Episode 079 - Special Guest Richard Millington - Web 3, Social Media and Community Platforms

Welcome to another episode of peers.

Over beers, your favorite, digital and social evangelist podcast with

your industry veteran hosts, Chris Detzel.

This podcast Starts Now.

All right.

Here we go.

So, welcome to another peers over beers.

My name is Chris Detzel.

And today, we do have a special guest Rich, Millington Rich.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I think everybody knows who you are, by the way, I doubt that.

But I'm flattered.

Um, hi everyone.

I'm rich.

I'm the founder of a consultancy called Feverbee, and I think maybe

what makes us unique is that we are very much at the intersection of

the psychology and the technology and the strategy that makes

A community work.

So a lot of our work is really getting those things aligned and taking

great companies and helping them, build amazing online and offline

communities of customers fans, employees or those great and wonderful

things.

Yeah.

You're right.

You've been doing this a really long time rich and I know I have.

So when I first started kind of building online communities or in part

of communities, I was part of a company called well, so it's sort of

kind of where it started for me but a company called Mitchell

force.com, and the

I might know a guy by the name of Nick last name.

I'm going to he's going to come out.

I'll tag him on a LinkedIn post but and a bit, right?

The camera like heaven.

Yes.

Nikki meant, we're Facebook friends.

And we so he's the one that introduced me to you years and years ago

and ever since I've been following, you know, fever be community.

And then, you know, we've met once or twice at one was a higher logic

super Forum a few years ago.

And then here we are today and of course, I've been following your

For a long time.

So I appreciate you getting on and stuff like that.

I mean, I'd love how you're so bold and you just kind of tell it how

it is the other piece.

I really like is that how data focused you are and Roi kind of

focused, you know, for communities to think it's it's hard to do to be

honest, you know, but I think it's very important in you show.

A lot of really cool stuff.

So why don't we go ahead and get in it.

So you just went to Israel but in a week or two ago and would love to

know more about that.

Trip.

How was it what you talked about?

And, you know, let us know.

Yeah, is a really exciting trip.

So, I've been to Israel a couple of times now and what's really

interesting in Israel compared to any of us have been to like the

times when I go to San Francisco and I'm like, oh this is the

epicenter of community, you know, all the people here, all the

companies here, but when I think about it, I think it's the epicenter

of Community Technology and it's the epicenter of like a very specific

kind.

Of community and environment when you go to Israel and as in no

Jerusalem, what's the time?

This time?

The natural Community Vibe is incredible like as at the community

forward Retreat, which was amazing, an amazing organization, really do

look them up and I was invited to speak at that event.

But just how naturally community-oriented the people I was meeting

there were it's just incredible like in the community space, you know,

everyone gets along but you know,

sometimes different people compete with others.

And so he kind of has open and Frank as you want to be in Israel, it.

I don't know if it's just what I experienced, but everyone is so open.

Everyone is so sharing everything.

Everyone is like inviting their competitors and sharing their advice

for their competitors.

So everyone wins.

It's like, it's such an amazing experience.

And I'm so lucky and grateful that I get to speaker that kind of

event.

So that's what I'm doing now.

And I think, by the way that Jerusalem, I mean I'm not going to be

into a political discussion, but it's such

Phenomenal, place to build.

Yeah, like everyone should do a guided tour of Drew is from.

I'll give you the name of someone that I think is fantastic.

That's great.

It's such a phenomenal place to visit.

I really recommend that if you get a chance to go, you should go.

Yeah, so my previous company was working at a cyber security company

called, imperva built their Community.

Yeah, and yeah, and I went to 82, I didn't get to go to Jerusalem, but

I went to Tel Aviv a few to a couple times and just, you know, I loved

Israelis and just building relationships with them and

And talk about black people, they're very blunt.

And but I love it, you know, it's so, you're right a great Community

there.

And, you know, it's interesting because I'm starting to see more

communities built out of Jerusalem for, you know, from a technology

side, and maybe it's more of the cybersecurity piece of.

Maybe, I'm just now noticing, just because I was part of that.

So, I would say over the last couple of years around, 20% of our work,

is that, how can I do for you will get bigger than that?

Just because there's companies there that I like, have better.

Two connections to do that.

But like yeah, about 20 percent of our work is that and that's quite

interesting compared to like the size of Israel compared to other

places where we work.

I agree.

But it's a hub is specifically for you know technology Hub in a big

way and certainly cyber security is a huge pod there, right?

