Episode 109 - Vacation Matters and The Intersection between Community and Business Needs

Chris Detzel: All right, well, welcome to another peers over beers i'm Chris Detzel and.

Nicole Saunders: i'm Nicole Saunders.

Chris Detzel: you're just a regular now, and I think i've had you on the most this year and it's been really a delight so and I think users are really enjoying it as well, so thanks for coming on again.

Nicole Saunders: yeah absolutely I actually had somebody out in the world, last week, say, oh yeah i've been listening to your podcast and I was like oh awesome that's cool I was really excited to hear that well do you in fact listen to us, Chris.

Chris Detzel: I know, like kind of funny because.

Chris Detzel: People people will reach out to me, and now I get sometimes spam stuff but hey can I be on your podcast and they have nothing to do with Community management and I had.

Chris Detzel: Had this one guy that one and I let him be and I haven't pushed it out yet, but it was around crypto communities, but really this guy's a crypto CEO or something and I was like.

Chris Detzel: Interesting yeah.

Chris Detzel: And I told him I don't even know what this is so, what does the Community really look like in the crypt you know because you've seen seen some of these on you know.

Chris Detzel: Job postings or you know people are looking for community leaders that have all this experience in crypto, and all this stuff and i'm like.

Chris Detzel: How long has this been out and in how do you have so much experience in crypto when it just really came out.

Chris Detzel: Like, how do you even.

Chris Detzel: anyways it's but it's really cool that people are listening to us and i'm very excited about that, but what I really want to talk about today will probably a lot of things, but one is you didn't like gone from working for a long time now.

Chris Detzel: I mean you still work at zendesk but they let you have a lot of time off, I guess, after you've been there for so long, or how's that.

Nicole Saunders: yeah so one of the one of the really cool perks isn't desk is after five years, you get a six week sabbatical.

Nicole Saunders: And so I hit my five year anniversary in February.

Chris Detzel: Should i'm out of here.

Nicole Saunders: Well, honestly I wasn't going to take the time right away.

Nicole Saunders: But then it just sort of ended up kind of making sense, this summer, and I, you know i'd always imagine that when I took a sabbatical i'd like go travel Japan or backpacking around Europe or go to Australia.

Nicole Saunders: And it ended up just becoming like this is going to be an old fashioned summer break i'm going to like.

Nicole Saunders: read books and ride my bike and do some writing and eat lots of ice cream and hang out by the lake.

Nicole Saunders: yeah.

Chris Detzel: what's your favorite ice cream.

Nicole Saunders: Oh gosh for years it's been chocolate peanut butter, but this summer i've started to get more of a taste for the vanilla based ice creams.

Nicole Saunders: there's there's one of my local ice cream shop that's like vanilla ice cream with Carmel and peanut butter cups and cookie dough chunks and I I love that one and I love anything with hot fudge on it, but.

Chris Detzel: i'm up to.

Nicole Saunders: Like chunks of things in my ice cream I like to chew on it, I guess.

Chris Detzel: Be drinking beer or anything.

Chris Detzel: Just you know.

Nicole Saunders: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: I know I I feel i'm going to admit this to find like what six episodes and I don't really drink much these days I used to be.

Chris Detzel: I don't either.

Nicole Saunders: he'll beer aficionados to work at the great American beer fest and ovo and hung out with microbreweries and stuff.

Nicole Saunders: And Alaskan.

Nicole Saunders: Just yeah I just kind of backed off drinking so actually my new favorite is athletic brewing company has a whole series of na beers that are actually pretty good.

Nicole Saunders: really like.

Nicole Saunders: i've been enjoying those mostly this summer.

Chris Detzel: to reassess local.

Nicole Saunders: Know athletic performance because national there are a couple local microbreweries that are starting to get into doing a couple of enablers which i've been.

Nicole Saunders: really pleased with there's one out of milwaukee called the River West Stein beer, I think, and that was always a favorite and and they started producing neighbors in the summer that tastes darn close to the real thing so that's been my thick.

Nicole Saunders: skull.

Nicole Saunders: or holic beers and also occasionally have a good IP or something but it's pretty rare for me most of the time.

Chris Detzel: yeah you know, so my wife and i've been doing that, or we went on vacation, I guess, I could call it it's called trans rocky so two weeks ago, we ran this 120 miles in.

Chris Detzel: Colorado.

Nicole Saunders: And altitude of that.

Chris Detzel: up and outs diamond Dallas Texas, so you know it was definitely a challenge, it was a six day kind of event and everything else, and so I did have a beer afterwards, but.

Chris Detzel: beforehand, I have, I drink a little, but I was just trying to stay away from it, because I knew anything that I did was going to affect my running hiking.

Chris Detzel: abilities for those six days, and so, although a great trip, you know i've stopped drinking a lot of beer, but I did have one, the other day so.

Chris Detzel: Anyway, so tell me a little bit more about your.

Chris Detzel: Your time off, you know.

Chris Detzel: it's always good to get time off, but yeah.

