Episode 085 - Special Guest Marjorie Anderson, Let's talk about Business Outcome Metrics

Chris Detzel: Hello everyone, and thank you are welcome to another peers over beers i'm Chris that's all and I do have a special guest today.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): hey everyone and I Chris I am Marjorie Anderson i'm the product manager for Community at project management Institute, I am also the founder of Community by association, oh.

Chris Detzel: That sounds important.

Chris Detzel: So we were just talking on the pre show a little bit, and thank you so much for coming on Sir, I was so excited that you said yes to this.

Chris Detzel: And I wasn't sure if you are because you didn't reply right away, but when you did I was like oh my God it took us a little time to get you on the calendar, so he must be a busy woman.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): It has been a busy few weeks, that is for sure, and I have to tell you that i've been listening to and kind of watching from afar peers over beer or something like when day Chris is going to ask me to be on piers over beers I can.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): feel it i'm just gonna wait and then it finally came out the way you should ask.

Chris Detzel: You should just ask you know that I think that's.

Chris Detzel: that's The thing is, if you were to ask, I would have done it no problem I.

Chris Detzel: Just.

Chris Detzel: You know i've been busy too, but yeah thanks so much for coming on we're talking a little bit about.

Chris Detzel: Over the last couple of years you've I feel like you've kind of exploded into the Community management, I mean you've been doing this for a long time so that's.

Chris Detzel: Really awesome but you know I feel like you've really kind of come a long way over the last maybe two or three years and speaking engagements and getting your name known and everything else i'm loving that you're you're doing that and what's what's changed.

Chris Detzel: and

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah that's it that's a great question it's something that I sit and reflect on.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And so just just to kind of give a little bit of background like i've been doing this work for about eight plus years, and when I first started Community management work.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): There was lots of lots of con content and conversations in communities out there for Community managers, but yeah.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I work in an association and there are some nuances that are very, very different than, say, a product Community or you know you know some other sort of.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Community because of the way that those organizations are governed.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And so I was looking for content that specifically spoke to those nuances and then maybe governance challenges so things like, how do you deal with.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Ensuring that you continue to get the budget that you need from your board of directors, because in an association your board of directors approves your budget not finance.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): So those are the types of things i'm looking for yeah and how do you how do you.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Ensure that you are providing value not only to your Members but also possibly helping create connections at the local level through separately incorporated chapters So those are the types of things that I was looking for, and I could not find content anywhere about that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And the one blog that I did find was the voice for that at the time that I really had a lot of trust in with Maggie me Gary and when I found her blog she had stopped writing, and so I was like what now.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And in.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I decided, I was going to start a blog I was five years into my Community journey and I decided to start a blog to share what I was learning.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And everything kind of took off from there, people who were in the Association and nonprofit space started to find and connect with my content and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): From there I launched an online Community for those folks.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And yeah.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah and then in 2020 I started to really explore what Community by association, could be what more could it be for the association and nonprofit space.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And I kind of did a soft launch at the end of 2020 and move from just to be just being a blog to an llc so there's this element now of contact creation and community and an element of what I like to think of a service.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah to associations and nonprofits and helping them figuring out the strategies and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): The things that they need in order to build strong programs and putting the accountability for the success of those programs in the hands of senior leaders to support their Community staff so.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): that's that's kind of the journey that that it's taken and I think because of that journey and really kind of staying tapped into what i'm, seeing as trends and needs in that space.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): That has been a key piece and kind of really kind of pushing that work to the forefront.

Chris Detzel: I love that that's it's called passion.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): definitely something like it for you to for.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): me to like yeah I do that during the day and also that's going to be something I do on the side too is like, I have to be passionate about it in order to do it like this is work I absolutely love.

Chris Detzel: You know it's it's funny because.

Chris Detzel: Few things one is this peers over beers even as of late, has become more of a passion for me when I first started peers over beers it was one because.

Chris Detzel: You know, Michael Sandoval and I were the founders of this and more more so, I just wanted to be close to him because I knew after that I quit or excel and went to another company that you know he's a hard to to.

Chris Detzel: Get in front, or to stay in touch with because you know he doesn't get tax, so my idea was let's do appears over religion that appears on the list to a podcast and.

Chris Detzel: So when we did this podcast he said yes, and I was so static and he came up with the name peers over beers and even the logo and everything that's all I always keep that but.

Chris Detzel: But then it became more of a and it would be really nice to educate these people, because a lot of times you would start hearing.