So, so I agree with you.

I love this Raley's and I still have relationships from when I worked

at a bar that I talk to you every week or sometimes every month, you

know, so, you know, as we kind of look at the last two years.

Years of, you know Community maybe it's three, you know with I don't

know.

It feels like whenever you start looking at the buzz on Twitter and

social sites and things like that.

That's just taken off now.

I mean you've been in the space for a while.

I've been in it, you know, what a while as well and it does feel a

little different.

I don't know how you feel about it.

But what do you think about, you know, what's going on in the

community space?

I think at the beginning of the pandemic, I was so worried for our

sector because I felt as though, the economy is going to collapse

because and then the first

In often gets cut in a bad financial year is community and I thought

we were going to see and I did happen in a couple of companies, you

know, we saw a big layoffs and I think we will know people that

suffered from that.

That's right.

But I think what we saw as well was a surge of interesting Community,

especially support kinds of communities, where you want to connect

people, where you come home anymore.

So I think we have seen a surge, what I don't know yet is whether

we're still riding in that that wave.

And it's going to drop a bit once because takes time to get a

community up and running like if you began investing in like 2000,

Now's the Time where you'll start to see the fruits of their efforts.

So, I don't know if we're going to drop down a bit.

I'm not one that think so Community is the future of everything.

There's other people that have that belief, but I think Community

plays an important role.

I think we still haven't quite defined, the value of community, quite

as precisely as perhaps we should.

Um, I think the still confusion about what community is, but I think

what we're seeing is that there's a whole spread of community ever,

some of them mature, some of a young and there's a lot more diversity

in the types of communities that we're seeing.

So I think we're seeing an increase in the level of Interest.

I think within the community scene or the community industry.

There's a lot going on.

There's a lot of like busy new events and activities.

55 years ago.

I felt I would have known.

Like all of the big players in the same and now there's people doing

amazing stuff.

I'm like, oh this guy in India is like incredible.

I've never heard this person before this person doing their own event

and activity.

And yeah, it's, it's exciting.

Like it's just, it's daunting at times but it's like, it's exciting.

I want to unpack something and I didn't tell you, I was gonna do this,

but you said something that would set an interesting around.

A lot of times, when you start talking to some Community people, you

know, people are like, oh my gosh, Community is everything and

everybody.

To do it and everybody should, you know, and you kind of mention that

you don't necessarily believe that which I'm kind of on the same side.

But unpack that a little bit about Community should has have its space

or place in a sense.

What does that mean?

And what's place should that be?

It?

Probably depends, I assumed but love for you to unpack that a little,

I think this some people and I'm not like some Tweety go, like, try to

go out.

Anyone hear anything.

I think there's some people that want that want the world to be a

certain way and they advocate for that and that's perfectly fine and

my love.

The idea that Community is like the central tenet behind how

businesses organize themselves and how we sort ourselves aside today.

I love that idea.

I generally think of it from like, oh, this is the way the world is

today.

And that's a nice tea.

Like Community is a lot like many other things.

This one channel, one thing, an organization can pursue, and there's

upsides to it.

There's downsides to it.

And I think it plays a very specific role for

More kinds of organizations.

So I think for support I think Community is fantastic.

Answering those questions that aren't so broad.

They can be resolved by a help center article, but they aren't so nice

that they need a customer support rep.

I think it's fantastic at solving those kinds of questions and there's

and if you're the kind of organization gets a lot of those kinds of

like in between questions as I call them like yeah, I think then

increases fantastic.

I think Community is fantastic.

In certain spaces like the developers face.

Aces, you know, like it's incredible.

Communities are so critically important in those kind of communities.

I think, for you four, user groups are fantastic.

I think for like small exclusive groups of peer is, if you want to get

all the top people in your sector together, I think Community is

fantastic.

I think if you want to get people sharing the best expertise with

whatever you could find a structure, where everyone builds it audience

to feel the sense of inclusive.

Growth Community is fantastic.

I am less sure.

That

Community is going to take over the world.

I'm and it looked at me.

It depends how you define community, and we don't get to a semantic

debate.

But and I think Community plays a role like the way that that video

does Maybe video is what we've compared it.

Like videos can be fantastic.

They can help your all your organization, but you wouldn't say that

videos to the future of business of business and I think Community is

kind of like that.

Like it's really useful in certain situations and we should be

Be proud of that.

