Episode 105 Jephtah, Jay and Ronald - V2 of the Community Builder Guide

Chris Detzel: Hello everyone, welcome to another peers over beers i'm Chris Detzel and I have three special guests today i'm gonna let them say their names, so why don't we start with Jephtah.

Jephtah Abu: hey guys is great to be here once again my name is Jeff and i'm looking forward to this session great.

check.

Jay: hey everyone, this is Jay lingo from India and this my first ever conversation in PS have a beer yeah i'm happy to be here.

Ronald Williams: hey everybody, this is Ronald Williams i'm based in Atlanta Georgia also my first peers over beer so looking forward to the conversation.

Chris Detzel: And you guys know this is going to be recorded both on video and audio right okay.

Chris Detzel: Well, you know, so I talked to Jeff several months ago about some big project that he was kind of working on and some things that he mentioned to me was.

Chris Detzel: hey look there's way more communities going on, you know one in the black Community and also just in the.

Chris Detzel: outside of the US there's lots of great communities going on, and there are some.

Chris Detzel: big project that you guys are working on that he wouldn't he told me a little bit about, but he didn't go in depth, and you know some some stuff really happened over the last several months.

Chris Detzel: That that you guys, I know, wanted to get on piers over beers and I wanted to kind of listen to two more of what you guys are working on what you're doing some of the goals and those kinds of things so i'm really excited that.

Chris Detzel: That you guys are here and and and I don't know who wants to kick it off, maybe it's Jeff and then we kind of go around the room, if you will, the virtual room and and.

Chris Detzel: And we talked a little bit about the project and things like that and, by the way, it's it's all things Community right so let's let's let's get this going.

Jephtah Abu: yeah i'm like it's a pleasure to be here once again, I feel like i'm the oldest person in the room.

Jephtah Abu: With.

Chris Detzel: The oldest person right yeah.

Jephtah Abu: Exactly, you will by me so version, so let me just mention one.

Jephtah Abu: yeah before they talking on we're not said he sent me 10 copies, and he sends me like 30 copies like what I saw.

Jephtah Abu: The resource my first thought was we can do better i'll pick one i'm sure that vessel to be the same thing, where we start with.

Jephtah Abu: Who, we say we can do better boy year we did something on the expected the like we said I started getting like comments on requests from people i've never had before, like between.

Jephtah Abu: between Russia between Iceland in no and i'm like whoa there's a Community manager in Russia is the committee on a giant like places i've never heard of.

Jephtah Abu: And everyone was like I needed this resource to make enter the industry, because any comments industry right now.

Jephtah Abu: The a lot of resources are all scattered does the troops.

Jephtah Abu: Like you don't have one centralized place where you can find the podcast 25 blogs wake up find people to reach out to and our something i've never seen.

Jephtah Abu: So when we have integration one so consciously we do that we're also creating a Community for so because most people are like in our Community, not expecting us to like released version, so I were like Okay, we are coming.

Jephtah Abu: So I think one thing we did, where we are highlighted communities outside the US like Donna said I know about on linkedin you have like 4000 Community managers in Nigeria.

Jephtah Abu: But if you check.

Jephtah Abu: Any reports, you see, Nigeria is 0.1 or you never see any part of any Community manager in Nigeria and it's crazy because where's the disconnect coming from.

Jephtah Abu: You have so many Community managers in Nigeria.

Jephtah Abu: Ghana, of our global positions, so I think that's something we are so consciously trying to do like giving voice to Community managers in on that presenter conscious.

Jephtah Abu: And the team is amazing, I mean Nigeria Jason India Renata America and everything we have done is virtual we have never met in person, but that's passion to like amplify on that presented versus sort of connecting those together and here and here.

Chris Detzel: the beauty of technology.

Jephtah Abu: Exactly the technology.

Jephtah Abu: And here we are talking about like it moved over just collaborated on on, we are still building on the Union as well.

Chris Detzel: So you know it's it's funny you say that because it just reminds me of.

