Episode 097 - Fran Murphy, Vice President, Community at Upwork - Training and Certifications

Chris Detzel: Alright, welcome everyone to another peers over beers my name is Chris dental and guess what we have another special guest friend France doesn't say Francis but so fran Murphy, I think you go by friend is that right.

franmurphy: yeah friends good.

Chris Detzel: Okay well friend is the VP of Community at upward, and so I am super excited to have you on because I remember about a year ago ish is when you start it up or is that right.

franmurphy: yeah yeah closing in on a year in June so yeah almost almost.

Chris Detzel: yeah I mean it's it's mid may right or may now.

Chris Detzel: And you know it's all okay 11 months so.

Chris Detzel: What do you been doing matt tell us, first of all, tell tell us a little bit about yourself friend and we'll go from there, how about that.

franmurphy: yeah sounds good thanks Chris so happy to be on great to chat with you again and yeah a little bit about me, what do people want to know what people care about so i'm avoid right now been here for almost a year we've established not quite but almost and.

franmurphy: i've been you know be proud, so let me give a kind of brief background surprise work I am I spent for four years, Anna plan so.

franmurphy: SAS company doing a lot of planning based work competitors Li si P and Oracle things like that, and you know really to join their like a 600 person company, which was wild to me because it was.

franmurphy: Coming from united health group, so this huge huge organization, where I was leading social social consumer care over there and that's you know social media and healthcare is scary for the legal department.

franmurphy: These to get nervous when I came to the door, but it was it was all good good things, I think.

franmurphy: Imagine was phone yeah right and then prior to that was the best way we didn't a lot of knowledge management and some things like that, and then probably.

Chris Detzel: By the way, I worked it I worked at best buy for a few.

Chris Detzel: Years as well yeah as.

Chris Detzel: Computer leap.

Chris Detzel: You know, in the store, so I wasn't at the corporate level but anyways interesting point there.

franmurphy: At your as well.

franmurphy: yeah but suppose it's a funny one we might connection to bestbuy comes from the UK they took a 50% stake in a company, I used to work for and.

franmurphy: carphone warehouse or any carphone warehouse exists anymore, but there is a good percent stake in that company and they tried to open best buy stores in the UK kind of funny because no one knew what best buy was in the.

franmurphy: UK they thought it was like a dark corner like $1 store I best I walked in and the be all these electronics like this.

franmurphy: So that didn't work.

franmurphy: People walk around yeah they did we ever like it was crazy and you could he went all out at electric cars and the front.

franmurphy: window and things and everything, so it was crazy stuff, but it was a good experience I like best buy was a fun place still have a lot of.

franmurphy: affinity over there and it's Minnesota so you cannot work at best best mile target, I think, is the pre requirements for everybody.

franmurphy: In the state so.

franmurphy: So that it wasn't you hd for a beer and the social stuff and then an opportunity came over to we relaunched our Community you hd as well, which a lot of fun you he is, and I was specifically an optimum which we kind of like to think in optimum as the cool side of that.

franmurphy: yeah that's healthcare, so how cool there's a gap, but but they.

franmurphy: require like a ton a ton of a ton of companies like.

franmurphy: Massive amounts of companies that some of them just got lost, and they gather dust and we actually acquired a company called pregnancy.org.

franmurphy: which was part of another company we acquired.

franmurphy: It was gathering dust was like one person keeping the lights on it, this maternity community, which is like the second biggest at one point behind baby Center which is like the children, or like 50 million members or whatever it is.

franmurphy: And babysit and maternity communities be super active it's like and.

franmurphy: If somebody's got two kids and even I signed up for the alerts for a lot of these places, and they do it really well it's like they want to talk to you, and they do it so well, so you babies, the size of the beta.

franmurphy: go and have a look at some other things, and you.

franmurphy: click through and the click through rate must be astounded.

franmurphy: So we relaunch this pregnancy that or just before I left.

franmurphy: opt in, and you know it was kind of wild to get something off i'll drupal platform we moved on to we get satisfaction, we moved on to actually because we would sprinkler sprinkler just purchase gets.

franmurphy: In in a bit of a fire sale of thing, unfortunately for the folks that guess it was a great platform, but it's it didn't work out, but you know sprinkler I haven't looked at it back at it right now, but I think sprinkler probably did some good things with me.

franmurphy: And then, an opportunity came up to go over to a startup called out upon never heard of it, I have no idea what it was about.

franmurphy: showed up interview go really sucked in the the chief customer so at the time.

franmurphy: geico assignments Okay, he ended up being my boss, before I left as the chief planning opposite and it's a planning company, so of course they need a chief learning officer.

franmurphy: Right.

franmurphy: But he was also also a British guy so so.

Chris Detzel: that's probably.

franmurphy: yeah it was clearly clearly the reason I got the job.

Chris Detzel: language.

franmurphy: The way it is included the language i've learned this after nearly 10 years the United States.

franmurphy: Most of my team of people I know don't understand a word i'm saying.

franmurphy: Which is good because I get to say random things and they're like that.

Chris Detzel: For real What do you say friend I didn't get that.

That.

franmurphy: My kids have the best my kids always correct me so that's that's that's fun.

Chris Detzel: They have an accent.

franmurphy: yeah American accent, so they.

franmurphy: don't they sound very American.

franmurphy: Which is.

Chris Detzel: An apprentice.

franmurphy: dinner out, you know British now it didn't i'm not lost it, which is good, because the worst case scenario is me getting like half American half British and.

franmurphy: sounded a bit like Madonna.

franmurphy: don't know on leads that but Simon really sold the idea around upon if we want to take this community and make it, you know, a salesforce, so this is where we go with us.

franmurphy: They obviously have SAS leaders, as a community leader, we want to really invest in it and really grow it, so I was born and I was like this is amazing it's great there was a couple of people on the team at the time, so.

franmurphy: Talk about journey with them, we build that team to, I think, by the end of it, there was like 12 or 13 of us on the team, I had a great team their technology leaders, you know content we brought a developer, because most people in Community may know this, that if you need devery sources.

franmurphy: yeah engineering never really wants to give it up for Community so we just went our own way, but what I our own developer them, so we did we brought our own developer on staff that she was amazing as well and.

franmurphy: This is a really cool things launched an amazing virtual conference series which suppose the biggest hat tip that I can take from my time there is that our marketing team now called all of the conference series, the same thing that we did, which is put out upon live.

franmurphy: So we did that.

franmurphy: generate a ton of money for the business who leads and acquisition those kinds of things, but really exciting time.

franmurphy: We started doing that event series, and I put people on planes and we go around to Singapore, to the UK and actually fill in these things live stream, then we realize that that's probably not sustainable.