People want to advocate for more than that.

That's great for them.

I hope that they succeed, but the reality is it is that thing?

It's going to be a challenge.

Yeah, it's a good point is you maybe think because, you know, within

my organization, I'm very much obviously, the advocate of all things

Community because, you know, that's my role is what I do.

And sometimes I do think I go overboard, you know, because I'll get

I'll think of these tactic kind of things.

Oh my God, this Tech is gonna draw.

I have some really cool engagement and sometimes it does and sometimes

it doesn't, you know, but I get so excited the moment.

Then the next day.

I think I did this thing the next day.

I'm like, maybe I shoulda done this thing.

You know, you did it wasn't as great as I thought, you know, or

whatever.

And I think you just have to kind of, you know, tone yourself down a

little bit and kind of look at reality and say, you know, Community is

going to accomplish these things at them organization.

I'm going to show the value of those things.

And so as I love that, as really

Good.

So another kind of thing that has been going around and I saw a tweet

of the day from you but was kind of this web, three kind of stuff.

You know, I think it was probably four or five weeks ago and you

tweeted about it, but I'm intrigued on, you know, where does community

play in web three and how do we get there from web to 23?

Does that make sense?

So, I mean, yeah, but let me ask you a question, you know, that is the

setup.

But like, what is web three?

Yeah, you know, it, and I know it's funny because whenever you tell

you that as like what is, what three anyways.

So, I did a Google search.

So I was like, I don't know what it is.

And apparently, from what I read.

It's about people having their own space, right?

So the Googles and the Microsoft's, and the

People that own the web today, basically are not necessarily going to

own the web today, you know, we're going to own the web and we're

gonna have a piece of it.

It's cryptocurrency and whatever.

All this other stuff is coming out and it's going to change the world

and it's not that I don't think it won't change the world because it's

they're probably to some degree on to something.

I agree with that that there's probably is a surge of Web 2.0 web 3.0

there is maybe but but I don't know, you know, five years from now.

Out it all changes.

What we think.

We're three is today.

Doesn't mean that's what three is, you know, several years from now.

Nobody knew that, you know, Google what's going to be the main search

for all time.

I remember when Microsoft and wasn't being 90 was Internet Explorer.

I do something whatever they had.

No was kind of the search thing.

And now nobody, nobody really cares about what being as you know,

everybody cares about what Google and YouTube, Just School Taking Over

YouTube and video and just all the stuff Web 2.0.

Oh, kind of rot.

Nobody knew all that stuff was going to happen, right?

You know, so I don't even know, just don't.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, let me do it.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

But like I feel like one.

So I think we've whipped through it's a very broad term and it can

mean a variety of different things.

And so I don't like discussing it like in a whole web three sure you

have writing a tweet, I can try.

But when I think of web three, I'm guessing that people think about

the metaverse.

I'm guessing they think about crypto and blockchains and maybe

Stuff.

But those are the things that cover most of me.

I can't think what else?

I'm sure I'm missing.

One blockchains crypto.

Anything else.

I don't think so met ever met a mace, but maybe there's no.

So if I think about the community work I'm doing, and that it's really

work.

I see most people doing, I don't see that turning into the metaverse

because it increases the effort required to participate.

The moment.

You have to put on a headset to

dissipate.

I think it makes it more difficult, more expensive and I don't see it

as an immediate.

I might be wrong.

I don't see it as an immediate change crypto.

I mean I wouldn't pretend to be an expert.

I think there's some interesting stuff.

There's some novel stuff that's going on.

But again, I mean, if you were this if you would think about social

media as well like and for the lat/long with the work that you do and

I do it has actually changed.

That you can work in terms of having a hosted online community.

Yeah, you might promote stuff from Twitter.

You might have single site sign on, but I wouldn't say this being a

profound change.

There's just more competition for budgets, really?

Like, I don't think it's had an insane change ab and went through.

I think is kind of the same.

Um, yeah, I don't know.

Like, I think, I think there's some very interesting stuff going on in

communities, feel good.

People of web three, folks.

Yeah, but if they've got that kind of crossing the chasm machine,

right?

We're like, you've got all this Buzz here.

You've got the mainstream

Here, is it going to jump across?

I don't know.

I think if it is it has to be a lot easier to use.

I think I'm not too sure at the moment, Howard our work.

So I don't know how to like get tokens.

I don't know.

Maybe I get the basic concept of it, but I don't, I don't even know

where to go.