Chris Detzel: Right doesn't matter what country you're in but nice cases when you have folks like cms and things like that they do a great job of you know, putting out reports.

Chris Detzel: And things, but you know oftentimes you know you don't see what's outside of what's in your face, you know you just see.

Chris Detzel: hey there's all this stuff going on in the US and we just don't hear a lot of stuff going on well it's because you know cms is a US company, and we do focus a lot of us not to say that.

Chris Detzel: You know they don't care about outside of that but we're all kind of bias to where we live and really focused right, and so I love, how you know this team right here kind of.

Chris Detzel: did some additional research and found you know, like you said in Nigeria lots of different communities that you know 4000 that's that sounds like a lot, you know so.

Chris Detzel: And so version one there's you mentioned that there's some interest you know and they couldn't wait to get out diversity, I don't know who want to talk about this, but help me understand like.

Chris Detzel: One is i'm thinking about you know how did you get this ground swell of people just interested you just start reaching out to people and then all of a sudden, all these and then to i'm curious when you say.

Chris Detzel: Communities communities can be different things to different people, so you have online communities, you have you know people meeting together, you know about.

Chris Detzel: You know, different kind of things you know it could be running Community could be all you know, can you be it could be a B2B Community a B2C community, it could be, you know just a.

Chris Detzel: I have a running group, a community of runners you know here in the Dallas Fort worth area, and I have almost 4000 people in my Community right, you know that are on this online Facebook Group and

Chris Detzel: You know, we don't get together we just do on online, but there's another Community that's DDR Community that's Dallas dirt runners they do get together for events they also it's a Facebook group, you know and things like that so.

Chris Detzel: One is, it would be really cool to understand what types of communities are you talking about.

Chris Detzel: Because you know there's all kinds of creative maybe it's all of them I don't know and then to kind of that ground swell of hey we got all these people interested and then what is the version two look like I don't know who wants to kind of talk a little bit about that, but.

Ronald Williams: I think.

Ronald Williams: yeah I was gonna say um so.

Ronald Williams: In regards of like building up that momentum, I think the first time that we identified some sort of like social proof to what we wanted to do was when.

Ronald Williams: We announced that we were going to do this book and at this stage, as I told you before like.

Ronald Williams: We had that 10 page PDF of like resources that we put together, but the amount of folks that were like commented on the post, like me and Jeff are talking back and forth like.

Ronald Williams: hey Have you ever received this type of traction on like anything you posted on linkedin he's like i've never seen this before you know, like.

Ronald Williams: I think like up to like 40 to 50 plus comments from people 100 to 150 likes and celebrations on the post and at that point we were just kind of like.

Ronald Williams: Okay, we feel the pressure now like people are obviously looking forward to this type of resource, how can we leverage it and maximize it and I think that was one of the things that helped us keep accountability.

Ronald Williams: As we as we created this project, the other part, that helped build that momentum was the amount of folks that we asked to contribute to the project.

Ronald Williams: So it gave a lot of folks ownership of it when we had that second revision process we asked literally you know, most of our Community network hey can you come.

Ronald Williams: Give us some revisions, can you give us some feedback so that way when we released a book they they mentioned their contribution within the comments or they would share it letting people know like hey I helped out with this.

Ronald Williams: And that was really like them, the word of mouth process that we were able to leverage in the promotional part because I mean we didn't have any marketing budget or anything like that so.

Ronald Williams: You know, getting to the you know 500 downloads that we were able to get.

Ronald Williams: On version one was literally just folks that contributed helped out to the book and then also just wanted to support this new Community resource, we wanted to bring to fruition.

Chris Detzel: A huge groundswell of like.

Chris Detzel: Just Community managers interested downloading commenting somewhere I guess you could put it on linkedin or somewhere, so that they can you know I like what's the book called.

Ronald Williams: Of the Community builders God.

Chris Detzel: cool and version one you had a lot of downloads 500 you said.

Chris Detzel: And then version to.

Ronald Williams: version two was actually going to be out into July.

