The State of Community – Episode #112: Rachel Happe

Rachel Happe has spent the last 20 years helping organizations implement emerging technologies to advance their business strategies.

Want to hear what she thinks about where online community is headed today?

When I first started working to build chapters (professional groups) internationally for a scientific association in Bethesda, Maryland, Facebook wasn’t around and social media wasn’t what it is today.

Several years later, I was in the throes of exploring all the ways I could use social media to augment these communities of members while creating my own professional community. That’s how fast technology and communication changed the way these relationships were created! Many people, like me, were fascinated by the possibilities of what this tech could do for community and in 2009, I became aware of another person doing incredible research on this area…Rachel Happe.

Rachel has spent the last 20 years helping organizations implement emerging technologies to advance their business strategies.

She understands how networked communications environments can transform how people work, their productivity and their personal satisfaction by aligning their passions, skills and relationships.

I’ve followed Rachel’s work with The Community Roundtable for years and on this episode of Association Chat, I finally had a chance to talk about the “State of Community and Community Management” with her and also ask her about the origin of her interest in community. The answer might surprise you!

(This episode is audio-only.)

Transcript:

• Welcome to Association Chat, a podcast devoted to talking about all things associations, non-profits and the future for building communities. In a world where there’s an association for everything that gives us a lot to talk about. So, let’s get started with your host KiKi L’Italien. Thank you to podcastingforassociatons.com for their help in the production of this podcast. Please join Podcasting For Associations Mike McAllen for a free PCMA webinar this August 20th. Go to: Rebrandly, that’s rebrand.ly/pcmapodcast and learn how to start engaging, educating and informing your membership while making revenue for your association or membership based community. This is gonna be really good. So, The Community Round Table it’s a company dedicated to advancing the business of community. And Round Table collaborates with clients to develop proven practical strategies for better engagement. Clients rely on the the CR’s models, research and networks to take their communities to the next level. And with me today, Rachel Happe, yay! Co-founder and principal of The Community Roundtable. I have wanted to talk with Rachel and ask her questions for years, plural. So, I am so excited that you are here today, Rachel. Welcome to the show.
• Well, thank you so much for having me and ditto. I, obviously, follow some of your work ’cause we work with some associations on their communities. And so, it’s a growing segment of our business.
• You know what, I have followed The Community Roundtable and the work that you do. Of course, everybody, anyone who is building community as part of their job, as part of their role or even cares about this discipline seriously knows about The Community Roundtable, knows the good work that they do, the research, the studies, the reports, the critical reports that come out. So, recently Association Chat the community that I’ve been running for 10 years now, we celebrated 10 years and I automatically started doing all these things you do around milestones like thinking about how things started, where things have gone right or wrong and lessons learned. And Community Roundtable has been around for as, I mean, when I try to think back about when I first became aware of it it was kind of at the beginning of Association Chat I think too. How long has it been around?
• We’re celebrating the same milestone. So, we started in 2009 as well, so.
• Oh my gosh. ‘Cause I remember at the very beginning being like: Ooh, what is this? Yes.
• So, you’re not wrong.
• Yeah. So, you know, it’s fascinating because you do. You see trends. And right before we started recording we started talking about how things have changed over time. And you were sharing with me, from your perspective it’s fascinating because you get to see internal, external. You get to see the way that marketers look at social media and community versus communities that exist aside from, outside of social media. So, talk to me a little bit about the trends you’ve been seeing because that’s what reminded me to hit record is: Oh my gosh, this is so good!
• It’s interesting ’cause we, when we started my perspective, I’m kind of an analyst by nature and by role, past roles. And one thing I didn’t like about being a technology analyst is we were talking to all the vendors about what could be. And so, that’s a kind of a very theoretical conversation. And not very grounded in reality. And what I wanted to do when I started is actually do research about what is. Like, what is actually going on on the ground that is possible because the theory and the practice were very divergent. And I also felt like we didn’t know enough about, we hadn’t documented enough about how communities worked to start fragmenting to a specific industry or a specific use case. And I had a theory that they all had similar patterns regardless of what the goal was in the end. So, I was purposely, took a generalist view. And said: What can we learn about communities globally versus how they apply here there and other? But, you’re right, that has also given me a perspective across industry, across country, across use case that is kind of fascinating. And we see trends both in the research that we do and in our membership community and in the advisory work that we do. And together they give you a really good intuitive sense of what’s goin’ on and what’s coming.