Chris Detzel: it's fun.

franmurphy: It was fun right, it was a lot of fun that people enjoyed it after they got over the fact that this is a lot of hard work, trying to kill me.

franmurphy: But um But then when we set up shop in our minneapolis office, which was.

franmurphy: Beautiful office and it's still there today and did the full live stream from from the office, and when I say live stream We really did you live stream, which is scary to a lot of people, but I love the risk factor of it, so I.

Chris Detzel: need a.

franmurphy: couple of couple of thousand people showing up and then it's like is it going to go down, is it not, but it.

Chris Detzel: Exactly and we.

franmurphy: We had a great partner with them as well that's the thing a great partnership for the events platform we use with Bobby.

franmurphy: And so huge huge fan of debi love the work that they do over the obviously they bought cm X, which is.

franmurphy: You know, everybody knows dmx and the work that they do over there, but.

franmurphy: It may not be too shocking are actually just about to go live with bad idea of work as well.

franmurphy: i'm a matter of habit At times it works it works right so.

Chris Detzel: Why like change, you know if if if you've had really good experience with technologies, you know why, why would you want to change, you know.

franmurphy: yeah I always say this as much of a much for so many platforms out there for Community you know.

franmurphy: Show me the real difference, and if you get one that you know how it works, and you know the backend work, you can work well with that team and it's a true partnership and i'm like Why not go with that makes sense.

franmurphy: Despite the fact that every organization I tend to work that has a salesforce shop always wants me to go into the salesforce Community platform and why yeah they've got a thing that people mistake and i'm probably going to offend people I don't mean to but salesforce as amazing community.

franmurphy: they're not an amazing Community platform like that i'm not to be clear distinction of people get wrapped up in it.

franmurphy: But I reference salesforce all the time, especially some of the work that we're doing a lot of work, if you think about the way they do their certifications do trailhead and all of that it's like well.

franmurphy: yeah that's how we should get see with with up work right, we should be able to show people if you do certifications with as.

franmurphy: We do betting with you on your skills and assessments those kinds of things and we should be able to tell you the same kind of data, like what kind of job, can I get from that's how much money can I now charge for my.

franmurphy: Work etc, so now we want to make that evolution with the way we're doing so Anna plan anyway, did the whole rocket ship ride through ipo and that was fun and.

franmurphy: And then we kind of I kind of got to a point that Anna plan, where we realized, you know I think we've we've gone as far as we can go right now, and you know, I was looking for a new article wasn't actively looking for an opportunity, but one kind of fell in my lap, but it was.

franmurphy: at work and Funnily enough, we try to partner with a work probably about two years prior to that would work, we were doing our plan, we launched a.

franmurphy: Certification program through the Community we've actually given access to people to the Anna plan platform for the first time ever we were a SAS company and.

franmurphy: The only way, you can actually use our platform is, if you were a customer or a partner and it's like and we were.

franmurphy: We were recognizing that we didn't have enough talent in the system, so I support all of our customer growth so we're like well why don't we just give access to people, so they can actually learn it.

franmurphy: So we launched talent builder in the Community and get people 90 days access and they were getting them skilled up as model builders.

franmurphy: We didn't want to become a recruiting firm we didn't want to become like a staffing or or a talent firm, we wanted to partner with another company that would say.

franmurphy: Take all of those people that are becoming skilled use their platform and give our customers access to that platform, so we were trying to.

franmurphy: Work with a couple of rounds, one of them is up work it didn't work out, unfortunately, but I remember the firm obviously or the company and a lot of people know work a lot.

franmurphy: Of you don't know like.

Chris Detzel: I know that and I use them.

Chris Detzel: I use you guys so.

franmurphy: Good that's great that's good news it's a 5050 split we know we with a market leader market leader, the brand recognition just isn't where we needed to be, but if we're making great strides then we've got a wonderful new CMO has joined us he's making some really great progress so.

franmurphy: So yeah so when did a lot of content came across to work really bought into the mission about creating economic opportunity for folks and I thought What better way to serve that mission then then then take on the role of the leader in that Community and.

franmurphy: And that's where we are today right, and I can go a little bit further into the what the journeys been like so far for for Community awkward alone.

Chris Detzel: yeah I think.

Chris Detzel: I get it now I think that's a good idea and.

Chris Detzel: And that that's The goal is to have you talking, so I think we're good about that, but that was really good insights on kind of your journey from where you were where you are today and.

Chris Detzel: it's quite interesting love to know more about we're not necessarily talk about all this, but.

Chris Detzel: How you how you.

Chris Detzel: You know you're thinking around certification programs within the Community and getting them kind of leveled up and that kind of stuff is that.

Chris Detzel: kind of connected to like an academy of some sort you know I come from a B2B company, so we have academy that they're trying to certify our current customers and partners on both technical.

Chris Detzel: Type stuff but also on sales type stuff specifically around our partners right, so they need to know how to sell our product what our products about all that kind of stuff but also that technical stuff I mean.

Chris Detzel: It airport, do you guys have like a you know academy type stuff I mean it's a little different of a.

Chris Detzel: model, I guess, because you have talent that you know.

Chris Detzel: Basically, is just getting money around their talents and people are just basically hiring them for their talent to do certain things right and i'm sure there's some bigger.

Chris Detzel: Use cases there but that's the way I use up work is I just put out a post, and I say I need a writer a blog writer, I need somebody to create edit videos or I need this somebody applies I look at their profile and I think.

Chris Detzel: yeah they look good when i'm gonna try them, you know that kind of stuff you know.

franmurphy: yeah no absolutely I mean, I think.

franmurphy: You know you.

franmurphy: it's almost like you read my mind of what we do over there, so we know when I joined it was called the actual title was community and talent success.

franmurphy: And it's funny tasks so really we're title, because people think I UNHCR.

franmurphy: And it's not a real.

franmurphy: We all know community is a weird one, because when anyone have a post for the first Community roll the die, for they don't they don't realize the nuances and they get a bunch of applications that people who actually work in the Community.