And if I don't know it then, I mean, I'm not the most technologically

savvy person but like, there's a lot of people behind me in that line.

It's so that's me.

Yeah, I would also say, like, a lot of people haven't mastered like

went to you like, but

For anyone of us building a community outside of Webster day begins

think about web three, we've got so many more things to work.

Our we've got improved like the super user programs to reach that

we're developing.

We've got to improve the data that we are collecting and analyzing

about communities.

We've got to improve the user experience of the community is like, if

I were to do like a study of almost any Community with you, on a lot

of these web three doesn't come up ever at all.

No one even thinks about.

I've never been on an interview with members that I've done probably

1,000.

These over the last decade with that.

Like yeah, I wish I was walking along it in a virtual world.

I could engage with members like no, they're not like, oh, I wish I

had some distributed database with a ledger that could be fake.

I mean like no one lets go out what they want.

I like quicker responses, better responses more.

Access to staff better navigation.

And I feel like there's priorities here before we get excited about

the shiny new thing.

And the final thing I would say like being a bit slide here is the

seems to be this.

He pulled are always promoting the new thing like the as there was

like these Zeitgeist as you know, we're like this is a new thing and

you get a lot of attention by saying this is the future of everything

on.

This is the big new new thing but you never actually have to prove it

because by the time it it's not always turns out to be so like it

moves on to the next thing.

And so yeah, I like I like people that just knuckle down and do the

work to be honest, certainly improve their communities, you know, one

step at a time.

I'm systematic about it, you know.

They get the result to show the results web three.

I hope it works out well for them.

It's not a priority for me at this time because I can't see a

practical use for.

Yeah, I can't see a practical, use for it for the kind of work that

I'm doing in other people like me or do ya know?

Yeah, I see it.

This is extremely immature at the moment, right?

Like, that whole concept and thinking and potentially and he could

easily mature in the next few years, three, four, five years.

Yeah.

Misha, you know, and we'll kind of see, you know, something you

mentioned the other day is again, it's a tweet because I follow your

stuff.

Usually you put like five tweets into one.

So it's actually really helpful.

No, I mean, how do you, how do you get the word out?

But you mentioned something about, you know, you're changing your mind

about how they can't.

Exactly remember the, the whole bit was around the social peace and

Community, managers, and social people, and how they engage in.

Iraq and kind of the, you know, would like to know a little bit more

about that because I'm, I've always had this debate of and it's even

true today.

Like what I do and Community is completely different than what our

social media person does today, right, you know, our social media

person just pushes out content, you know, about the brand, you know,

and there's people that follow it, that might even tweet about it

every now and then, but I don't see our social team that engaging, to

be honest.

You are people, you know, they're just wanted to push out content

about the brand and hopefully that changes

Engines and and maybe with an influence of community.

I can help change that.

So I, I'm interested to kind of hear your thoughts about kind of

social person, social media person versus Community or how you're

seeing those kind of intertwined.

In some ways, the take that back to like, I think a bigger prints were

priced.

Like, so I think what I tried to do with favor be in the tiny team, I

have is be data-driven about our work.

Like I know that's a unique thing.

I think we speak.

We invest a lot of time.

I've got one person, just looks at data the entire day.

You know, that's his full-time job, Pavel hype.

And everyone says that the, that their data driven, until they see

data that they don't like.

And then all of a sudden, they're like, oh, I don't like that data.

So I'm going to ignore it and go away for anyway, so an example, like

we worked with a client yoga and they wanted to build a community not

about themselves, but for their topic that they were in, so people

could talk about that topic, which

Human resources and we did survey after survey.

We did surveys.

We did interview after interview with members and what they're saying

is is that we want a community to discuss the product to your that's

what we that's what we want.

So we looked at that data, we presented to the client and they said no

we don't do that.

We want to build a community of people to discuss the topic despite

all the competition, despite all those things.

And I think it's easy to be data-driven until you get date.

Either one and social media.

Is a lot like this is where social media comes into it because for

years beginning like I began the Vlog in 2008 and I was always very

clear.

We don't do social media because that is an audience.

You know, that's not a community of people engage with each other.

Social media is that you blast out a message and maybe people will

react to it.

Yeah, um, and then we began getting the data and when we do the

interviews of members and surveys, I kept hearing so often like yes, I

participate in a client community.

On a Facebook and Twitter and on the forums.