• And so, what are some of those trends that you’re seeing?
• So, we were talking earlier, like, when we started our primary client was a marketing/communications customer support client, external communities for customers. And that was right when social media was really being incorporated into organizations. And there was a lot of excitement about its ability to connect to people.
• Mm hm.
• That kinda got subsumed by the marketing/communications traditional industry. And they were like: Oh, look, we can do things exactly the way we’ve always done them, just faster. And everyone, the kind of the early adopters were like: No, no.
• Oh, yeah.
• No, no. What are we doing? And so, social media really become this content engine. And at that time, you look at Facebook or Twitter, whatever they follow the advertising model because that’s where budgets were in marketing organizations. And so now, it’s become this huge content pay to play content engine. And it’s lost that early luster of like, we can actually connect people and kind of co-create the future together. That’s not what social media is today. And so, you know, in those middle years we didn’t do as much work externally because people were kind of consumed with the content engine bit of social media. And we ended up focusing more on internal communities and culture change and learning and . And it turns out all of those things matter externally as well. And I laugh a lot because if you look externally marketers really know how to speak to people and capture their attention. But they’re kind of a mile wide and an inch deep some of the time. You go into internal people and they know governance and content management. And they can get wrapped around the axle of over structuring everything and forget about communicating with people. So, they’re a mile deep and an inch wide.
• Yeah, yeah.
• And the answer’s somewhere in-between for both of them.
• I mean, it has been interesting to see, it’s sort of like a pendulum swing, you know? As people have gone really far into what good is it. So, yes, at the very beginning it was this beautiful belief that social media, the technology was there to bring us all together and to unite us. I think those of us at the very beginning of that still remember fondly this idea. And we connected early on, we made friends. And still have those friend to this day. Connected early on with people from all over the world who genuinely used this as, used these tools as a way to build community and connect. And then were very disappointed as we watched as things sort of slid into this more and more commercial, more and more marketing, more and more sort of advertising laden communication. And I don’t know, you know, for a little bit I think it was easy for people to think that online community was less community and more just advertising platform. And for a lot of communities I feel like that’s what it did become, you know?
• Yeah and I think you’re right. The pendulum is swinging. And I think part of that is the whole Cambridge Analytica, how people are now aware that they can be manipulated on these platforms. And a lot of people are just stopping their use because they’re saturated in things that they don’t care about and are making their lives worse, not better. And so, marketers are looking at that and be like: Huh, maybe– Right, like.
• Right, right.
• Not actually doing the job that I needed it to. And, oh by the way, I can never get the good data out of these platforms that’s going to really run my business. And so, I quote John Day a lot. He’s with I triple E.
• I love I triple E, yes.
• So, we did a little strategy work with him that then he parlayed and used to really build the case about why they needed an on-premise, owned technology stack for their engagement. And he was like: Those who own their engagement data will own the future. And I think, like, Facebook will never give you the good data in the format that is really meaningful.
• Yeah.
• They will give you the data you need to buy more advertising. But not the data that’s really gonna tell you how behavior is changing.
• Yeah and that’s, I think that that’s such a fascinating, a fascinating opportunity that people underestimate. I think that they don’t understand what is even possible. So, there are two things that came up for me that I wanted to dig into more deeply as you were speaking. And one of them was about the role of trust in community especially in light of Cambridge Analytica and even the challenges that are facing institutions that have been around forever. When we look at the police or the Catholic Church or, you know, just because .org is in your domain name doesn’t mean that people believe you anymore. And so, I think that, you know, I am very curious to find out what you have to say about that. But before I lose the other train of thought the other thing I wanted to dig into more is: Let’s talk a little bit about why John Day was right when he said that. The owning your own data and being able to own the day so to speak is critical. But people I think don’t understand what that can look like. So, can you maybe talk a little bit about what’s possible? Like, how you should be thinking more like John Day.