Chris Detzel: yeah exactly.

franmurphy: exactly which do fantastic work by the way, but just not right for what we need, but um.

franmurphy: yeah so um so what I did the one the first things I did was look at what is the makeup of that team, and we had an events function.

franmurphy: Which made sense and then talent success is really made up of.

franmurphy: What we call quick skill certifications So these are like we certify people based on.

franmurphy: Designing created portfolios or the Web mobile development skills, so we partnered with a company called code signal to help us facilitate that.

franmurphy: And so we have all of that and.

franmurphy: And then we also have some coaching so one to one coaching that we would do with freelancers, when they join so really helping them get.

franmurphy: started on the platform, and it was really successful, which is no scare, there was no scale, it was really low low REACH, not many people were reaching considering the amounts of people who were on up work.

franmurphy: yeah So what we did is we we collapsed all of that, together, and put it under the umbrella just community and I built we build three clear pillars and community we have Community platform, which is all about the core Community pieces and Community upward, by the way, was just a forum.

franmurphy: We have we use we use chorus big fan of course looked a little review that and but we were using like 2% of what causes I jokingly say chorus must have thought we were the best cash cow.

franmurphy: Because we didn't ask for anything yeah.

franmurphy: yeah we don't have all the there was basically nothing turned on in the back end there's a lot of tech debt so.

franmurphy: We we repurpose that so it has forum should always be part of a community but shouldn't just be a Community isn't that that isn't all about Community can be so.

franmurphy: We have forums still were reading redesign and all of that piece of it we just rebranded the Community, which is great it actually is on brand now which.

franmurphy: is great because we weren't we weren't at all.

franmurphy: yeah it was we redesigned it, so in that in that team, we have before and pieces, we have a content leader that we brought in, we also have an experienced leader that we brought in which manages kind of our idea of groups, so we want to wanted to introduce.

franmurphy: This these discrete experiences, the overall Community as millions of people in it, but they're all lumped together So how do we give people affinity, how do we let people.

franmurphy: Not just be part of a tiny group but have the ability to be part of a smaller group so we've started to launch them now.

franmurphy: remember how many we've got maybe close to 20 or so that are both private and completely hidden like some Bach coaching cohorts.

franmurphy: yeah, this is the ones that are you know you can you can request to join and that, based on geography or we've got some affinity groups like the veterans group but women's group we just did a campaign.

franmurphy: code we help with a campaign our marketing bit around mother's day and specifically about how do we address the problem of.

franmurphy: The displaced workforce with regards to women, obviously.

franmurphy: The pandemic, they were.

franmurphy: More most brutally hit with having to leave the workforce So how do we help bring them back so we we we partnered with our marketing team and we launched a a group for.

franmurphy: mother's coming back coaching cohorts were given a kind of exclusive access and to certifications if he wants to have it, and things like that so really, really trying to trying to get back there so.

franmurphy: So the group's function sits on the platform as well, and then within experiences also gamification.

franmurphy: gamification is also kind of is one of those things that will, of course, is gamification is Community and as always get occasion, but.

franmurphy: people get it wrong all the time and and and or just doesn't exist or people think well it's badging and it's roles and rankin's that's all part of it is but it's not the be all and end all of it.

franmurphy: And what we realized that the upward community with our ranking system is that it had been stated just out of the box right, so I.

franmurphy: had certain things.

franmurphy: And you call me a certain thing.

franmurphy: So we had a bunch of people who are community.

franmurphy: gears of the php Community aces whatever and they made much sense and it wasn't fair to those people, either because we were, we need to give give more and explain exactly what this means that we were doing a good job of that so.

franmurphy: we've rolled back all the rankings So if you go into the communities that everyone's Community Member right now, so we re establish what does it mean.

franmurphy: What is the criteria for leveling up, and you know some of those some of those people will immediately level backup because us by storing data and looking at everyone completely pull the rug from under people.

franmurphy: So there's that piece, and then we also we kept our events team, as is we brought in there, but we have a global events team.

franmurphy: focuses on user generated events, I think meetups that a lot of in person events around Europe around the world and in the US as well, we have a we have a network of ambassadors that work on the team in different parts of the world who help kind of facilitate those in person event, these.

Chris Detzel: ambassadors are more on your Community right because they're.

Chris Detzel: So engaged or is that right or.

franmurphy: No that actually all star actually on the team, though.

franmurphy: But we are one of the things we should, as you mentioned, as well as what i'll quote does is we we drink our own champagne.

franmurphy: room, so the budget we have.

franmurphy: is probably about a 7525 split across the company a full time employees to what we call a hybrid workforce our talent innovation programs, so we have to use people on the platform.

franmurphy: But we don't use them, we don't use them in a in like a.

franmurphy: Like a specific needs, are you explained, you might need someone to edit some videos and then.

franmurphy: He wouldn't keep them on full time I have people on my team we've been part of that program for 678 years.

franmurphy: And yeah right and they've been committed to it and.

franmurphy: You know, we love the.

Chris Detzel: way they paid.

Chris Detzel: To do that.

Chris Detzel: Okay got it.

franmurphy: yeah yeah we paid them to do that yeah so it's all part of the program so we have these ambassadors they do that, where we're relaunching and kind of.

franmurphy: connecting the events team, more to the Community as well, so we've got these groups there's like this would get this gives these one off regional events, for example, an opportunity to connect all year round.

franmurphy: Through a through a Community group and then also the ability to spin up their events whenever they need them, this is one of the reasons we want to bother with bevies because it gives us the opportunity.

franmurphy: To give those leaders within the groups, not just these ambassadors, but i'm recalling the guides access to Betty to set up the event, so we don't have to be a barrier to them getting together the verge.

Chris Detzel: can have access to that.

Chris Detzel: And you know being branded for upward and all the people that bring it in is greatly it's an opportunity for upward as well.

franmurphy: Absolutely, I think it's only gravity affects me if you do the right thing by people eventually they.

Chris Detzel: get it.

franmurphy: They could they associate you with that with with that it pays dividends, so we also have in the events team Community events which are the stuff that we put on some product events, maybe, or we worked with thought leaders in the Community and put them on the stage.

franmurphy: So.