Chris Detzel: People talk a lot about tactics that you know they're doing things they're doing to drive the Community, but they were never talking about.

Chris Detzel: The overall strategy and everything else, and you know it's like well if you guys, the more i've done this, the more i've learned that you know you have to.

Chris Detzel: You have to have a strategy, and you have to align that your strategy with the business.

Chris Detzel: Strategy goals and everything else to be successful in the day and a business level that's probably a little different, so this is now since Michael passed away back in late December it's been more of my.

Chris Detzel: goal to really focus in on and make videos do this, these kinds of things to to educate our community leaders of the future right and even hopefully.

Chris Detzel: leaders like the podcast too, because you know I think they're learning where i'm having leaders like yourself on the podcast because I think it's very important so.

Chris Detzel: But it does become sometimes a it's hard, because you know, on Friday nights i'm putting this together to put put out on Saturday morning and then putting some clips together and sometimes i'll do.

Chris Detzel: Post one on Wednesday, you know what I mean so it's it's a lot of work and effort there's a long about way to say that, but I know what you're going through.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): When you love it like it's worth it right.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah it is, and you know it, and it brings me to a lot of people like yourself right and it pushes me to reach out to me even reaching out to you I wasn't sure you know, if you would want to do it, and I was like well let's just try and that's what I did to.

Chris Detzel: Nicole Saunders from zendesk is what I did with Elizabeth kinsey from slack and everybody else you know, like so it pushes me to reach out to leaders in the space so and that's what I want is I want leaders that can help you know push the Community.

Chris Detzel: than a management, you know strategy, the Leader stuff you know forward, you know and to know what what is really there so.

Chris Detzel: So I love that you're doing that you know, are you are you doing this, or you know, do you have a lot of people on your Community now and and what's what's that like on your personal community.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah so for Community by association it's still it's still relatively small, which is only surpassed 100 people in.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah in January and the thing is what I find is that, yes, there are people who definitely have that the the role the official role of Community manager in these organizations, but lots of times what we tend to see in associations is that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): they'll think Okay, we need a Community and the person who manages that Community already has a full time job.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): So its membership specialist while you are responsible for ensuring our membership growth as an association also build this community and they're like I don't know what that means, but i'll try.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And so they're doing that off the side of their desk or they're like hey VP of communications, we want you to be responsible.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): for launching this community and they're like I don't know what that means, but OK, and then, so they do the things that they think they're supposed to do and they start with platform and they're like we did it and so.

Chris Detzel: You build it and they don't come what.

Right.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And so there are people in this space, who are doing this work, but they don't identify as Community managers, because that is not the title that they have and that's lots of times, not the work they were hired to do yeah.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And so the the challenge, then, is finding those people and letting them know hey We understand that you've got this work.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): On your desk and you've got this under your belt, right now, and until unless and until your association says, we need a dedicated Community team for this work, your it.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): here's a space for you to be able to do that work, and so one of the things that i'm trying to do is last year I launched.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): A state of association communities survey to really see how these programs are being resource and you know whether or not they've got the support within the organization to help them grow.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And whether or not that understanding exists behind where those with the value of those communities are and so.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): To benchmark against that I need to do that again so i'm going to be putting out that survey again probably within the next couple of weeks, just so that we can continue to see what that looks like.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah My guess is that we'll see more and more Community managers in.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): official Community managers in these associations, but i'm also interested to see whether or not we're making any progress in terms of support in terms of teams growing in terms of budgets growing.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And those types of things, so you know those are things that will uncover, but I think that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): This region.

Chris Detzel: One way or another.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I think that I think there are definitely.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I think that there are probably more roles, but I don't know that there's more financial support for these programs in these in these in these spaces, and the reason is.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Is because associations and nonprofits don't have big budgets for the most part, most of the time they're small staff associations and organizations and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): They have maybe 50 people, maybe 100 people if you're lucky you come across an association or nonprofit that's got.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You know, three or 400 people that work there, but when you think about why associations and nonprofits exist it's it's it's a little bit more philanthropic.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): So they put a lot of effort and a lot of resourcing behind things like membership growth like an events, and you know it's it's so funny to me because the whole reason associations and nonprofits exists is the same reason that communities they say.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Things is to bring people together.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Yet, yet when you say hey how are you thinking about Community as a program within your organization they're like I don't know what that means.

So.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Which is mind boggling to me.