And as I know how came up so often that it's very clear that the

audience doesn't make that distinction that we do.

And I'm also very wide that we're going to be like those people that

used to sell ice when the road when the reef route, when the

refrigerator's in the fridge, freezers K came along where we just can

find ourselves out of date.

Because we had this like purest view of what community is and some

quite mindful of that.

And so I think communities what our audience thinks it is and it's

very hard to change what I audience thinks.

And I think the reason why I feel we get some of the results from

clients that we do is that we follow the data, even when it tells us

things that we don't like and this is one of those situations where it

makes far more sense to be like, okay if they think of it as a

community on social media and Twitter, how they engage with us on

other channels.

Let's work with that.

Let's work with that, because that's what they want.

I mean, let's find a way to work this.

Should media team with a mafia team and also it's kind of weird when

they have when a member of the audience has a conversation in the

community.

The community of one member of Staff, has a conversation with someone

on my Twitter account and there's no connection.

They like they'll feel a little bit of grief that way you don't know

who I am, you know, I've made 5,000 Post in your community and you

don't know who I am and luckily there's there's pause and Technologies

like or B that are making that a lot easier.

But yeah, I think so.

Social media should be part.

I should be MC.

I don't think it has to be part of our work, but I don't think that we

should reject it because we have some purest notion of what community

is.

Okay, that makes that that doesn't make complete sense.

And what was that technology?

You said?

Open em Pi T.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's quite cool as planning around this one issue.

They bring like all of the discussions about swept into a other tools

that do it, but orbits is, I think that's the company.

I talk to you that.

I was telling you about earlier.

It's a matter of fact.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so they said, yeah, they're too easy.

That's, that's good to know so many, you know, maybe I'll think about

investing in something like that because it really would be

interesting to see where customers are engaging, you know, and how

they engage in these.

Different areas.

They are, there are actual example of a company that it's just came

out of no of nowhere near, you kind of hear about them.

And those sort of like one now.

They have like a free like a free trial.

So it's trying that out.

And, Yeah, simple.

What kind of like it?

I'm not an expert in using the tool yet, but I'm like, yeah, I kind of

like it.

There's some Simplicity, they get interesting data out of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Your your data Guru and you and I like that about you, you know, but I

think you know, data.

Data, sometimes it's really hard to get.

You made a couple of points.

One is some people.

When they, when you start looking at the data, they didn't like what

you, what they saw, and they didn't want to go that direction.

But that's an interesting point.

Maybe it's because they don't know how to deal with what they just

saw.

You know what I mean?

When I think of probably to get off topic a little bit, but when I

think of getting data out of my community today and and there's

certain things that you can get out that are easy, whether it's inside

the platform or whether it's on Google analytics, but time.

Data into real business outcomes and and saying, these are the

problems one that we're trying to solve.

Here's how we're solving it.

And here's all the data to around that telling that story is sometimes

very difficult to do and it could be because of disparage system.

So for example, if you have a support Community, you know, case

deflection is the typical thing you talk about.

But you know what, it's one of the hardest it's really hard to do, you

know, it seems to be hard to do because one is if your systems aren't

connected one, you know, and you're not

You know, so when I say connection it could be Enterprise search.

So is your search connected to your report.

Portal, is your on your community is all those things connected and

then, are you going to looking at case deflection hard cased fighting

to get soft case deflection?

Looking at Google analytics.

How long do they stay on the page?

What are they looking at all that kind of stuff?

And then tying it all back, those things aren't easy to do because it

takes one Investments and then it takes to.

As you have the people to be able to, you know, kind of say, you know,

Dan, you know that.

To get completely off, but that piece, just that piece is hard to do,

you know what I mean?

And, and maybe you've seen it done in a lot.

What would you say to that?

You know what an honest.

Because, you know, you've done this a lot.

When a government does like a major initiative like in a community to

reduce crime, they also know that they have to set aside some money to

evaluate if it works or not, and you want to know, like, did you

initiatives succeed or fail and they set aside like a small pot of

money compared to the total range of the project to evaluate.

If it worked, the problem in community is that the community platforms

aren't really designed to tell us the return on investment in any real

metric that matters.

I think chorus does.

Okay, which platform you're on call.

So I'll I had a g.

Yeah.

Um, so course kind of does okay, but even that me, I don't like

dumping anyone, but, like, even that there's a lot of room for

improvement.

Yeah, and the problem is, that evaluation is hard and takes time.