Chris Detzel: Most of these virtual or some of them.

franmurphy: live today today 100% virtual although fingers crossed, we should be about nothing interesting about the new just data, we are going to be going back to in person, events have a trialing some of the end of this quarter, so we got some regional events are going to be in person again.

franmurphy: we're also working on a larger.

franmurphy: talent event like accounts summit every word for.

franmurphy: Young yeah there's going to be driven by Community and that will be hybrid.

Chris Detzel: So let's back up a little bit because i'm highly interested in some of the things you're saying about.

Chris Detzel: You know what i'm thinking about is this maybe a new buzzword in Community by Community Community led growth right.

Chris Detzel: First of all, it does Community own all the event pieces or just certain just specific Community event type stuff so it makes sense, like.

Chris Detzel: Are you guys just engaged in certain things or you're engaging all the events that are going on what's kind of the.

franmurphy: Yes, so it's going to be a sonic a non answer we own all the events that we are.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

franmurphy: But so marketing, we have a we have a marketing events team, we have a leader over there.

franmurphy: yeah primarily focused on our clients and and, more specifically, quite focused on our enterprise clients honestly we work with some huge organizations who bring us into soul huge talent needs so they have.

franmurphy: yeah and we can help with across the world, so we have events that are focused and in that area.

Chris Detzel: We on it.

franmurphy: focused primarily on the millions of freelancers, that are out there and and with a.

Chris Detzel: few years of.

Chris Detzel: Their work.

Chris Detzel: Like yeah got it.

franmurphy: And I found a really valuable with the same thing and upon our.

franmurphy: Market innovation we focus on the C suite and the decision makers, we focus on we focus on the real decision makers have any any software, which is the people using it, because if.

franmurphy: You don't like it then they're going to tell my boss, so they don't like it and guess for the next software vendor is going to come along and until you play so so we everything i've explained so far and events perspective that's what we 100 sent out.

franmurphy: And they'll have from our Community events those product events, because I sit with him product which the first never started in a product org.

Chris Detzel: Which isn't.

franmurphy: very interesting, people often go like so you said which partner marketing, you said i'm like Dom and why we said in the UK we don't have a customer so we'd have a chief customer Officer of work so there's not that rolls and roll up into yeah.

franmurphy: And, to be fair, my boss, is the chief product and experience officer, so he has all of cx in there as well, so this is all the core product competencies and cx and community that sit within his.

Chris Detzel: We have that we have that, as well as our chief product and chief customer officer, you know and the gate on a shit ton of things you know.

franmurphy: Small small remit write.

Chris Detzel: Your own product and you own all the support and customer success and.

Chris Detzel: You know.

Chris Detzel: documentation and you know bunch of other stuff so it's like geez one dude is really busy I mean he has a lot of people under him, but you know.

franmurphy: looks like oh.

Chris Detzel: This is interesting.

Chris Detzel: And let's back up a little bit what you know when you look at communities can have goals, and you know.

Chris Detzel: What is it that you're trying to achieve and what are, what are you, you know when you look at business outcomes.

Chris Detzel: How does your one is what is it that you're trying to achieve and what are some of your business outcomes and the last thing is, you know how does, how do.

Chris Detzel: How does your goals align with I guess one I assume the company goals kind of filter down in the product goal, you know the product teams goals are then put into place, and then the Community goals kind of filter down into from the product is that right or you know.

franmurphy: Yes, absolutely you know we year we did as everyone does that kickoff.

franmurphy: saw the year and.

franmurphy: hayden our our CEO you know shared with the the whole organization kind of.

franmurphy: kind of focus on what we're focused on for what we're calling our act to running.

franmurphy: Yet work 20 year old company right so we're kind of in that re redesign mode, you would we kind of really a lot of change going on across the business and and those goals that absolutely map then to our product goals and then we.

franmurphy: aspire to kind of roll up those our Community goes to to product, and then by proxy to those those company goals as well, so yeah there's a lot of connection, which I think is important.

Of course.

franmurphy: For for Community and you know this right, I mean it's sustainability and it's it's it's preservation as well if you can't prove value, then you know you just end up being a cost Center.

franmurphy: And values value shows have been in many different ways and the way we've people care about different things like.

franmurphy: That around you know we, you know as Community professionals, you know we care about the things that other parts of the business and senior leadership don't always care about because they don't they can't connect the dots and easy.

franmurphy: And it's So how do I connect the dots for you and make it really easy for me to report that out and really easy for you to see that, so we break it into three different pillars within Community we have traffic engagement in penetration was one bucket so looking at your.

franmurphy: boring traffic metrics yeah really I mean it felt like a.

franmurphy: funny story, but it's like it's good to see traffic go up it's good to see page views go up to that matters.

Chris Detzel: But the engagement Yannick seo and all I can say.

franmurphy: Absolutely yeah.

Chris Detzel: that's how people find you.

franmurphy: Right yeah right, and then you know the engagement piece is super important it makes everything else possible of people actually add.

franmurphy: Some you know just oboe in something or are they just going to be they can actually comment and they're going to contribute and content for those that are going to attend that event presented an event.

franmurphy: goes through an academy class.

franmurphy: Except, by the way, I know we skipped over i'll just quickly loop back the other team, I have is called Academy.

franmurphy: We relaunched it it's got these come.

franmurphy: out to me, and it has these certifications cohort based coaching.

franmurphy: interactive learnings and then all our social and social impact partnership initiatives that we're working on, as well as in.

My group.

franmurphy: yeah that you're really interested in yeah what we're doing there's these kind of the stuff that.

franmurphy: gets you kind of really excited about the impact that you can make on the world so.

yeah.

franmurphy: Grandiose.

franmurphy: We try we try but um.

franmurphy: So traffic.

franmurphy: Traffic engagement and penetration and engagement super important so obviously the gamut of passive all the way through to active engagement.

franmurphy: And then the penetration pieces about you know because we're business, we want to make sure that other people using our tool using Community and.

franmurphy: If you use communities that increase your value to us, you know, we need to cut those out so we're looking at how many people who are active in the in the notebook are also active in Community so looking at that we're an open community.

franmurphy: Double edged sword I love open communities, I love being like let's democratize the world and let everyone see everything yeah the obvious disadvantages guys I don't need to log in unless I need to interact.

franmurphy: And still be getting value with just by viewing stuff right.

franmurphy: yeah we're at we're introducing a tool that will help us track non logged in activity so we'll be able to get some of that vaccine which will be great.