• I don’t wanna go down that rabbit hole too deeply cause that’s it’s own, like, podcast. But from my perspective, marketing analytics are very tactical and very superficial. So, the way data is structured and delivered to us is very transaction and content-centric. So, very easy to see how many people viewed something, right? Like, that’s the fundamental, oh, I got 20,000 likes on that thing.
• Right, right.
• Viewed that thing, how fantastic. But as we know, in the space that’s kind of a vanity metric.
• Totally.
• It doesn’t mean anything. Like, what does it mean? Like, did it change anybody? Did it make them do anything? And so, then what we really need to see is not a content-centric view of the world. I need a person-centric view of the world, right? I need to know what KiKi did for the past month in my domain. How many things did she read? Did she then go post something? Did she have a conversation? Who did she engage with? And the architecture of data is not oriented around individuals for the most part. And so, companies have to extract all of that engagement data, pair it with CRM data to actually see those behavior flows. And the behavior flows are what drive conversion, for example, right? So, I have this theory that it is my intuition, which is fairly good. But I don’t have the data but my intuition says that: Questions are the most important leading indicator of conversion because psychologically speaking it means you have empowered somebody to own the solution, meaning they have proactively sought the solution rather than just accepted what is out there. They’ve gone out to seek something.
• Oh, I love that. I love that so much.
• So like, I wanna know when people ask questions. It doesn’t even matter if they’re answered. I mean, it does matter if they’re answered because they won’t ask more questions. But that is a turning point for engagement, from receiving stuff to actively participating in it. And if you can empower people to participate you’ve now de-centralized leadership, right? They’re taking a leadership role by doing that.
• Oh my gosh I am so, like, I just got chills because, you know, curiosity is one of the core values of Association Chat. But I, just hearing the way that you put it together as that being just a likely sign of the likelihood of engagement and then conversion for whatever goal it is that you’re setting out to have. I think that’s so true. And that made me immediately think: You know what, what if I went and I looked at the people who asked the most questions in the group and I sent them a handwritten letter? Like, what would happen with that? I bet it would be wildly successful.
• Right and so, they’ll now come back to data. As community manager, I wanna narrow in on the people who are asking the most questions. Who are the people I should cultivate relationships with? But in most community data we can’t see that without a lot a manipulation right now.
• Yeah.
• And Facebook is never gonna give you that list. No, and you know, so, people who are out there listening and they’re thinking: Yeah, but, you know when I go into my insights I can see engagement. And those who are most engaged, guys, engagement for Facebook means they clicked thumbs up, they, which is such a minimal level of engagement that it shouldn’t even really count most of the time, right? ‘Cause it’s not the same thing as a question. A question is so active.
• And so, like, that’s a big beef of mine. Which is like: What do you mean by engagement? You have to break that. Because engagement is hundreds of behaviors. And so, if you’re not clear which engagement behavior matters and is meaningful to your goal and you just accept Twitter or Facebook’s definition, well, there after advertising, right? So, that’s not your goal. So, you need a different engagement measure. So, yes, yeah that’s the to your problem.
• I love this. Okay, okay, so the next thing that I wanted to go into was that question that I asked earlier which was the trust question, you know? Trust is such a big issue in building relationships. And right now, you know, I’m not calling it a trust crisis but it’s definitely a situation where in society today a lot of the things that we believed in or thought were true or, you know, safe and trustworthy as we were maybe children and growing up into adulthood, it’s not the same anymore. We’re questioning a lot of the things that were long held in, you know, that zone of trust. And so, in this sort of state when people don’t trust the videos that they see, there are things like deep fakes that exist, you know. What impact does that have in building community?