I'll give you an example with higher logic.

So there's a client on higher on high allergic.

We're working with now because we can work with them to measure the

ROI of the community.

Such as what is the

The relationship between people that participate in a community and

their retention rate and what they sign up form or more courses or

not.

And it means we've got to combine data from higher logic.

Got to combine data from Salesforce.

You got to combine data from the course, modules as well, all into one

place.

So, I'm and that takes time.

And so for us, I'll be upfront about the numbers here, like that was

around 100 hours of work.

So for us, that's immediately like a 15 to 20 grand project are, you

know, that's, yeah.

That's not an incidentally, an insignificant amount of money.

I get that.

And so a lot of clients don't have that money and like we can do it.

We can really show the impact, you know, but it's also a downside hit

like the results.

Why not, tell you what he wanted here and the idea that you like and

that's a challenge as well.

Like we've done the studies before where we do the study.

We and we present the results of the clients can like, yeah.

I'm not tell him I see you.

Yeah, you know because

There's one client year and a half ago.

We worked on the ROI and then they came back and said that the ROI was

was so high.

It was unbelievable.

And they asked us to tone it down and it's absolutely enough to change

the methodology to hit a Target.

You know, that, that makes no sense.

If you have an issue with the methodology, you do it while you're

discussing the methodology, but like, that's the challenge at the

moment that we don't take the evaluation suits suits, seriously at

all, and because

We don't we never get the data.

We need to prove the value of the work.

We do in a conclusive way and there's been a lot of like we did a

project, two years ago, where we took a community down almost for a

couple of months.

Ah, yes.

That was excellent.

By the way.

Sorry.

Yep.

Thanks.

I like, there's a Harvard Business case review on that if you want to

share some point, but like that is the definitive that is absolutely

100%.

Beautiful into proof, but you

You need nerves of Steel and you need to be able to honestly afford

the fee of us or people like us to be able to get those results.

So it comes down to money and we're so excited about getting a

community up and running that we don't ever set aside a pot of money

to see if it works.

And we really should because what not also like we don't just tell you

something, like any data person, doesn't just tell you whether your

community generated our way.

They can tell you specifically, you know, there's a leveling off

period and most of

Is where where the relationship between purchases or retention rates

are kind of like, steady for a while, they're going up and then they

love, they love love knowing where that point is important because

then, you know that you can design a whole onboarding system

specifically for that.

So once you get to this point, that's the level where you need to get

a number two, more than that, then the value doesn't increase.

And so, once you have all this data in one data set, it becomes so

much easier to draw our interesting conclusions from it.

And

A platforms, don't do this, I think because it's not really their

business model.

They want you to look at the level of engagement stuff also because

it's so much work.

Like the higher logic product.

For example, we've got to pull that data and then we have to clean it,

not just from higher logic from other platforms as well, because every

data set is different.

Some people don't always use the same names you have.

Do you have, do you have duplicate names in there?

Some people forget their password and they create a second account and

third down there.

It'll suddenly becomes like it takes less worst weather.

Kids, that's why I don't think a platform bed with is ever going to be

able to do this.

Well, because the intricacies of each different companies, sister will

of whether track customers are all that just makes it so difficult.

So it's an individual as a custom left, but you've got to set aside

the money if you want the results.

Now, it's a good point and, you know, I've been pushing and I try to

push not just higher logic, but other platforms into innovating a

little bit, you know, if they're not going to be

To come up with kind of the data that you're talking about and give us

ways to make that easy to get that data, you know, whether it's apis

or I don't know.

Whatever it is, you know, you have to be able to yeah connect to those

businesses.

Seems to make that happen and I believe in maybe I'm completely wrong.

But when I look at the Innovative things that are going on in the

platform space, I'm not really seeing it.

Like, I just see basic shit and you know, it's just, you know, forums

blogs, those kinds of things and

And I just am like what's what can we do to kind of help, you know the

weight like engagement?

One of the hardest things that and I know I'm getting off a little

bit.

But you know, is is engagement, you know, and creating that whole

engaging, you know, customer journey and all these other things, you

know, why can't, you know, these platforms make that super easy for us

to do, you know, have templates have whatever.

Say, you know, this is how you do it, you know, and and, you know,

just the basic shit, you know, like people like videos or, you know,

quick.

Videos, or whatever.

I don't know.

Like, can you build that into the platform?