Chris Detzel: Oh okay see.

Chris Detzel: that's really cool I kind of wonder how many people will be downloading that that'd be maybe in August, or so you guys come back.

Ronald Williams: Definitely.

Ronald Williams: we're expecting we're expecting to do a lot of traction for this one we you know personally, just like invested a lot more resources into.

Chris Detzel: This like.

Ronald Williams: You know, we brought in, like a designer for this one, to give like that better aesthetic for folks that are experienced in the book.

Ronald Williams: And also bringing in some research assistants to help us like dive deeper into the content and concepts that we discussed in version one so like we're super excited for this version and just to get that feedback from folks.

As well one thing what.

Jay: What so one thing, what are not to like either i'd like to add one thing is like the feedback which we got from the version one so that made us to create a whole new session for the version two so i'm talking about this carrier section.

Jay: So, usually the people when they are very new to the Community building right like whether they are budding professional so people will think about this Community manager as a single role.

Jay: But there are a lot of you know nested roles within that like you have Community advocates committee evangelist and lot more even.

Jay: Community Ambassador program for that, so we wanted to highlight or the other sub branches of the Community managers and we want to highlight and get the.

Jay: You know the feedback from the real people like How was it to working in those particular you know the Community room so those things we got from the version one feedback.

Jay: So this made us to create a whole new session and also we talk about one of the pressing issue of today's time, that is, the layoff so we created a very huge mini guided can say a died within a guide, you can say that it's going to be like an offer you know.

Jay: Like standard point for this version, because we have input on like the job victuals what they have to do and what are the jobs available and like how he can you know.

Jay: come up with this linkedin profile like how we can you know enhance it so it's like a whole lot of stuff is going on, that bad we talked about the slave stuff.

Chris Detzel: Thanks Jay so Jeff I kind of wonder.

Chris Detzel: I assume this is part of this book is is around.

Chris Detzel: Community managers that have jobs as Community managers, is that right, I just just to make sure you know, and so i'm trying to get kind of.

Jephtah Abu: The idea we are trying so focusing show, but the idea we are going with is for every book release particular community professionals.

Jephtah Abu: or Community people are interested in building communities, because we don't want to try and like say grades are say Okay, these are just for Community managers like.

Jephtah Abu: I think was session i'm really excited for this interview questions.

Jephtah Abu: Like interview questions and answers like we've got a lot of feedback on that for like we need the questions and answers for Community managers.

Jephtah Abu: So these are people that are actually interested in comic Community managers and also people that Community managers because.

Jephtah Abu: Talking about something or not missed out is we actually partner with a lot of brands, which you see soon like a lot of communities are known, and we go we'd like people to also see what we are trying to be as well.

Chris Detzel: that's exciting stuff I think that you know your last couple years we've really seen the Community market take off.

Chris Detzel: Here in the US, specifically, but it's obvious that you guys say hey look, this is bigger than the just the US there's community, the Community.

Chris Detzel: role is taken off all over the world, you know, and so I assume that's what you're trying to say and apparently and saying look and you're trying to highlight some of those things set right RON Ronald.

yeah.

Ronald Williams: it's all good, and I think, to add to that it's really just the importance of the visibility and reputation of Community because that also defines like the conversations we have you know, like if all you know is is American based or.

Ronald Williams: You know Asia based or Nigeria based community you're kind of missing the grand scale of like how communities globally impacting the world, you know so.

Ronald Williams: I think that representation and diversity, was like the initiative that really sparked our interest in this project, and now, at this point we're just trying to scale, the amount of.

Ronald Williams: Visibility we're able to offer folks and also the other organizations that are doing great work, but may not have you know the marketing budget to to reach all these areas, or the YouTube channel to post all the work that they're doing.

Ronald Williams: We just took that initiative to give them that space and create that space for folks that are doing the work.

Chris Detzel: that's really cool so this book is going to be out in the end of July, is it is it just three or is it does it does cost anything or what's the.

Ronald Williams: yeah so this this version we're actually trying something new um, so we are going to have it free just because we just like to give the information away.