• I mean, trust is everything, right? Trust is either the lubricant or the barrier to getting anything done.
• Yeah.
• And trust is socially mediated, right? So, and socially normed. We believe what the people around us that we trust confirms to be true.
• Yes.
• Right? And you get stuck down a rabbit hole. And I always say: A community gone bad is a cult, right? Because you can. A really crazy idea and if you don’t have any ethical issues like, you can have at it.
• Right, right.
• And so, we actually need communities to build trust. And we need those communities to be ethical, right?
• Right.
• And so, this is, like, I often guide clients to like be clear what engagement you want from your community so they can opt in. They know what you’re going for, right? Like, don’t bait and switch them because that’s disorienting and like–
• And they won’t trust you.
• And they won’t trust you in the end.
• Right.
• And, this is the hard one for organizations is: People don’t trust authority figures as much as their peers.
• Right.
• Because you’re paid to have a position on something. And so, there’s a deep cynicism of that right now in society because we have so many leaders who are, seem to be ethically challenged.
• It is so interesting that, so, a lot of the questions that I get with Association Chat when I’m reaching out to other, you know, state societies to see about collaborating and things like that, their immediate go to seems to be: What’s in it for you? Like: How are you making money? You know? And like, kind of cynical because it’s: Before we work with you we wanna know where the payoff is. And I mean, there is definitely a business case for community, there are so many actually business cases for community. But Association Chat was not built for that reason. And it’s not something that has been a focus of mine. So, I’m always kind of, you know, put off a little bit by that question. And at first when it was first asked I was kind of, not offended but sad that it was viewed with suspicion, right? And–
• Very clarifying.
• Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it’s important that organizations ask this question. You know, I understand why they ask it, especially, over time I’ve discovered exactly why it’s such an important question to ask.
• I think the word business or the concept of business or business model gets people kind of, like, defensive. But if looked at it more as clarity of purpose then it’s the only way to really negotiate a good relationship is to understand your boundaries and my boundaries. So, that we know there’s something that we’re both motivated to do to get, there’s a shared purpose there, right?
• Yes.
• which is just translated into a financial statement rather than just a text statement.
• Right, right, it’s like: Kinda wanna do this thing to bring the community more together but not thinking joint venture here, you know? Like, let’s step away from, yeah.
• I think that there can be a fine answer in I’m building this community ’cause I think it’s really important to X over the long term. And that’s the goal. Like, there is no direct, like, I get something on Thursday ’cause I chatted on Wednesday, like that’s not, like. So, I think that’s a fine business model, quote unquote. It’s just clarifying that is super, it’s one of the things we don’t do well in relationships today. We take things for granted a lot of the time. And that’s usually when we’re making assumptions or we’re takin things for granted is usually where we get messed up on the back end.
• Is trust where you see a lot of communities go wrong? Where do people usually go wrong when it comes to creating sustainable community?
• At the very beginning usually. Because I often say: Perfection is the enemy of engagement. Because if I give you something complete, a complete thought, a well-written whatever there’s not much for you to add, right?
• Right, yes.
• You can say: That’s great. But there’s no co-ownership opportunity.
• It’s so true. It’s like when you’re a kid. Say your grandparent did the puzzle and left, like, two pieces for you to put in there. How fun is that, right?
• Yeah.
• That’s not, that doesn’t feel good.
• It’s not effectively then controlled.
• Exactly, yeah.
• From people on the marketing/communications side there’s a real anxiety about perfection. Like, getting the message correct. And so, more often than not we have a hard time giving up control and letting the community co-create with us because that means we don’t have 100% say in where we’re going and that freaks the heck out of most people.
• Oh yeah, me included by the way. I mean, that’s scary.
• That’s hard.
• Yeah and establishing the boundaries so that people understand what’s okay and what’s not okay. There’s this element of education, there’s ethics. So, like, you wanna make sure that things are, you know, it’s a safe space for people. But you wanna encourage that messiness that comes with creativity and with allowing people the space to do something that may be different than what you–
• Yeah and you also have to know where your hard nos are and uphold them which is hard too, to say: No, this community is not about that. And so, having that mindset is super hard.