Nicole Saunders: Oh me too um yeah so got i've got about 10 days left here before I go back to work and it's been amazing to have so much time to do all the things I love, one of the wanted to do for a long time is write a book i'm doing is what it's about I don't know.

I.

Nicole Saunders: wanted to write a book.

Nicole Saunders: And so I decided to use some of this time to start doing free writing every day and will kind of brain dump and see what came out and some things are starting to take shape.

Chris Detzel: So knock on wood cool some.

Nicole Saunders: next two to five years, hopefully it will finish and publish something, this is a big goal, and this is, I guess, this is my official like putting it out there in the universe, and say now, but i'm gonna try to write a book.

Chris Detzel: Are you thinking, personal or business or you know you know, like that are.

Nicole Saunders: different ideas, the ones that seem to be resonating the most are sort of like.

Nicole Saunders: The genre I can best explains like memoir as self help here's all the crazy stuff that happened in my life, maybe you can.

Chris Detzel: learn from it um I love, how you use self help goodness.

Nicole Saunders: yeah right I you know I mean Community builder.

Chris Detzel: servant leader exactly yeah let's.

Nicole Saunders: hope others um I have had some thoughts about working on some Community related research and writing as well, so who knows, maybe i'll have three books by the end of this whole thing um.

Nicole Saunders: But look good just handled that and see some friends and play some music and get outdoors a whole bunch you know it's.

Good.

Nicole Saunders: The hardest thing I think about working full time is be in front of a computer all day and it's really nice to not have to do that quite as much.

Chris Detzel: Accurate I mean it's it's a kingdom on our pre show you're talking about how it's really nice to kind of really.

Chris Detzel: You know, let loose and not think about work too much and things like that, and you mentioned that you know, the first two or three weeks it was really nice, but then you know you kind of started missing doing the work.

Chris Detzel: You know, and just been focused on some of that.

Nicole Saunders: I do, I mean when I miss my team.

Nicole Saunders: I work with some really great Oh, and if it feels like friends that I haven't like seen for a little too long, you know I don't know on on there.

Nicole Saunders: Right now, so i'm excited to catch up with some of those folks i'm really excited because we actually got approval rockin and go to the cms summit in California it's me the first time, most of my team members have met in person is thinking about going to that maybe I will go.

Nicole Saunders: You should come drew and I are both going to be on a panel and speaking there and.

Chris Detzel: I think it'll just such a good so such a good time it's like camp.

Nicole Saunders: My Community people.

Chris Detzel: ran and his team, I don't know if you know fran but he he's the VP of Community at.

Chris Detzel: A port calm.

Chris Detzel: And he's going to be there and bring some of his team folks there, so should be fun.

Nicole Saunders: Well, we should we should all get together and.

Chris Detzel: That would be yeah that'd be cool maybe I was thinking about like kind of if I go out there than just having a bunch of like 1520 minute peers over beers you know with different people would then.

Chris Detzel: You know, but seems like a lot of work because had to carry a bunch of shit yeah so I don't know we'll see.

Nicole Saunders: But we're good on your iPhone it's fine i'm really understand.

i'm.

Chris Detzel: telling you they won't understand whenever you started listening to that shit.

Chris Detzel: Right, I mean like it's like this sucks you know i'm not gonna.

Chris Detzel: Get you really need good sound, you know, and I could probably buy something.

Nicole Saunders: Expensive go okay.

Nicole Saunders: anyways um we got some exciting to see my team, but it's also i've really realized i'm a kind of miss.

Nicole Saunders: sort of the day to day sense of accomplishment that comes from being at work, getting through your meetings and checking off the things on your to do list, and you know, certainly.

Nicole Saunders: When you're on your own time, and you know chatting a little bit about this in terms of like what am I going to do when I retire someday and it's like this.

Chris Detzel: all the time.

Nicole Saunders: You do have to come up with.

Nicole Saunders: You know your identity outside of work and the things that you're going to do that are going to bring you meaning and a sense of accomplishment outside of it.

Nicole Saunders: But at least was work, you know some of that's kind of built in you don't have to sit down to read it what's going to be a meaningful to do this for me today.

Nicole Saunders: So I missed that I, and you know I really feel like work in some ways is.

Nicole Saunders: kind of the thing that helps hone your brain a little bit and keep you sharp and as you're done with the earlier how i've never understood watching like people who have retired were like.

Nicole Saunders: they'll have one plan and the day they're like I gotta go to the grocery store at 3pm and somehow like they can't do anything else that day like takes up the whole.

Nicole Saunders: day and I guess it's one of those like.

Nicole Saunders: Tasks expand to take whatever time you allocate for them.

Nicole Saunders: If you don't the pressure of a work schedule on your time.

Nicole Saunders: it's amazing how much just doing little household chores and things like that can expand to take up the whole day so.

Nicole Saunders: let's try, I remember.

Chris Detzel: Details story, so I was you know I could sit down at home right like and think all right, I want to do the dishes and sweep and MOP the floor and because it needs to be done, I mean you have to do that anyways pretty quick.