That makes it easy to kind of do some of that, maybe you add some

social type things to some of these, I mean, probably a B2B Community

like mine is probably not going to get on there and do these weird

dances and stuff like that on, you know, on the platform.

But I mean still video.

I don't know.

Integrating anything that is engaging and easy to do and that kind of

stuff.

I think their platforms can do a better job in that.

That's my

No, I'm not, you know, and if I really, and I'm sure you have some

thoughts and maybe even know who's kind of up and coming, you know, in

that that area.

I don't know.

Yeah, I think a major innovation in this space to be so disruptive

that no one was to disrupt themselves.

And I think that's probably part of it.

And it's like, that's not an unfamiliar story.

You know, I think it's effective and it's always easier to talk about

this from like the outside, you know, like it's true.

So I think platform vendors, it feels like the products.

They're offering all kind of the same with this point.

There's some differences like Salesforce obviously has a completely

different structure to some of the other communities and now they're

trying to compete on services and integration with social media and

other channels and with high logic automation with it inside.

Its customer success little fan, this kind of like little niche that

they're kind of pursuing but the product

This small difference between them but it's not huge.

They competing on services and having around the product itself

because yeah, definitely more.

And the problem I think is that if you don't I think a lot of people

that purchaser Community platform are doing it for the first time and

they don't really know the difference between a form and a good

forward.

They don't know if it's between gamefication, good gamification and

then fantastic game.

Game game application.

They don't the nuances having huge impact, but it's hard to know that.

To in the space and I wish we could do more projects of helping

clients pick the right platform.

But again, people don't want to pay for that because you know, it's

just not something that they want to go to deepen, and but the nuances

really matter.

And I think the Innovation is happening social media like things.

I think I think a lot of the Innovation comes from social media.

Yeah.

Stack o overflowed as a lot of interesting stuff.

I like what they do.

A lot of really interesting stuff.

Reddit, also doing some interesting stuff.

I don't know why it's not easy for every member to have like, a live

Blanco on Livestream.

Like that feels like something's happening.

But I don't know why we don't have a short video clips out easy to

post up what least integration what we can bring that content into a

community from social media.

Let's say it's like, you know, you think about canva, for example,

it's a place where you can just create a bunch of cool stuff, you

know, and, and then, how awesome would it be if it just kind of pushed

into the?

I don't know.

It just things.

Sort of like that.

You know, it just making things easier.

Yeah, there's one platform a while back that dis big announcement that

they're now offering groups like subgroups.

And like I remember that from like 10 years ago.

I gave her a choice easy.

I'm sure it's easy to look at my, I like my, I like my side be like,

oh, you should be better than this as this is always easy from the

outside.

I just don't feel.

I feel the space is ripe for disruption and I don't feel

That they keeping up with best practices and how people want to engage

with each other.

The and if you look to what the social media technologies that doing

with all the research and experience that I have, I believe looked

everything like which of these are critical to Bringing.

Yeah.

That I'll bet you.

That's why you're on because you just you have to the words that I

wanted to say is that that's exactly right man is it's ripe for

disruption, but you are seeing like, for example, higher logic, buying

vanilla forums,

And game Side by and inside it.

And so we're not seeing disruption.

We are seeing you know, some Acquisitions and some changes and I know

Kuro spot some social media companies a year or two ago, you know, and

so data company kind of stuff, you know what that looks like in the

future.

I don't know, but it will be interesting to see for sure.

So, here's a probably have like, I wish you all these companies.

The best of luck is great.

People can sell.

Out and, you know, get the rewards from there, but generally speaking,

like Acquisitions on a sign of innovation.

They're often the opposite where you're fighting for like, marking

for, like a market share by trying to acquire cut costs, and that

might not be the case what's happening here?

And also in the in the startup space with gang site, there might be

different, but I'm concerned.

I mean I don't want I want as much diversity as possible.

I want, as many like, the ideal situation for all of us is that

there's lots of

He's all fighting in innovating and each Sabbath office of a new and

unique.

And I don't think we have that and I think the fewer companies we have

the less Innovation.

We're going to have such good point as much as I love all of the

platform comes in cinnamon or Rich.

I really appreciate you coming on today.

And certainly thank you so much for having me.

Yeah.

I was just happy you said yes, so well, thank you everyone for another

peers over beers.

I'm Crystal and rich.

Thank you so much for

Coming from fee for me.

Thanks so much.

All right.

Take care.