• Especially, like, just systemically in our organizations, we’re not designed for that. And I’ll give you an example of, like, one of, we did some work with the Canadian Medical Association. And their mindset is just amazing which is they decided that, you know, they needed to engage in new ways. And they have something, I wanna say 90,000 members, they have a lot of doctors across Canada that are members. And they were looking historically and this is not different than a lot of associations but they only deeply engaged with about 500 of them meaning there was only the cream of the crop that actually had influence over their overall policies in a given year. And those people had been in the association for decades. And newer members didn’t wanna pay their dues either financially or time wise. They wanna be involved. And they have their own issues that they wanna produce. And so, what the CMA did is say: Okay, we need a, we don’t need just one community, we need a ecosystem of communities that really surrounds the organization and switches the engagement model of saying: Yes, to 500 people. To saying: Yes, to 90,000. To the extent those people want to take on a topic and engage.
• Oh, fascinating, that’s so cool.
• When you think about the implications on your business model, you’re like, turning it upside down and saying: No, we’re not a risk mitigator anymore, we’re an opportunity seeker, right? We’re not funneling you through the system until we get 500 people we can tolerate dealing with because we only have so many staff. We’re gonna open it up to everyone and let all of you decide what’s important.
• Oh my gosh. So, what happened?
• So, I mean, they’re in the process of figuring that out.
• Aah! To be continued, oh my gosh.
• It’s messy and it takes a while to really build the trust to do all of those things but they’ve got the right mindset. Now, the struggle if you have the right mindset is not everybody else trusts that mindset. You can go out in the organization and say: I wanna hear from you. And somebody can say: Well, you’ve said that every year for two decades and yet. So, you’re in a position where you have to show people that you’re co-creating together rather than telling them you’re gonna do it. And that takes a lot of time and patience to bear out, right? With a small group initially so that they can show the next year. And so, you have to grow very mindfully. And it tends to start very slowly because you’re doing something very different that you have to get the members of the community comfortable with. And you have to get your internal staff comfortable with. And there’s a lot a bumps along that road. And so, you almost, like, you wanna throttle it rather than invite everybody in because you’re really trying to craft the right culture there. You’re not trying to just have a free for all.
• Yeah and it is, it’s sort of delicate because you know, I mean, there are going to be missteps but you wanna get it right in the beginning. But you don’t wanna wait until, for perfection ’cause perfection, you know, is–
• The way I would say it is: You wanna get the process right, right?
• Right.
• People aren’t focused on the process they’re focused on the output. So, they’ll look at early communities and say: What is it doing? And you’re like: It doesn’t matter if we’re getting the behavior of the community correct and people are learning to trust each other and learning to ask questions and learning to like collaborate.
• They’re learning that behavior.
• And then going back to the data, if you can’t see the behavior change you can’t actually see if you’re doing that correctly in the data.
• Yeah.
• Like, you have to use your intuition.
• Oh, and that’s scary for folks too because, you know, they wanna see. I love how your mind works because you are marrying this analytical side with this intuitive, more, you know, this is how I relate to other people’s side of things and it’s I think you need that when you’re talking about relationships. We can automate a lot these days but we can’t automate trust. And so, understanding the behavior and the psychology behind how people begin to trust you, how you can try to speed that up a bit. People push back on me a lot when I start talking about being able to fast track trust but I’m like: Well, the con men do it all the time, right? And so, you wanna figure out how to get to the good stuff as quickly as possible. And so, can you put out communication consistently on a regular basis over time, proving yourself over and over and over again? And the more consistent and more regular and the more that people can come to predict that you’re going to do that and be right you’re proving yourself faster. So, that’s a way to fast track–
• And because of the ways communities grow they grow very slowly initially by really working on that behavior and culture piece. But I keep telling people it’s like cooking risotto. It grows exponentially, right? And so, once you get that early stage right you rapidly get to inflection points where the community shows their peers that you are trustworthy, right? But you do that trust. And that is the value of community is that people can trust the community without knowing every single person in it.