Chris Detzel: Right, but then you know i'll just take a quick nap and then i'll think okay I should put up these clothes that's right next to my head that my wife yeah go do that later and then.

Chris Detzel: You know just kind of you know, our phone do some bullshit on the phone you know and then realize two hours have passed, not just you know it's doing dumb stuff and I haven't done one thing you know, like I.

Chris Detzel: thought I was gonna do the dishes and the floors and didn't do it and i'm like gosh shit I gotta make myself do it, you know what I mean so.

Chris Detzel: procrastination is kind of my big thing, especially chores.

Chris Detzel: Sorry.

Nicole Saunders: I don't start with too much presentation, but I will say that, like I think when you've got sort of the time pressure of working, it makes your free time.

Nicole Saunders: It is a little bit easier to focus and be like okay i've only got three hours of free time tonight, what I really need or want to do with that time and I think you appreciate it more you know for.

Nicole Saunders: me i'm gonna i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this even maybe like this is like i'm gonna watch three Harrison Ford movies and relax on the couch it's gonna be awesome um whereas right now i'm like yeah I can do that today or tomorrow.

Chris Detzel: or whatever.

Nicole Saunders: You say whatever you know, and time is starting to like melt together so i'm excited to actually kind of get back into it, but I think the biggest thing and what i'm really hoping to return to work with, as a new perspective.

Nicole Saunders: One my cameras are my company the super like cameras on company for zoom.

Nicole Saunders: And being away from my computer a little bit more I think i'm going to try to adopt a little bit more lacks attitude about cameras, or like you know hey let's all turn on for five minutes and wave at each other and then.

Nicole Saunders: turn off because it's amazing how exhausting it can be to be on those zoom calls all day just.

Nicole Saunders: staring at a screen or a camera lens but the other thing is i'm really hoping to go back at some of the challenges that we've been working on, you know, especially some of the big media ones that take a long time the little bit of a new perspective, and I think sometimes can get.

Chris Detzel: So close you have something in mind.

Chris Detzel: If not it's fine I was just I was just curious like.

Nicole Saunders: You know we've had a couple of long term things like one of our big things is that our Community is really started as a support community.

Nicole Saunders: yeah for a couple of years now we've been really trying to work to not alienate the support side of it but.

Nicole Saunders: i'm trying to.

Nicole Saunders: bring a broader kind of conversation into the Community and have it do.

Nicole Saunders: More adjust your technical questions and that's been a big challenge to solve and we've been kind.

Chris Detzel: of you know.

Nicole Saunders: Working with all these different tactics and it feels like we've been like kind of beating your head against a wall of like well, we tried this this move back to the first idea.

Nicole Saunders: So I think it'll be helpful to get that break in that separation and then sort of come in with fresh eyes and see if your approaches that we can.

Chris Detzel: I love it.

Chris Detzel: And I think that's a big one, and you know because I feel like I saw something from rich millington the other day that says.

Chris Detzel: It is way easier to start a support Community than it is a topical Community or you could see it as.

Chris Detzel: Topical or.

Chris Detzel: You know thought leadership or whatever at thought about that for a minute and I thought it really is, if I could start a support community in a minute.

Chris Detzel: You know it's not saying that there's challenges and it's hard you know i'm not saying that there's not but.

Chris Detzel: You know you think about like because people have a question about your product and need help with it right and know they're willing to ask anywhere and everywhere most you know.

Chris Detzel: You start to do the engagement piece strategy tactics, yet still do all that stuff But then when you start thinking about well you know, for you guys, it could be support leaders, you know what's the best practice on creating a support you know.

Chris Detzel: Practice support program you know, for your customers and because there's a lot of people, you know, although that's interesting and you probably find people interested who's going to talk about it who's who's the who's the key people that and how do.

Chris Detzel: You get it at mass.

Chris Detzel: You know it's a lot harder to i'm trying to do some of that too, as well, and I just think wow you know, like I can't get people to fucking talk about this stuff you know, like or you know it's really hard to find speakers that have built an mdm practice from ground up or.

Chris Detzel: What how do they think about data governance and what what does a successful data governance practice look like or I don't know because there's a lot harder, but you know those are all.

Chris Detzel: Different in every organization, it is, but you can take some of those things, and so I love that you're thinking about that, and we should probably talk more about that later.

Nicole Saunders: yeah I mean I don't know this interesting point and we haven't talked about in the pre show but i'm going to go down this rabbit hole for a minute.

Nicole Saunders: Okay, you know thinking about that difference is like a support Community versus like a community of practice and you know one I think it's really hard to take an existing Community and pivoted into something else right yeah.

Chris Detzel: You should you keep what you have probably right, you know.

Nicole Saunders: yeah but it's like you really kind of have to relaunch it.

Nicole Saunders: Right, you need to.

Nicole Saunders: Have a spare moment of what this was is kind of shut up shuttered, if you will, and what it's going to be going for, and there needs to be a pivot point we've really been trying to sort of like incrementally take those steps.