Chris Detzel: I think sometimes and probably I say more so, but a lot of associations, I can assume that.

Chris Detzel: You know, because there's not a big budget for it and, although there might be buzz around communities, because of the buzzing stuff even going around for the last two years and maybe there's.

Chris Detzel: Maybe not money but there's interest in in communities there and pretty much anywhere, think about it, like, especially in the product side and things like that.

Chris Detzel: That you know, like people just think you build something in the common and it just you know you can't have acid, in a sense, you know i'm not a big.

Chris Detzel: believer and you know hey let's build this community and we'll just kind of do these things for a little bit and then all of a sudden, you know, to take off and then we'll get a Community manager or whatever would be either do it or don't you know.

Chris Detzel: Because most likely, you know if they're growing trying to grow a membership and stuff like that I would assume community can help that in a big way like I mean I don't know but.

Chris Detzel: Just seems like if you have a lot of people that you want to come into your community as this association you bring them in and then you've got like us higher logic is that right, or do you use some other platform first other stuff.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah or you ever pmi we have a custom built solution and for Community by association, we use crowd stack.

Chris Detzel: Okay got it sorry I don't know what the our logic anyways any of these platforms can bring you.

Chris Detzel: Those memberships right, I mean once you've got it you've got email address first name last name and then you can start building out I assume the the journey, you know for the customers and everything else about you know digitally you know and just.

Chris Detzel: To me that's just basic I don't.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): It is, and I think the thing, I think that, where we kind of get.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Maybe stuck from an association standpoint is that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): If i'm building out a membership program I know the value that that brings to my association.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I know that having members means that that brings in dues and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): In exchange for those dues here's what we give to people.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And it's not that simple with.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Community.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Bear is a level of relationship building and trust building that goes into building Community right because it's not just.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Standing up the best damn platform that you can find and expecting people to come in and then making sure it's connected to all every other digital infrastructure and being like yeah we got it.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): But as i'm coming into this community do I trust that what I post is not going to reach back to my boss, because I have a problem that i'm trying to express to the Community and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): figure out how to handle it does that help me or can I trust that I am saying that i'm looking for a job and know that not someone from my my organization is going to see that i'm looking for a job, do I trust and understand that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You know if I give my my opinion on a question that someone's not going to lash out at me and that takes time to build.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): That takes time to understand from a Community Member standpoint that yeah this organization has my back they understand that you know I understand why i'm here.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I understand why this Community exists and how it can help benefit me and how it's going to help.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): me move along the rest of my journey, even if they're not thinking in those terms like they know why that communities there and how it's going to help them and then the organization can demonstrate that they also understand what those needs are and that takes time.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): that's not.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You can just yeah you can't just pop that Papa can pour it out and be like Okay, with all this stuff we've got.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You have to take time to to build that and I think that sometimes people approach Community building the same way, they would approach, a product launch.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): The same way that they would approach building out a new certification, the same way that they would approach, creating content and it's it's not there's so much more that goes into that and you're dealing with how people navigate spaces.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah versus whether or not they will adopt the thing that you just released right and so that's a that's The key thing that I think.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): love them.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Sometimes people get confused about that that causes the whole Community doesn't work.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Community does work.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): How did you how did you go about strategy strategizing and thinking about why that Community needs to exist, and so, sometimes you have to take them all the way back to the.

Chris Detzel: drawn I think it's such a good point because it's really about trust you know, at the end of the day, and you just put in perspective, you know let's say you're part of a.

Chris Detzel: group, you know of runners, for example, and you know, like, I was thinking about this yesterday, so we have this thing here just.

Chris Detzel: put it in a personal level, because that's really what it is.

Chris Detzel: Is you don't just build like this big community and we're all friends, all of a sudden, you know it takes time to build those relationships one.

Chris Detzel: Even though the digital space like because of all the things that you just said it's the get a trust so.

Chris Detzel: there's this group, that we get together every Thursday and there's also a Facebook group of Community people i'm just trying to put it in perspective, you know and.

Chris Detzel: And then, not everybody has to come, but sometimes people come to this run is called Dallas dirt runners and this new person came.

Chris Detzel: And so it's her first time and so she kind of I knew her from running from another group, but she didn't know the rest of the group.

Chris Detzel: Right, so if if I weren't if I didn't run with her luckily she's my speed and everything else I ran with her and.