Chris Detzel: Totally is.

franmurphy: highly interested so.

franmurphy: yeah so it's a home grown to love thing this.

franmurphy: How were we were using so he has a great as well.

Chris Detzel: it's just like I thought he was more like a Google analytics so instead of using Google analytics us he said not true.

franmurphy: It does a little bit more so it'll help you it's a bit more in depth, it will give you, you can track things like time on page, which is really interesting where did you know that i'm really connect that journey, a little bit more.

franmurphy: So it's really it's really good for helping they can almost act like a semi Mrs system so Linda record store So if you think about tracking learning activity, so I started, for us, whether they drop off and those kinds.

franmurphy: of things what's what's resonating what's not.

franmurphy: And we have like a really small developer resource Apollo talent innovation program called Jolie he's.

franmurphy: Based out of East and Europe any he.

franmurphy: is always great when you discover talent on the team, he was a Community moderator.

franmurphy: And now he's basically dead for us he's doing all this Dev work for us even.

franmurphy: Though is super tiny daddy's hack together this way for us to be able to track.

franmurphy: People successfully complete in the interactive learnings on the Academy, without us having the need to have an actual.

franmurphy: Learning learning management system or record so right now uh yeah we're just going to continue to develop that muscle, so that we avoid the need to add another tool on top of our tech stack so.

franmurphy: vehicle to get that these.

franmurphy: So obviously we track all of those things penetrations and boring, and then the other, the other two pieces i'll leave the one that excites me most about the business impact to last that we look at our business impact kind of makes no sense, their.

franmurphy: Business and then they kind of we look at.

franmurphy: Intelligence invoice so we look, and we roll out into our our overall customer 360 things, obviously.

franmurphy: The unsolicited voice customer you get from communities amazing line so we like to pump all of that stuff then under solicited voice the customer as well, you get we have our MPs that we track some sea salt stuff and things like that across the teams.

franmurphy: We also look.

franmurphy: What we call well, the first of all, we also look at deflection because of course me, even if you're not a sport community.

franmurphy: If you're not tracking deflection it's a mess just to show a bit of value there and I think and it's really that most Community buffalo make it super easy to do.

franmurphy: cornrows big fan of course does because they have a they have their way of measuring deflection but they didn't develop it, which is always a great sell to.

franmurphy: Leadership just like this isn't just random bend, that is, as far as during the tsa you are created this way of measuring deflection so we we push deflection.

Chris Detzel: So today.

Chris Detzel: When you when you say you measure to function.

Chris Detzel: Is it already built into kronos.

Chris Detzel: or they just knew how to do it and you just kind of come up with some formula and then though the analytics here and whatever How does that work.

franmurphy: So the formula is already built in through their survey, so they have a value on elliptic survey and.

franmurphy: They asked the question why did you come to the Community and then did you did you collect I came to support.

franmurphy: They asked like what did you find support, yes or no, and they asked you, even if you said yes, if you didn't find support where would Where would you go next.

franmurphy: And if people select support, then it back to that out, and then we can extrapolate the number of surveys, based on the number of visits and overall visits and then it gives us that number based on our average cost per contact.

franmurphy: yeah so.

Chris Detzel: Interesting now I like that nets so after they asked the question or get it answered or something some survey pops up how's that.

franmurphy: yeah so basically what will happen is it'll it, we have a survey pop up and it's kind of there's gotta be some kind of smart lists on the back end as to where it.

franmurphy: pops up and it doesn't argue So if you do it once it won't do you.

franmurphy: won't do it again for another 90 days, I think.

Chris Detzel: You could pay some setting in there to say.

Chris Detzel: Whatever yeah.

franmurphy: yeah and we're going to be some response rate, and it also gives people the opportunity to provide some debates and feedback to us as well, so and then it's kind of how do we disseminate what's Community feedback, is what is product feedback and go about.

Chris Detzel: This that's pretty cool.

Chris Detzel: I like it, I didn't know that about crows that's a really cool feature love it.

franmurphy: yeah no it's um it's good to it's good to.

franmurphy: it's good to have people on the team that know corals inside.

Chris Detzel: yeah yeah it's.

franmurphy: it's helped helps yeah.

franmurphy: So we do that, and then we also have what we call our Community value metric and what this is, is where we are looking at that influence the Community is having on the success of the business, so if I look at a freelancer, for example, what will.

franmurphy: And this isn't fully baked jack's meets connected, we did this and have fun and we were able to connect the data.

franmurphy: But we're in the process of collecting all this data together, where we can look at if i'm a freelancer and I login to community.

franmurphy: What is the what is my increase in honor of my earnings my job satisfaction score you know my.

franmurphy: rehire right those kinds of things, based on somebody who doesn't that's kind of step one I log in I don't login.

franmurphy: Then we layer in the other, the other pieces of value from Community and it's like compounded so you can like play Lego blocks, you can add some annotation away so am I doing something or bowing we've just changed it to what Pope so.

franmurphy: Because we have no more changes.

franmurphy: I like Judo though it's kind of a cool word.

Maybe yeah.

franmurphy: So I think you are they the commentator they started a thread, are they contributing content, all the way up to people are you presenting an event for us.

franmurphy: And then, compounded all those pieces together to really start to see what is the right mix of activity to show the right value to the business what gives me the most what gives the business and, most importantly.

franmurphy: What makes our freelancers most successful if they add all of these elements together, it does engagement and Community the matter.

franmurphy: That, if it does, we know it does.

franmurphy: Because anecdotally we can tell that those who are active tends to be more successful book and you've seen it through every business probably see it.

franmurphy: yourself right, you know that people are really active in the Community, a propensity to spend more with you and expand the you know the offerings that you did you.

Chris Detzel: have been some of that stuff is highly difficult but I love.

Chris Detzel: Where your head is and I love that you're talking about this media It just shows that you've been doing this for a while and you've been having these conversations, for a long time, you know.