Nicole Saunders: yeah and it's.

Nicole Saunders: it's hard to know much momentum built up behind one way of engaging um I also think that, like with support communities, you know they're a little easier because the transactional somebody has a question and somebody else can go in and be like oh here is the answer.

Nicole Saunders: yeah and then you're done and that's that's pretty simple and easy, whereas when you get into media practice, you talk about those best practices you're asking people to take one, a lot more time to answer something right instead of a oh.

Chris Detzel: He just awful right.

Nicole Saunders: yeah they have to think about it and to.

Nicole Saunders: it's more of an open ended question right, we all know from doing surveys and things, yes, yes or no question somebody you know click the yes or no button, but if you.

Nicole Saunders: leave a space and state, please tell me about your experience with us.

Chris Detzel: As people.

Nicole Saunders: won't fill that in and a community of practice that's kind of the difference is you're looking for more of these long for ongoing conversations um.

Nicole Saunders: So I think it is a real challenge, but it is also where a lot of the meetings, and I think that there's a lot of stuff it lands in the middle, like the example with support practitioners, you know it's one thing to say hey how do I set up this automation.

Nicole Saunders: yep.

Nicole Saunders: it's nothing to say hey this is for running a support organization.

Nicole Saunders: But in the middle, is where there's some really interesting things like what are some recommended workflows for setting this up.

Nicole Saunders: Or what are some other people's done things and that's where we find the greatest insights and where people get really excited when somebody's willing to.

Nicole Saunders: go a step beyond the how to.

Nicole Saunders: yeah but they don't get into writing a White Paper right.

Chris Detzel: So I think one is you've got to think about you know that we can continue down this rabbit hole, because I think it's a good one, is.

Chris Detzel: You can understand what, what are the business goals and what are you trying to accomplish at the end of the day, right So when I think of.

Chris Detzel: Those types of communities that you're taught topical and or you know thought leader thought leadership so high level, you know but it's sort of kind of along that lines are the practice of you know, support or you know, whatever you're trying to do.

Chris Detzel: You know what it, what are you going to try to accomplish you know what we do know, though, is that.

Chris Detzel: zendesk technology or real to technology only relates to those people that have that technology right how to do this thing so you're probably not going to hit a lot of.

Chris Detzel: prospects, I mean you'll hit some because they might be evaluating your product and that kind of stuff so it's not like.

Chris Detzel: You know those support communities don't help with some of that but it's it's a lot less right, so you know, in my mind, a support Community kind of looks at upsell cross sell potential.

Chris Detzel: You know, you know new features come out adoption, etc, you know, obviously support deflection so that's kind of what to me a support Community does.

Chris Detzel: But when you start looking at some of those other communities like you're talking about and, like, I would like to also do is.

Chris Detzel: Then you start kind of getting the realm of hey you can find more VP of support right like and more leaders of support you know directors and things like that, when you start talking about the practice of.

Chris Detzel: Support programs, and you know and then there's all this meat from bottoms to tap into the middle that you can kind of think about so you know leads lead generation great blog potential stuff topics, you know.

Chris Detzel: And then you start kind of thinking about you know those that's what I think about when I think of those types of things and some of the business outcomes goals are.

Chris Detzel: More reference customers more you know leads coming in, you know all that kind of juicy stuff that marketing loves but that the organization loves because all.

Chris Detzel: At the end of the day, we need new business, but we also can have to think about the I don't know that we leave kind of that support piece either.

Chris Detzel: And I don't know I mean it's just it's a lot to think about and a lot of.

Chris Detzel: You know what I would just say is you know for other audiences just make sure you know what you're trying to accomplish and what are those business outcomes that.

Chris Detzel: You know that you're trying to to get at the end of the day, right.

Nicole Saunders: Well, and moreover I think it's making sure that you know what your audience needs.

Nicole Saunders: yeah yeah i've said this so many times that I think the mistake, a lot of organizations make when they launched their communities as they think about what they want the Community to do for the business.

yeah.

Nicole Saunders: But if that's not aligned to what the people that they're trying to engage actually need or want it's never going to take off.

Chris Detzel: I think that.

Chris Detzel: As a community leader.

Chris Detzel: I have to say that.

Chris Detzel: They think about that, because you know i've talked to CEOs i've talked to leaders, you know with the customer and our marketing space.

Chris Detzel: And they think you know community is going to solve all our problems and come up with all these business outcomes and then you're right, you have to think about well.

Chris Detzel: You know what is it that the Community needs because we, as the community leaders have to think about our Community our people, you know the relationships and things like that, but we are doing this for some business outcomes to.

Chris Detzel: me like.

Nicole Saunders: that's really like that is the in a nutshell, that is the role of the committee professional is to find that sort of intersection point of venn diagram of what does the business need and what do the customers need and.

Nicole Saunders: And I would hate the intersection of those two things any really meaningful and compelling way i'm.