Chris Detzel: introduced her to the group a little bit you know and so she talked and she was excited but it's going to be a hard thing for her to come into this space.

Chris Detzel: That everybody else knows each other and she doesn't know anybody, but me, you know, luckily she knew me, you know, can you imagine if they don't know anyone.

Chris Detzel: it's even harder and it's too hard, even for group sometimes to accept a new person in you know what I mean like who is this person, you know what I mean so.

Chris Detzel: let's say that was the case from yesterday but it's that's the thinking you know still you go in and you're kind of look in and sometimes you're.

Chris Detzel: If it's a post and maybe you want to post, maybe you don't like you know it's it that's the hardest thing to do is to get people to engage right like, how do you do that only.

Chris Detzel: A very small percent of your people will engage anyways and in a small percentage of those people that will engage or will be your super user type.

Chris Detzel: People to help answer, but then, how do you kind of continue that because those super users get you know i'm getting off a little bit, but they but they.

Chris Detzel: They get tired too So how do you kind of keep that funnel going on a consistent basis you know, bringing new people in bringing new people to engage bring in new people to become super you know all those kinds of things it's just a vicious cycle, you know and.

Chris Detzel: And it's hard to do and it's hard to explain that to executives and others to say well this thing's not working like we've been opening almost a year.

Chris Detzel: And, can you imagine like so i'm presenting numbers and sometimes the numbers month over month or you know, sometimes I have 100 users new user sometimes I have 50 new users.

Chris Detzel: And then traffic is up and down that first year it's not very consistent and i'm like whoa when we're very small company.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Right.

Chris Detzel: Who is.

Chris Detzel: You know people still don't completely trust that's why we build programs to engage them to give them the right content and.

Chris Detzel: Things like that, and when we build the right programs people will continue to come they'll start asking questions to help start answering questions and all those things.

Chris Detzel: can take you know, this could be a year long two years on, or whatever, this is, this is a journey and then get continue.

Chris Detzel: Doing different things to to you know, make sure that they continue to engage and making sure you're still relevant to what they're looking forward to doing I can imagine you've been doing it for a long time at one place, I think.

Chris Detzel: And so i'm sure you can relate, no.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah absolutely absolutely and you know we have a pretty large community at pmi and it says a large global community with over.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): 900,000 registered users of course they're not all active but we've got a pretty big community but.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You know when we're looking at success and we're looking at whether or not the things that we're doing in our Community are working, yes we're looking at things like the number of users we're coming to the Community.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): we're looking at content output we're looking at those types of things, but the more meaningful things to me that tell a story and the metrics that I tend to go toward when I have to kind of explain.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You know whether or not the communities being successful or driving values are people coming back.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): What is our return user rate look like.

Chris Detzel: Well, like that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): What does our unique user.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): rate look like, not just.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Overall users but are there, different people coming into the.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Community yet.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Are they having conversation so are they messaging each other and using the inbox feature if they are you know that that's that's amazing.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah how long is it taking people to get their questions answered so what's the average time that takes how many questions are getting insert with that ratio look like.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Is content being shared so once we post that content or people sharing it.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): So those are the types of things that we kind of look at that tell that story and then from a business aspect we're also looking at things like.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): does something that we enabled as part of the Community experience contribute to an event attendance product conversion purchase a membership renewal of membership.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): journey to certification those types of things so we're really kind of looking at how do we take the analytics that we have within the back end of our custom system marry those with.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Enterprise data analytics and voice of the customer data to tell about full story and that's how we kind of present that value.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): To to ensure that we're able to effectively talk about what Community is not only doing for our Members, but what it's doing for the organization so.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): it's always still a challenge right because.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): You know, sometimes the question comes up well well you didn't have as many new users come in last month, as you did the month before, why is that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): No, it didn't have as many and that's because we held you know more, maybe webinars last month, and we did this month.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): But if you look at how many people returned or who have successful search results that's also very telling right, so if they're coming back, that means that they're getting value out of the Community and here's the journey that they're.

Chris Detzel: papery you mentioned something that.