Chris Detzel: And, yes.

franmurphy: it's a slog it's a tough slog as well to get it in front of the right people so that they said that they buy into and they believe that the final one I took a while before we talk about my favorite way we measure is.

franmurphy: When we started to look at influenced.

franmurphy: revenue.

franmurphy: yeah, how do we influence revenue, we didn't really successfully Anna plan slightly different business model right because it's a product that we're selling to customers so we're being to be.

franmurphy: So we we looked at it primarily from the events perspective and we've measured, the success of our events, the same way that markets and measure their success, so how many mq l's will regenerate from them.

franmurphy: And then tracking it, you know tracking the sales cycle and looking at who signed who didn't who expanded that contract offering we didn't based on.

franmurphy: them attending this event and it's not just a random event, they were all our events around educating people about the product about showing what's coming next, and we were able to I mean they were 10s of millions of dollars over the course of events over close to 18 months or so.

franmurphy: And every event was getting better and better at this and our sales team we're inviting people prospects to these events, not events that you would genuinely invite prospects to because they're not marketing events they're about showing you how you treat your customers today.

franmurphy: yeah how you educate and get back to your customers today versus promising media, because everyone knows, I mean sales teams are amazing but.

franmurphy: You know, sometimes they'll they'll over promise because.

franmurphy: They know it's coming six months in six months time it's just not quite there yet, as I said, we can't we can't do that we can do that this is showing what reality is and how we actually treat our customers so that's why I love those events and how we can.

franmurphy: add value to the business group them so we're working on nine connecting that data bed.

love.

Chris Detzel: That I love that and we should come back to this point, right here, because i'm doing some of this stuff here that you're talking about right now with.

Chris Detzel: pushing the event out and then it goes into salesforce and the marquette Oh, and all this stuff and then they can have.

Chris Detzel: But I don't think i've mastered kind of some of the things they talked about yet, but anyways keep going and i'll try to remember to come back to that because have some questions.

franmurphy: yeah no worries.

franmurphy: And then, and then, so we, so we do a lot we're trying to we're trying to get there, we we've been using zoom for our virtual events and dance I arrived, because you know easy button to Poland, we do that, but.

franmurphy: What we transition in all of that a bevy which will give us an immense amount of data that's one of the great things about babies, the day you get from them, and I mean.

franmurphy: If people didn't people they're all familiar with Bobby Bobby.

franmurphy: Do all that kind of the data piece for me to have, as well as like they have a partnership with meetup and they can they do a lot of that work for them as well, for some of the premium offering so.

franmurphy: That when they when when from a platform perspective I sound like i'm on i'm on Commission from Bobby i'm not, but they are great great platform look what Derek spill over the plastic stuff.

Chris Detzel: No, this is good to hear, I mean.

Chris Detzel: You know this podcast is to address some of those things and talk about some of the technologies that you've had.

Chris Detzel: You know benefits from or you know you've had success from, and this is exactly what I want to hear i'm sure that others do too, so you.

franmurphy: Could.

franmurphy: And then, and then, and then, so the final piece that we that we do to measure is.

franmurphy: Not the most interesting way of grabbing oxygen title for it, but we call it kind of direct or custom impact and what I mean by that is that we look at what is the rest of the business trying to achieve.

franmurphy: What are their goals and how can we leverage the suite of offerings that we're building our Community, to help meet those goals.

franmurphy: So how can we say you're trying to do X we're going to give you why to help you achieve it faster or to achieve it so few examples, you know that can give around that to help add color one of them is.

franmurphy: The war in Ukraine, obviously super super sad super busy for everybody, we are team TEAM members in Ukraine locally and thankfully that everyone is 100% safe if.

franmurphy: separated from family as well and displaced in different countries, but that.

franmurphy: we're all doing well, we have a lot of other TEAM members and a lot of freelancers, and a lot of clients, etc, based in there, so.

franmurphy: You know, we obviously trying to do what can that and part of that was how do we, how does, how do we react and give all this information to people so.

franmurphy: We knew that we could move very quickly and community, and we did it in the past to the pandemic Anna plan we have kind of a helps side there, so we thought let's spin up workouts in community.

franmurphy: So we spun up a site it helped us consolidate all of the information that people would need to know it also helped facilitate a dedicated space for those conversations to happen because.

franmurphy: it's important that we acknowledge that there's a war going on but there's also not a war going on in the rest of the world and they're having conversations that.

franmurphy: exist, and it helps people respect each other's boundaries, a little bit like people don't want to feel like that they're being insensitive by having a conversation about something else there's nothing to do with it.

franmurphy: When it's top of mind to so many people, so we create a space for all of these.

franmurphy: Any form that would happen would happen within the confines of a workout weren't head wasn't hidden in any way you could come and find you can join the group, if you wanted to.

franmurphy: And you could read it, or that really did was really help us channel all of our efforts from a freelancer perspective in that one place, and how.

franmurphy: Does child get those communications out in a really great way and it was really well received and we were able to.

franmurphy: See obviously a huge uptick in traffic but.

franmurphy: What was really interesting.

Was.

franmurphy: Everybody was like panic about look at all these heated conversations that are happening because we have other Russian Russian.

franmurphy: Ukrainian interested Americans and other countries.

franmurphy: Like several likes their opinion about things.

franmurphy: Which is great, and it was, but some of them were getting quite heated rise like, why are you allowed to be on this platform, now that what someone says doing to so, and so, and so.

franmurphy: We wanted to make sure that we facilitate those conversations that we did, and we let them go go and go and go and then we close those threads and people were getting panics like should we be let in these conversations.

franmurphy: happening absolutely because guess what they're going to happen anyway.

franmurphy: So let them happen in a space that we can see, and then we can also see other ways that we can support and change our processes and policies around this.

franmurphy: So it was really good to see, and then they fizzle out because it's the next cycle right it's sad it's super sad was continuing to go on over that book in the UK, they say it's like today's today's news is tomorrow's chip paper right because these fish and chips.

franmurphy: I don't I don't think the probably legally allowed to do that anymore, that would be awful for the fish and chips, and as a vegan.