Nicole Saunders: kind of going back to that original point about how support Community so much easier because every business is going to have customers who have questions about how to use their product.

Chris Detzel: Right so.

Nicole Saunders: cool and so you know you look for a need the company has is for people to be able to use it their product or service, I need that the customer has his help on being able to use it effectively.

Nicole Saunders: boom there's an opportunity for Community and I think what we're seeing is as communities mature it's that question of like Okay, how can you go beyond that.

Nicole Saunders: instructional piece, and how can you start to help your customers with more than just your service or product, but really the whole field of what they're doing it for and it's it's been interesting.

Chris Detzel: Trying to like, by the way, supports not going away right support is not going away.

Nicole Saunders: And in fact I would argue that if you try to launch Community that's not focused on support you're still going to get technical questions and you're going to need.

Nicole Saunders: to know how to deal with that when you get those support sins in your community.

Chris Detzel: For sure.

Nicole Saunders: But I can definitely see why you know we've talked in the past about how there's so much content and training and education for Community managers on how to want your Community how to set up your strategy.

Nicole Saunders: basics and there's not as much about how to pivot and I think one of the reasons is the real.

Nicole Saunders: answer is that.

it's very hard to.

Chris Detzel: shift the mature community and.

Nicole Saunders: that's the best way to sort of to relaunch it and to apply a lot of that original strategy or you know, ideally, you just do it right, the first time, and thanks for you.

Chris Detzel: got it in place well you know you also, I mean you guys started, five, six, whatever years ago.

Chris Detzel: Maybe longer.

Nicole Saunders: or 15 year anniversary.

crazy.

Chris Detzel: You started 567 or whatever, years ago, you know.

Chris Detzel: As but.

Nicole Saunders: Almost 10 years old, when I came in so that's part of what i've been working with.

Chris Detzel: You, and that is a challenge, and so it's probably a good conversation to have is.

Chris Detzel: How, how do you kind of walk into somebody else's kind of strategies and ideas and thoughts, you know let's say it's a mess, but it is, I mean you've got to untangle a lot of things that you just don't know.

Nicole Saunders: You know, you know, like when I walked into zendesk there just wasn't a lot of strategy, it was.

Nicole Saunders: sort of a head launched and was trucking along but there wasn't any one person that was actually in charge of the oversight or the management of all of it had been a very collaborative effort which.

Nicole Saunders: is beautiful from a Community perspective, but at a certain point of scaling you running a community by committee.

Nicole Saunders: or with handoffs between different teams and it gets a little messy and.

Nicole Saunders: So that's where we've been really that was kind of our starting point when I.

Chris Detzel: When you say to restart a Community a lot of things going through my head so i've never restarted a community, especially like that, and so.

Chris Detzel: How do you, you know what do you do with the already support stuff that you have right and or do you just kind of start a community for practitioners of you know.

Chris Detzel: Support for example and and and just kind of keep this other Community going, you know, because it is very important, probably a lot of business value I would assume.

Chris Detzel: But.

Chris Detzel: You know there's some need for this thing, what do you sit like I don't know what do you do you start a slack group and just.

Chris Detzel: Just slack is I love slack but not really the best way to start a community, in my opinion, maybe with 510 people you know to kind of say hey this what we're doing or whatever, but.

Nicole Saunders: Well, on the slack note I think slack is really great to sort of augment or create sub communities like we've had a lot of luck with it, where like We took our super members in the.

Chris Detzel: Community.

Nicole Saunders: we've designated to that Community moderators and we created a slack space for them.

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

Nicole Saunders: created a tight really awesome Community months that small group but slack doesn't scale.

Nicole Saunders: right we can't put up 20,000 people in a slack.

Nicole Saunders: Community it's not going to work, so I think slack has a really good role in a Community ecosystem.

Nicole Saunders: Okay, especially given that most of the Community platforms out there, these days.

Nicole Saunders: don't offer like chat rooms or idioms or something like that so.

Nicole Saunders: flexor that augments real time engagement piece.

Nicole Saunders: As far as we launching you know we haven't done it yet.

Nicole Saunders: we've been kind of working on this sort of slow pivot and as i've thought about this over the years, you know I think some of it has to do with like a redesign right, you need some kind of visual.

Nicole Saunders: cue, this is a different space.

yeah.

Nicole Saunders: I think that you don't want to lose all the support stuff that exists in the Community, and so you know.

Nicole Saunders: If we were to take this route is and ask and I, you know I can't tell you what the next six or eight months will bring.

Nicole Saunders: It as point but um if we were to take this route, if I was to do this really for any organization, I would really look at how can you integrate all of the support stuff as a part of the Community, but how much of the other stuff sort of built out around it.

Chris Detzel: And so it's clear, I believe that there will be repercussions, if you got rid of the support stuff.

Chris Detzel: When I think it went off case deflection some other things, Google kind of I don't.

Chris Detzel: You know.

Nicole Saunders: I actually have a story about this Chris so I we did a big sort of relaunch of all of zendesk systems over the last couple of years.