Chris Detzel: i'm interested in is successful search So what does that mean like a search something, and they are successful, how do you determine that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): So one of the things that you know we've looked at previously is if someone enters the search term.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And it brings up results, not only did they.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): click on it, but did they spend any time in that content right because sometimes people who are like oh successful search means that they've put in something and they clicked on it and boom successful search, not necessarily but if I can take a look at.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): It someone could in a term a search term clicked on a link and then how much time they spent on that piece of content, if they spent two seconds that's not necessarily.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Maybe they're like oh.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): wrong thing, but if they spent three minutes, they probably read.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Right, so that means that they likely found what they worked for are found what they were looking for So those are the types of things that we we kind of look at to ensure that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): we're getting some meaningful engagement metrics and not just things that are surface that and look like they're good metrics like us, I hate that metric I don't like that metric at all if it's not married with some other data that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): helps yeah tell us what that.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): might mean.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): That i'm sorry.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah yeah.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): But you know.

Chris Detzel: The the page view here's, the problem is, is that some of these executives are stuck on the page view look so instead of like what I do instead of just fighting it say okay.

Chris Detzel: You know that's one metric will show you know, so I think you just have to get to know your audience and I agree with you, page view I can just click on videos like click click click like you know and.

Chris Detzel: And then, sometimes, and then, if even if you have like a bug in the system or whatever it still moves your page views up.

Chris Detzel: And so that's the problem with page views it's not.

Chris Detzel: necessarily accurate every single month because of who knows what you know and but the I think the other metrics from Google analytics standpoint are.

Chris Detzel: pretty good you've already mentioned some you know, on how long people stay on certain pages, and you know unique visitors or new visitors or once that you know they come back I love those I I do some of the same things I like the I want to go back to the search thing because i'm still.

Chris Detzel: kind of intrigued with so I know that you can look up certain links, or certain places, to see how long people stay on pages, but what i'm not sure about and i'm not sure if you're saying this or not, but is.

Chris Detzel: If somebody does a search so like in the higher logic platform I can look at all the searches that are done and by WHO.

Chris Detzel: But I can't really tell if that was necessarily successful because it doesn't maybe it does somewhere, but I just If so, then that particular pieces get them off, but it doesn't necessarily tell me.

Chris Detzel: What they clicked on per se from that search term does that make sense.

Chris Detzel: So if.

Chris Detzel: marjorie's in there, and she searches master data management.

Chris Detzel: I don't know if she was successful or not, you know what I mean like not sure so help me understand kind of a little bit deeper on that because you've got me very intrigued gotcha.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah so we because we've got some back end detail in it.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): That data analytics and our system that's custom built.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And we marry those with enterprise data analytics.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And we're able to see more of a full journey and were able to query information, a little bit differently than you would in, say, like a higher logic or yes so.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): The thing about I think you know if we think about one of those things that that's a benefit of having a custom built system is that you can also custom build how you pull out your.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): So we're able to run queries that tell us a little bit more information than maybe a normal analytics suite would and then marry that with additional information we get from our data warehouse.

Chris Detzel: I love it I love it that that is the benefit of building your own or having a platform that allows you to build off of that platform, you know some platform that I know is really good you play a few but one is like in the past, you know if you had a developer that could really.

Chris Detzel: Was it really good they could do a lot of really cool stuff you know with with the platform married up with you know I remember marry that up with some E commerce platforms right, and then we can we can move over like.

Chris Detzel: So, you know how whenever you go to an e commerce platform and you're trying to buy something that gives you recommendations I can move those recommendations over based on the question.

Chris Detzel: On intelligent platform that will show all the you know product recommendations that you could buy and, and I mean this because our goal was to bring.

Chris Detzel: You know 10% of our users from the Community platform over to the commerce platform and create an account whether they create an account or not, that wasn't up to me, but it was to move that traffic over.

Chris Detzel: And you know that was one of the business goals, it was just cool you know, like you said you can just do some really nice.

Chris Detzel: awesome thing problem is that you have to have a developer that can do all that stuff you know, and so you know and that.

Chris Detzel: pretty much needed I don't know full time, but at least half of the time i'm sure to.

Chris Detzel: You know I would I remember having a developer, and having a roadmap for that developer, you know this thing's we need this quarter boom boom boom let's go after it, and you know.

Chris Detzel: Those the platforms today like crows higher logic and probably some others don't allow you to do that right so it's just they're good for what they do, but you know have api's to.

Chris Detzel: connect to different business systems, but even that is difficult, you know so.

Chris Detzel: anyways I love it I think that's all, especially if you get the analytics stuff down, because then you can really think about the business goals you know and tie those directly.

Chris Detzel: Do we get more memberships because of Community you know, or do they stay longer do they renew more do they buy more I don't know the highlights of really cool things that you can do you can't do that with.