But uh.

franmurphy: So we have we did that, which is great another another quick example is.

franmurphy: The mother say campaign which I talked about you know, we were able to our brand team said, we want to do this campaign.

franmurphy: Really fantastic adverts that we put together show highlighting what makes you a great mom makes you a great hire right so then and.

franmurphy: very small theaters but so powerful and so needed because it's like you know, as you know, as two guys it's like we weren't necessarily is impacted our kids but.

franmurphy: Equally, you know my my wife was my preschool director so she kind of work through the whole pandemic anyway, which.

franmurphy: kudos to all the frontline workers for doing that, but, but I was privileged enough to work at home, so, as I was managing kind of a kindergartener through through.

franmurphy: That first year of the pandemic, I was teacher and working at the same time, it was super flexible to breathe I didn't have to take a break.

franmurphy: But so many women did, and so we did this, and then, when they came to us, what can we do with you and historically like I said, we only had a forum that was it.

franmurphy: And over the space of kind of the last six months, especially with accelerating grow in our offerings so we're like okay.

franmurphy: Why don't we have a dedicated group for mothers, that we can put out there, why don't we get a dedicated coaching cohort as well, so if people want to come in and try freelance and it's a way to get back into into work it's like we can help them get accelerate on the platform.

franmurphy: Why don't we give them.

franmurphy: prioritize access to those certifications I thought about so we built that suite of packages together and we said we'll offer that and it was front and Center on the page that we built on the website for mother's day mother's day campaign so we were able to.

franmurphy: bring those people into the Community, and we expect it to spin up a cohort within a couple of weeks after launching the group, it was within days, people were chomping at the bit for this, so we celebrate.

franmurphy: yeah right and people were accelerating the as we accelerate our plans to to spin up a coaching cohort that's live now for the moms really highly engaged group and just on the groups in general, I mean it's.

Chris Detzel: brand new really I mean not yes, not that long ago.

franmurphy: And we found this with groups.

franmurphy: Is that when you put people together.

franmurphy: A same way, like you know Facebook condoms we years ago right when you realize that groups is the way to go and people want these degree experiences they don't want to get overwhelmed so.

franmurphy: We found this I mean and you kind of know it's going to be this kind of got to work, it sounds a bit of an ego there, but we kind of knew it was going to work but.

franmurphy: yeah we're seeing it like, for example, and the geo base groups are really exciting and they're not just like we spam pull you in sort of every based on your location.

franmurphy: And we invite you, but you have to proactively go and say, I want to join this group, and then we let you.

Chris Detzel: See the group, and then you hit join and then you're.

franmurphy: Right absolutely i'm Pat the Pakistan group launched within 24 hours, there was over 4000 people in the group.

franmurphy: And over 200 threads work rated by the number of responses as well, probably closer to like six 700 responses in 24 hours.

franmurphy: super passionate that it was valuable conversations, they will like this is amazing now I can connect with people who, in the end and.

franmurphy: kind of have the same experiences me, we also say talk in your own language, if you want to type it it's like it doesn't matter it's like so we have one for Ukraine and it's like we've said.

franmurphy: You can talk in Ukrainian or English in here, whatever you want whatever is comfortable for you so um you know, and I think.

franmurphy: that's what's been really nice, this is that when you put people together like that they don't feel like they're segregated or siloed away from everything it just gives them another spot to kind of have a sounding board to people who are.

franmurphy: going through similar things down from the same location as them or a part of the same industry and have the same skills as them so whether it's a writing group or.

franmurphy: Development group or Pakistan group or whatever it might be so we really like that, so the direct anyway that direct impact value is what I trust them and by by us what I really what is really exciting to me about how we're showing value to the business and.

franmurphy: The team is just build out all the content lead according is just fill out our our menu for community.

franmurphy: Where we're kind of saying, do you want to pick our car and you know what you want, so you want like a group, you want to blog you want all these things and responding to it this way.

franmurphy: What do you need us to call you need to be on a call with us, so we can help explain it, but what we're also doing to help the business understand the value is taken all those examples attaching the data to them.

franmurphy: To show that they work and then putting those at the top of the menu to say, this is what these are the campaigns, we partnered on the past, and this is the, this is the results, you can expect to see if this is what you're trying to achieve.

franmurphy: Perfect then people can say oh cool I want that so i'm going to ask for that or I have something very unique and the one thing I always say.

franmurphy: To my teams is if somebody comes to us and says, I need a Community page and it all of these things and it's like and they don't it's like to say you don't you don't need this, you need to send an email out or.

franmurphy: No don't do anything at all just don't need to do anything but people like think it's like the shiny object so it's like tapering down the shiny object syndrome as well and saying just because we built all this stuff you don't have to i'm not offended if you go or we don't need to.

franmurphy: yeah will help so.

Chris Detzel: I think that's.

Chris Detzel: So many things went through my mind on that whole conversation, so let me see if I can.

Chris Detzel: Put that all so one is I really like how you just open up some groups, and you know discussions with the moms group of.

Chris Detzel: Ukrainian group, you said you had a Pakistani Stan and group or whatever you're talking your own language so you're really empowering your users to.

Chris Detzel: You know just have conversations around whatever topics it sounds like, and you know the moms group is probably more about hey you didn't have a job, because all this stuff happened, you know how do we.

Chris Detzel: help you kind of you know, maybe test some your skills now and maybe you know, I think that was really awesome what is tied to make me think is.

Chris Detzel: She would be cool if you know, and maybe this is kind of what you're doing but.

Chris Detzel: You know it's like a Facebook sort of thing to where you can create your own group and then manage your own group and then people you know if it's.

Chris Detzel: let's say for us if it's about a data kind of thing right like data quality.

Chris Detzel: They open up a good customer or somebody opens up a group and starts having conversations, to see if you can derive that you know our platform I would have to create that group for them to help drive that you can teach them.

Chris Detzel: You know how to use it, but Facebook each door shut yourself, you know I mean so anyways that was just I was like that's genius why don't we do that.

franmurphy: So no it's a really good point and that's exactly where we want to drive to as well, so you kind of you start all these.

franmurphy: These initiatives, just like when they said the age old thing for Community right see that we have conversations first don't need to open a bear a barren wasteland because no one wants to be the first person to talk right.

franmurphy: So it's like so you got to see it with some stuff so we've seen that we groups, to begin with, but again, the obvious one so.

franmurphy: Where we've got activity from freelancers and clients and so that will will spend those groups so, but the.

franmurphy: The eventual plan should come hopefully at some point, this year is to give it the opportunity which request those groups and be able to build their own.

franmurphy: And we have a cold group, the Group guide program that we're continuing to develop, which is we want you to sign up to be the guide for this group, and they can be internal badge awkward employees or really active and advocates that we have can lead those spaces.

franmurphy: And the ability to spin up your own group, I think, is really going to be really important it's going to be important for us to monitor and manage those things.

franmurphy: Again with to make sure that they don't spiral.

franmurphy: And you know book someone's asked me at one point, you know what's the maximum and groups do you think we should have it i'm I don't think there is, I think he.