Nicole Saunders: Okay, you know we've been worked out of one zendesk instance, since the beginning of time with the company and it was clear that was time to.

Nicole Saunders: move into some of like the new what I want to say basically sort of start over right there's a lot of like stuff that was gathering up and so.

Nicole Saunders: We didn't significantly change what it looks like on the outside, but we did actually migrate everything over to new instance of our stuff and in the process, there is a big debate about how much should we archive.

Nicole Saunders: Right, how much of what exists in our knowledge base and in our Community is out of date.

Nicole Saunders: is relevant is clogging up search results.

Chris Detzel: Because there enough definitely every submission probably.

Nicole Saunders: And so we actually got fairly aggressive with it we archived a lot of stuff so we kept everything been new in the past, I think, a couple of years.

Nicole Saunders: And then we did about 2500 posts in conversation that had high page views or we actually let some Community Members vote and say hey is there a post that if it disappeared, you would be sad about it tell us and we'll keep.

Chris Detzel: That one.

Nicole Saunders: Which is a great way to engage.

Chris Detzel: The Community around this whole exercise right.

Nicole Saunders: And so we ended up migrating about 20% of our Community content into our new instance and the rest of it.

Nicole Saunders: got archived didn't get deleted, we still have it in a record somewhere if we ever need to refer to it and, in some ways it did what it meant to do right it.

Nicole Saunders: cleaned up a lot of stuff it made a lot of the posts more current but a couple of repercussions one, a lot of links got broken, because there are things that the old posts now maybe that's Okay, because the old post appointed to was no longer current.

yep.

Nicole Saunders: It definitely messed with our seo right or Google just went way down used to be Community posts would show up pretty high in my search rankings and being slowly rebuilding that.

yep.

Nicole Saunders: And despite being so thoughtful about what we took with us and gosh I gotta give credit to.

Nicole Saunders: Brett browser and Dave dyson on my team they spent hundreds of hours reading every single post in our Community.

Nicole Saunders: and looking at stats and figure out which ones, we should move and which ones we shouldn't an interview and Community members and doing surveys to find out, and there were still things that six months later, people like how how are this one where did it go.

Nicole Saunders: But.

Nicole Saunders: Even after being thoughtful putting it all of that amazing effort yeah there's still stuff, and so I think it is something to really think about if you ever relaunch or migrate you.

Nicole Saunders: Know really careful with what you do and don't take and how you structure it and what you do with it um you know I don't necessarily.

Nicole Saunders: Radio archive but i've learned a lot from the whole experience.

Chris Detzel: Now it's fascinating I mean Maybe it was better you know, in the long run for the Community to kind of be you know, taking taking out some of that stuff but you know, again, there are repercussions in the short term.

Chris Detzel: You know and.

Chris Detzel: You know, I think that you just have to have a good content strategy afterwards right it's kind of think about well what new content, are we going to push out and what are we doing to kind of make up for that, especially when you think of the Google stuff you know because.

Nicole Saunders: that's such a great call out Chris you're so right like you know the, the next step isn't just like Okay, and I was gonna wait for the Community to repopulate itself, but how are we going to rebuild some of these things and.

Nicole Saunders: One of the things that we did is we took a few hundred posts that we thought were really good, but there were out of date.

Nicole Saunders: yeah we started as members and said hey would you want to repost this with some updates, or we rewrote a lot of content and republished it as well.

Chris Detzel: I think rewriting it and republishing it.

Chris Detzel: starts the clock all over again right so.

Chris Detzel: it's like.

Chris Detzel: it's fine and.

Chris Detzel: good and bad.

Nicole Saunders: But it's really good with.

Chris Detzel: The line is good, with Google later it is it the other thing is you got me kind of thinking about this, this new way of kind of thinking about Community from a thought leadership, whatever we call it topical I don't know but is that.

Chris Detzel: I think you're also going to have to think about a content strategy around.

Chris Detzel: You know those kinds of topics so maybe and what i've been doing, even as of recent because i've been thinking about the same thing is i'm not going to relaunch it just because it's just me and we'll talk about the summit I just hired somebody but you know it's.

Nicole Saunders: really wanted to get into that.

Chris Detzel: yeah but.

Chris Detzel: it's it's.

Chris Detzel: You really kind of have to start thinking about a strategy around you know, content and what is it that.

Chris Detzel: One is what is it that you want to think about what is it that you want to cover, you know how can.

Chris Detzel: zendesk help you know within that thought leadership piece right because that's probably where you have to kick it off in the first place.

Chris Detzel: You know, and then have programs, you know, like i'm a big fan of creating a program that allows me to do multiple things you know, like webinar programs, etc, so I can write content Q amp a etc, so what i've started to do is kind of look at.

Chris Detzel: let's say real to and and and so instead of thinking about real to specifically but i'm thinking about a master data management as a practice and so.

Chris Detzel: How do people start that what does that look like you know and and you know where do you begin yes technology is a piece of master data management.