Chris Detzel: Those the ones I just mentioned, so that's really cool I like it.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah it's been great we've we've really been able to do some really neat stuff with it, and one of the things that we did a couple of years ago right before the pandemic hit was we.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): were able to tap into voice of the customer capability that we were building out as an organization.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And so we have a tool internally, that really kind of pulls from different systems within the organization to tell us.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Things like sentiment around particular products experiences those types of things.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And when I knew that this was rolling out, I was like hey there's a whole lot of conversations that take place within the Community, we should certainly be plugged into that and so now we've got a dashboard within our voice of the customer platform that we can create we can.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): customize that shows us data voice of the customer data that comes out of a Community around any given topic I can show us and it can show us, I think we can get.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Some sort of MPs data out of it like there's there's lots that we can we can get out of that community, and then we can.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Take a look and see what people are talking about what the sentiment is around that and if its product or event related things that are not event or that are not related to the Community, we can farm that data out and say this is what we're seeing do with it what you will, and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): dashboard is also available to to anyone who has access to the VOC welcome.

Chris Detzel: wow wow.

Chris Detzel: No, I think that you're really doing some cool things you know from a you know business standpoint right like you know isn't, what are the business outcomes that are coming out of Community you can really show that i'm sure that's taking some time to do is that writer and.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah takes takes a while, but I love it a cheese i'm gonna have to get more of these stories Marjorie.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): yeah it's been it's been a journey about we're really getting to a point where we can.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): We can really provide some some some really robust information around the behaviors and the information and the the conversations that are happening within the Community and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And then that can help inform.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Product strategies that can help inform customer experience that can help inform.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): User journeys that can that can help inform a lot, and so that that was very important for me when I moved into a more leadership role within the Community department.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): The Community area to really kind of figure out how do we, how do we make sure that data is connected.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): And then it's providing some significant information, and then only tells us what's happening within the Community, but then, what happens, what happens when people leave the Community or what data can we pull in that will help inform what we do from a Community programming standpoint.

Chris Detzel: Well, so sophisticated I love it.

Chris Detzel: and ask you do you like beers at all.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): I do.

Chris Detzel: Oh good, what do you like.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): My favorite one is.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): it's the claws sweet baby Jesus is my favorite my absolute favorite.

Chris Detzel: What i've never heard of it.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): It is a.

Chocolate hazelnut quarter.

Chris Detzel: So it's dark but it's chocolate and okay yeah that sounds kind of good i'm not a big dark beer fan, and I don't like the poppy stuff I kind of like the latter stuff.

Chris Detzel: You know so wow i'm going to try it, though i'm gonna I don't know if I can get it here but i'll definitely try Where are you located.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): i'm located right outside of Philadelphia.

Chris Detzel: Okay i'm in Dallas Texas so.

Chris Detzel: yeah I no idea where you're located.

Chris Detzel: We started talking like this is our first time to really talk Community like one on one we I don't think you and i've ever had a one on one conversation we've been in a lot of the same.

Chris Detzel: places and even done, you know some things together sort of frame you know just some panel discussions and things like that, but.

Chris Detzel: it's just like you popped up there and I popped up there, and a couple other people were there, and you know but i'm really glad that you came on this is really awesome anything that you know kind of parting words thoughts.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): um I think the only thing that I would just continue to say is.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): One of the things that I think is really important, as the Community profession evolves is that we start to challenge, some of the things that we.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Not necessarily know to be true right like there are foundational elements of Community building that will always be true.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): But there are also things that I think that we can question when it comes to how we build Community for our communities and not everything is going to be a fit and I think it's okay for folks to question that and really figure out, what are the processes, what are the.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): What are the frameworks are the things that actually will work and that I actually need to adopt in order for this to be a successful Community for whatever purposes, therefore, so.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Listen to people who've been in the space, but also trust your gut you are building that Community for a reason you are so.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): adopt what works what doesn't and and and build processes and frameworks and share your learning as you build, because that is how this, that is how this is this profession is going to evolve it's not up to me or anybody else to dictate what that looks like we all have a hand in.

Chris Detzel: Yes, I want to say something, but you just said it beautifully so i'm just gonna leave it at that Nice.

Chris Detzel: Nice one Marjorie so Thank you everyone for coming to another peers of beers i'm Chris dental and.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): Marjorie and.

Chris Detzel: thanks again Marjorie for coming.

Marjorie Anderson (she/her): thanks for having me Chris.