Chris Detzel: Just take off, for the moment, and then they would just kind of go down and then how to generate some of that content, maybe use it later.

Chris Detzel: You know that's going to be, I could see how this could be out of control, I mean you think of reddit all those groups being stand up and everything else, and you know it's a.

Chris Detzel: Great it's a wonderful thing, but I mean millions upon millions of different forums groups, and you know it's like a it's like Facebook, in a way, but not, you know.

Chris Detzel: No telling how many Facebook groups are out there, you know I have my own group, like on Facebook.

Chris Detzel: That I started running group and then, if I didn't do anything for you know for like three years and then I started pushing it in creating content and then all of a sudden, you know went from you know 20 people in their 10 now I have almost 4000 people on it right, you know and.

Chris Detzel: Things like that, so you just.

Chris Detzel: it's just interesting to me to get off topic, but.

Chris Detzel: you're doing some really cool things.

franmurphy: yeah, no, no, I appreciate that and I think the The great thing you know i'll just say one more thing on that is that that's why we've got this guy group guy program is to say.

franmurphy: Yes, you can start it up, but there's an agreement between us to say that you're going to take responsibility for the group and you're the guy for it, so you you let people in and out and if we you know if there's if it's a it just just becomes that nothing's happening that.

franmurphy: You know we'll just close that group down because it's just not necessary, you know you give people the opportunity to reset it up, we found this out upon as well with the use of group program that we have there is like.

franmurphy: If things aren't happening, then we'll just close them down because it doesn't make any sense to keep them open anymore so because no one's getting value from that point.

Chris Detzel: so quickly, how do you communicate that like How would you communicate that somebody can start their own group it's like here's how you do it, or you know do do these things to start your own group, you know that kind of how do you.

franmurphy: Think of that so.

franmurphy: yeah so we have obviously content has been developed around it, we want to read, we need to redesign the page, so our group page is very.

franmurphy: Out of the box to begin here, you know it's kind of you can filter by what kind of group, the number of members of the things that he closed open whatever and you can see that these are you can search for them, but.

franmurphy: We want to create more of a landing page for groups that explains explains what all day because see people go, why are you trying to.

franmurphy: put us over here, why are you just trying to take us away and put us all together over here, out of the way it's like it doesn't matter you can still you still part of the macro community.

Chris Detzel: At the end.

franmurphy: Or you could be multiple groups, you might be a developer who's also from Pakistan, he was also intro he's also a mother.

franmurphy: And attempt to be in all three of those groups and that's okay and it's like this is what we want to explain, you can be in multiple groups, you can do these things it's like good.

franmurphy: explaining what the Group guide role is having some testimonial videos i'm a big fan of people just get their iPhone Gilman themselves and putting it up and then and then and then also having a more polished video that explains exactly how you would set up a group.

franmurphy: yeah and then did the initial way to probably go about it is less about you can just do it more of a I want to do it.

franmurphy: And i'm going to require i'm going to request that you.

franmurphy: The kind of give me a space to be able to do these things, because with the greatest in the world, you know with dealing with a platform like core os which is gonna.

franmurphy: Giving access to people to be able to set things up becomes with different kind of user requirements that kind of responsibilities that they give them and.

franmurphy: Maybe there's a way to get there, I don't know but it's not I can I can go to Facebook to your point, you can spin up a group tomorrow and the.

franmurphy: Next, five minutes and you've got one about anything, whereas you know we may not be able to do that here it may just be a maybe a small barrier.

Chris Detzel: yeah well you know it's it's not something that you can easily do it have to be somebody would have to.

Chris Detzel: spin up the group at the company at a port one of your your Members right or your people that's not a not.

Chris Detzel: One of your admins that have to spend a group probably you know and then let that person have certain accesses and let them go, but you know my assumption is that you know I think people would probably get it, you know it's intriguing because it's another.

Chris Detzel: opportunity to engage and let people kind of run their own communities, if you will, I like that idea, a lot, especially like in.

Chris Detzel: That way, you know if you request something, and maybe qualify, you know you have these kind of hey this what you have to do you know you start.

Chris Detzel: You have to see it with content, so you have to ask, maybe you bring a few people and and to help you do that kind of stuff we can help guide you in some ways, or whatever, but.

Chris Detzel: here's the parameters, you know, for us, it would be let's talk about all things data, you know, even if it doesn't have to do with what rel to does specifically but.

Chris Detzel: You know I don't want you talking about you know where you're running in the summer, you know you can, to some degree, but you know let's i'm not saying don't be personal but let's keep it sort of topical now on on on you know I don't know but that's intriguing.

Chris Detzel: It didn't mean to get off on that, but it was just it's really.

franmurphy: Really powerful or phrases like.

franmurphy: This the first group we launched was for our expert that talent, so a btr expect that it sounds kind of it's a big deal and work your expert that you kind of go through obviously that thing.

franmurphy: Notification process you kind of the top 1% of people.

franmurphy: And we spun up a group for them and they never had a place for them to connect all together.

franmurphy: It was amazing to see there was so much activity and within within like a couple of hours like what are we going to meet up and so they've had like.

franmurphy: that's great we hoped.

franmurphy: And they wanted to do because we've never connected them all together and it's like and it's just and again they all exist, it.

franmurphy: Before but we've just said hey we're going to give you a small and it's like just given them a nudge in the direction we're not forcing you to do is like, but if you want it is a space to kind of have those conversations.

Chris Detzel: Well Trent you know I think we went a little bit over today are about to, and I have so many more questions so maybe you can come on again and.

Chris Detzel: The next few weeks, months, whatever.

Chris Detzel: A friend, this has been amazing really I just I couldn't get it half my questions out that that I wanted to ask and it's exciting to talk to somebody like you, because.

Chris Detzel: there's not many people thinking of Community the way you are and upward and what you're doing just seems really, really fun and cool and and I really appreciate you coming on.

franmurphy: No thanks I appreciate it because I appreciate you inviting me what you're doing over here.

franmurphy: is really important for the for the industry of Community and making sure that you know we you know, not necessarily mind, but all those voices of Community and bringing them together so people can learn from each other, because that's how we grow and so anytime.

Chris Detzel: Great well thanks everyone for listening in for another peers over beers i'm Chris Council and.

franmurphy: One thing.

Chris Detzel: Thanks friend.