

Chris Detzel: The reason I bring that up not to be a downer but is to you know as to call it being the leader has to win people new people come in and even you know you need help with it with your staff, I assume, push my staff to be like in front of people.

Chris Detzel: All day, every day, as much as possible to just show the value what is it you know and be able to speak their language you know you've got to consistently do that and think about that, because you know you might be on a.

Chris Detzel: High for three or four years, they all the awesome things come up and then all the sudden.

Chris Detzel: You know you get a new CEO and I co brings in all their leaders are you going to do marketing leader or I don't know, whatever it is, you know that if you're not up here.

Chris Detzel: You know, talking to him, then don't have those calm executive sponsors in the day, make sure you're continuously pushing for those that that leadership kind of guidance and support it's it's so important.

Nicole Saunders: yeah well, maybe that's something we can dive into more next time because I agree with you it's it's super important and how you tell that story and how you show that value is a big piece of the puzzle, so I think we've got a future podcast with him.

Chris Detzel: awesome I like it well, Nicole it's been great.

Nicole Saunders: Thanks yeah was a pleasure yeah it's always a pleasure to have you on you always say smart things that I appreciate because.

Chris Detzel: You think he made me think a little bit deeper um you've been doing this for a long time, so your expertise is certainly appreciate it appears over beers.

Chris Detzel: Well, thanks everyone for coming i'm Chris data on piers over beers and.

Nicole Saunders: i'm Nicole Sanders thanks for being here.

Chris Detzel: Thanks Nicole so it's a good one.

yeah.