Chris Detzel: But it, but you have to get by, and I mean it's costly it's those kinds of things and so i've started kind of.

Chris Detzel: Slowly but surely pushing out content in that way, and then you know i'll have some videos but then i'm getting some blogs written, you know, then I started having kind of Q and a's you know with real tins around a safe data quality and instead of saying.

Chris Detzel: Data quality as a product, although we have that.

Chris Detzel: What is what is data quality mean and how is you know, the quality of data, important and why is it important those kinds of things and maybe doing Q amp a is with an expert.

Chris Detzel: Around that without talking about royalties right and so kind of getting the appetite of your Members, you already have a community.

Chris Detzel: So why not push it out to them as well, to see if they're interested in who is interested, then when you start finding those people of interest yeah you can relaunch you do all that stuff.

Chris Detzel: I absolutely agree that you know there's going to be some ux design stuff that you don't want to do, but it start kind of figuring out who those people are outside of your organization, in addition to your organization, so you can both kind of.

Chris Detzel: You know there's maybe even partners that you can kind of partner with like, for us it could be a Deloitte or Accenture I know, whatever.

Chris Detzel: That think of these things all day every day that talked to these kind of people all day every day and and are thought leaders in that that you can just bring it, you know what I mean.

Nicole Saunders: Well, I love how you're thinking about that Chris and you know it's part of it is trusting your your Community Members to be smart enough to realize like okay well here's a brand that makes.

Nicole Saunders: Data management software and i'm i'm learning all sorts of cool things about data management, and I can connect the dots that oh hey Maybe I should look into their software.

Nicole Saunders: And I think that's really where you get the difference between communities that are overly marketing and don't really take off with people is when you're sort of like pushing that connection, like only talking about your product versus recognizing like.

Nicole Saunders: Really, what the Community Members need is like help with their job.

Chris Detzel: Their job.

Nicole Saunders: What they're doing helping their career or in.

Chris Detzel: there.

Chris Detzel: Why do you like, or having this peers over beers.

Chris Detzel: Because we're trying to help people with their job at the end of the day.

Chris Detzel: These are best practice, you know and how we think.

Chris Detzel: You know it's good now I thought leadership out.

Nicole Saunders: There yeah we're trying to help other Community professionals understand now neither one of us is trying to sell a Community platform ourselves either, but if one of us were you know um that would be this would still be the way to go about it would still be the conversation.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Nicole Saunders: I mean it's about the about the whole field.

Chris Detzel: I mean I don't have enough to say like I use a company called higher logic for my platform, the great you know we're all but.

Chris Detzel: I don't have enough to say to speak about it every single time I get on appears over beers you know what I mean like there's probably a several conversations we can have about platforms and what they do, etc, but.

Chris Detzel: You know if that's all I talked about it would be so boring.

Chris Detzel: I mean, I think it would.

Nicole Saunders: Like plug those things you can just.

Nicole Saunders: yeah those conversations that are relevant to people because that's The thing is, you know I think about this every time I talk to somebody about sorry community.

Nicole Saunders: We all have so many social media accounts and we get text messages when we get our slack I know what you i'm regularly logged into nine different slack workspace.

Chris Detzel: I just have like five yeah.

Nicole Saunders: might get overwhelming sometimes so what the heck is going to be compelling enough about another online Community for me to go, create a profile and login.

Nicole Saunders: To the basis and the.

Nicole Saunders: Only way it's going to be something that i'm really going to engage with that level as if it's something that solves a problem that I have a resource, I need that I have on a regular basis.

Chris Detzel: Do you do you know any Community communities that are doing, you know stuff like that, like you know kind of that thought leadership or you know, would you say there's one or two that you really like that do that.

Nicole Saunders: Well, I mean I spend most of my time in Community manager communities.

Nicole Saunders: Right like I spent a lot of time in the cms Community um I would say that's probably the biggest one and cms is part of bevy.

Nicole Saunders: yep you match hosts all sorts of things that are Community management related that aren't specific to bevy or even things that baby necessarily does as a platform.

Nicole Saunders: And I think just a really good example of how that works, the other one I really like i'm you know big outdoor enthusiast I love rei community and this isn't B2B or B2C community.

Nicole Saunders: Yet, but I can go on there, I can go on there to find out about equipment and gear and things that i'm thinking about.

Chris Detzel: Purchasing it as a Community.

Nicole Saunders: Community will post links.

Chris Detzel: cannot, I mean.

Nicole Saunders: I can also go on there, and just ask about hiking trails.

Nicole Saunders: yeah or how to train for something, and so I think that's, the key is like that's a Community visit, even when i'm not looking for something from rei.

Nicole Saunders: Does it, so the need that I haven't regular basis, which is to get more information about the different things I enjoy doing.

Nicole Saunders: And so, that is to really build a community that that serves that need and doesn't just have a nice thing otherwise, and I think you see this, a lot of support communities you're only going to go to a technical support Community a couple.

