Jeffrey McManus: How to run a technology community

Jeffrey McManus: How to run a technology community:

To my mind, the most important rule is that there should be one person in your organization who is responsible for the health of your community. We call this role the “community manager”. It doesn’t have to be a full-time job, particularly if you’re a startup or an open-source project, but once your community starts numbering in the thousands of active users, it’s time to start thinking about hiring or outsourcing the management of your community.

The community manager is responsible for the health of the community. This means taking whatever steps are necessary to grow the community, making sure that the community is in alignment with the goals of the business or project, and helping to put out fires when they occur.

Or as Laurie and I have always put it “someone has to be the mommy”. Running a community that’s working well is easy. Where a community manager earns their keep is when the troublemakers arrive or when things start to stagnate or go sidewise; and communities where that manager or owner doesn’t take an active hand will inevitably allow a few dominant individuals to do the management instead.

As I like to say, if you don’t fight to keep the trolls out, they’ll move in and drive everyone else out. Do we really want to expend resources so the trolls can play on our dime?

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