Ronald Williams: But we are going to have the contribution option just close to the end of the book if you did enjoy the book if you'd like to see another version.

Ronald Williams: The more investment we get into whatever resources resources, we can provide so that's just kind of the model we're going to be using for this book and then a for v3 we have a lot plan so if those contributions go well we're going to be pretty excited.

Chris Detzel: How do you guys do your day jobs and then just just book, I mean it's like a lot of work.

Ronald Williams: yeah we're actually in slack right now, like so we're meeting on Sunday right because, like.

Ronald Williams: We have like this honor every Sunday meeting like before we release the book, we always like meet on a Sunday but um.

Ronald Williams: But yeah it's it's just been a lot of planning a lot of communication, you know, like, I think, for Jay right now it's probably evening i'm like waking up to drink coffee so like.

Ronald Williams: Just as much planning, as we can do, and then also just like the self care portion of it, you know, like if if you can't make it to the slack message, no problem just get to it when you can.

Ronald Williams: And just you know be respectful of each other's boundaries and time and I think that's what's been you know, helping us have the day jobs and also being able to leverage these projects as well.

Chris Detzel: Just like you guys have something here, you know because it's a little bit different than.

Chris Detzel: What I want to say it's different it's different in the sense of you guys are.

Chris Detzel: Going outside of the US to really kind of you know, say hey look there's communities out here, and then kind of, say, and I don't know what the books about yet and i'm certainly interested in at least downloading the first 10 pages.

Chris Detzel: And reading it and and and things I, and I will i'll be smarter next time trust me.

Chris Detzel: But.

Chris Detzel: But it's different in the sense of you're going outside of the US and you're really kind of evangelizing that those kind of communities and things like that, because I would say that just from.

Chris Detzel: Over the last couple years like in India you're seeing the Community management role take off Israel i've seen kind of the Community management.

Chris Detzel: thing take off, you know now you know, Nigeria, I I still I mean that's that's awesome that it's it's been taken, I mean we have 4000 people or whatever so obviously it's not just new IT can't be new.

Chris Detzel: And so, some of this these places i'm just hearing about so that's you know, bringing a focus to that is intriguing to me and it's something that I did wonder.

Chris Detzel: For the longest time was like we just doing this in the US like I don't really you know when I talked to people on piers over beers.

Chris Detzel: You know most these people are from us, you know and and in in general we we might hire somebody outside of the US because, like I run a global community right so there's people there's people in Europe there's people.

Chris Detzel: in different parts of the country that are part of the Community that i've built, you know the you know for a job.

Chris Detzel: But I don't I don't necessarily hire adenhart anybody else have us, but people do, but to actually start a Community there in some other area, besides the US and then kind of manage it from that.

Chris Detzel: You don't hear a lot of or you know you don't necessarily hear it sure in the US that makes sense.

Chris Detzel: But alumnus i'm sure I missed a lot you get a lot of time left so.

Ronald Williams: I think I think one of the questions you spoke about was like what what Community means to us.

Ronald Williams: yeah i'm in, I think, for me it just it comes down to.

Ronald Williams: The gathering of like a group of people and that could be online or physical, but with a common initiative.

Ronald Williams: or interest in mind, meaning like whatever we're going to accomplish while we're in this group it's something that we're all striving towards or have aspirations to be a part of so I kind of just wanted to touch on that before it slipped my mind.

Chris Detzel: yeah appreciate that Tony do you run a Community today.

Chris Detzel: Oh yeah.

Ronald Williams: Okay, so I actually worked for organization called cyprus.io we do like web development framework testing and.

Ronald Williams: I work with the ambassador program specifically so i'm building within the Community, that we have in discord but then also managing the Members in our advocates within the ambassador Program.

Chris Detzel: Great Jay I know you, but I don't know that everybody knows kind of where you work and what you do.

Jay: yeah so I work for a SAS based platform so it's called kiss flow and right now i'm into this brand marketing, so we are like starting off.

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