Nicole Saunders: times a year when you have a very specific technical question you can't find in the documentation if you're looking to meet her people engaging on a regular basis it's got to be more.

Nicole Saunders: than technical support it's gotta be more than your product or service.

Chris Detzel: yeah again I think there's reasons to have technical Community so and they solve.

Nicole Saunders: Some big partner percent for sure.

Nicole Saunders: don't come there, but I think if you want your community to do more than just answer here and there.

Chris Detzel: it's hard, especially from a B2B standpoint like and if you have.

Chris Detzel: Big time professionals like you know you have to give them something that they want to to want to come back so when I think of you know, a senior VP or VP of something right.

Chris Detzel: they're probably not coming to a community.to.com or Community zendesk calm and posting shit.

Chris Detzel: You know what I mean what they might be interested in is to listen to a podcast around how others are doing these certain things or.

Chris Detzel: You know, a video or maybe it's a webinar or something like that right or connecting to others in a way, and so.

Chris Detzel: Depending on your audience, you know if that's the leadership thing you need something like a.

Chris Detzel: I don't want to call it an advisory board, but something that allows them to connect you know with other leaders in the space that is a little bit more hands on rather than just.

Chris Detzel: An online community, so you have to think of communities, in my opinion in different ways right so.

Chris Detzel: Those people that care about those technical questions are probably the people using your product on a daily basis, all day every day.

Chris Detzel: You know the VP of support or VP of anything else, probably knows about zendesk or whatever, obviously, but they're not using it all day, every day, they don't even.

Chris Detzel: You know they're like thinking of some features, but their directors and or managers and or technical people are using it on a daily basis and pulling reports and all that kind of shit so you know I just think that you have to build programs for the for the audience's.

Chris Detzel: of your choice.

Nicole Saunders: and

Chris Detzel: When you do that, then.

Chris Detzel: You know you engage they engage in the way they want and you're creating ways for them to engage the way they want you know what I mean that's my thought on communities around kind of higher level type stuff.

Chris Detzel: there's a lot of different ways to do it right and I don't know that an online community is the way to do it for executives or higher level people.

Nicole Saunders: 100% and that's The thing is, I think the other thing is oftentimes we're talking about Community people can you really narrowly about like an online community.

Nicole Saunders: or a sort of immediate community, but you can have different Community products, as it were, for different segments of your audience and what kind of product is going to sell to a developer as a different product and was going to sell to a VP and.

Nicole Saunders: So you do have to have different programs and different kinds of offerings that are all part of your Community program and I think this is one of the places where in the Community industry that things started to get really blurry.

Chris Detzel: that's true.

Nicole Saunders: Right between what's a Community thing and what's a marketing thing and what's a customer success thing.

Nicole Saunders: And this is where I think that there's so much potential for Community and we're starting to see organizations, putting.

Nicole Saunders: Chief Community officer is in place and building a community as a whole organization, because it takes all of those things that are interrelated.

Nicole Saunders: That used to follow you know this belongs to success in this blog the customer marketing and this belongs to the Community and putting it all in the Community bucket and recognizing hey.

Nicole Saunders: Our customer advisory board our special luncheons for executives our developer forum our slack instance for startups all of those things are Community and need to fall under one umbrella, instead of being divided up between all of these different.

Chris Detzel: Teams all over to.

Nicole Saunders: Jay, but I think that's gosh we've got like so many more podcasts we can do talking.

Nicole Saunders: about this and how Community is so much more than just an online.

Nicole Saunders: Digital space it's all of the things that you do that connect customers to one another.

Nicole Saunders: it's to solve problems.

Chris Detzel: I agree, and somebody that's doing a really good job of it and you'll have to talk to her, one day, maybe add is allison boudreaux over at calyx so she was the leader of the Community and their.

Chris Detzel: Academy, so you know I sent you guys an email, so the three of us four of us actually try to get together and just have some some podcast around.

Chris Detzel: You know, maybe women in communities and things like that you know because i'm highly interested in hearing some of that stuff, the last thing i'll say because we didn't get to this point because I know you wanted to talk a little bit about it.

Nicole Saunders: wasn't it wasn't our next conversation I guess.

Chris Detzel: yeah we'll introduce it because i'll probably have more of a but I did get to hire a person that's going to be very junior for the Community and they'll be helping me with the Executive Council and and a lot of online Community stuff that.

Chris Detzel: That i'm really excited about, and so we can talk about that, but I think we'll have a broader topic around you know.

Chris Detzel: hiring What do you do you know onboarding a bunch of stuff like that, because you're really good at that stuff and you know he can give me some really good advice around it so.

Nicole Saunders: I would love to well Chris congratulations on your first hire that is so exciting is a huge milestone, and congratulations to whoever it is that comes on board with.

Nicole Saunders: us after they start um and yeah let's let's talk about that next time i'd love to dig into hiring onboarding training all of that.

Chris Detzel: Great well thanks everybody for tuning in for another peers of beers i'm Chris dental and.

Nicole Saunders: i'm Nicole Saunders.