• Yes, yes. Well, so, as far as where community is headed. Based on what you’re seeing, we were talking about the trends and before. And how things are sort of progressing. And shifting in the way that, say, things have been in the past, oh, five to seven, maybe 10 years. How things are shifting again. Do you see the role that communities play for and I’ll ask about associations specifically right now. Do you see the role that communities play for associations changing or shifting?
• Yeah, in some areas like I mentioned I triple E, I mentioned the Canadian Medical Association. They’re thinking very differently about what community can do for them. And I will bring it back to something I see more generally which is to me, community is a governance structure. And our hierarchical organization models are breaking because of automation. And like, we just don’t need the hierarchy anymore. And there was always a down side of the hierarchy which is it was paternalistic and we actually isolated ourselves from feedback. So, executives, are isolated in a hierarchy from the impact of their decisions. And that’s a horribly risky place to be especially when the market is moving really fast. And so, I look at community as a governance structure of the organization. And I say: Your organization is an ecosystem of communities. And a, like a huge community with lots of other communities within it. And if you change your governance structure to this looser model you can operate and change and adapt much more quickly because you’re meeting people at the edge where they are and solving their problems there rather than bringing it all the way up the hierarchy and going all the way back. But again, it requires a loosening of control and I finally figured out what to put on our t-shirts for The CR about five years ago. And it’s this statement: Control is for amateurs. I love that, I so need that t-shirt.
• Somebody asked me at some point, they were like: Okay, well, if control is for amateurs, what’s for professionals? That’s a good question. I answered: The difference is an S on control, right? You’re operating from a place with controls but not controlling the individuals within it. And so, I think where we’re going is changing the governance model both internally and externally of organizations. And how we work with our markets. Because if you’re really engaging your entire market or membership base, there will be no surprises, right? Like, you don’t need market research because you’re getting real time data on what’s going on and the topics that are coming up. Like, nothing should surprise you.
• Yeah, yeah ’cause that communication is happening on an ongoing basis. It shouldn’t catch you off guard because if you’ve got that relationship somebody is talking, somebody’s saying something or raising a question.
• It’s all there. If you’ve built this trusted engagement ecosystem where people feel validated and safe to say what they feel they need to.
• When I’m going to take this from high level and then put it into a more tactical sort of zone for people who are listening and maybe they are thinking about, you know, I am responsible for my community and trying to build that engagement. And I’ve noticed that it’s gotten quiet, you know? And I feel uninspired, like, on how to jostle things up and rev up conversation. What are some of your maybe tips for, from your experience, that you’ve seen to help build curiosity and build engagement–
• Yeah, so I typically will look at that in two different ways which is: Do you have a strategic problem or do you have a tactical problem? If no one is coming to the community, meaning they’re just not, it’s not on their list of things to do. Then generally have a strategic problem, right? Like, you don’t have a call to action that is meaningful to them. We are here to do X, that is aspirational and energizing. Like, what problem do they need to solve? What opportunity do they wanna solve together? You’re not inspiring them to come to the community ’cause you may have a community that we’re like this is a community where we’re here to engage. And people are like: I don’t need to. So, that’s a strategic problem, right? Like, you haven’t defined a goal and a objective for the community that’s engaging. If however, they’re coming but they’re not engaging that’s usually a community management programming problem, right? Like, you’re not making it easy enough to engage. So, the example there is to have a question of the week every week. Are you actively creating Association Chat is a example of a program. Like, you do something on a repeatable basis that becomes a routine or a habit of the community. Where they know this is how to engage. And this is what they’re gonna get back for it. And you’re making sure they’re also rewarded when they do that either by social validation or something else. And so, those are the two things I think about. And if you really have a dead community you probably do need a strategic refresh. And then you sort of need a reboot. Like, you need to restart the community almost. And create a smaller cluster of people that starts engaging around the updated strategy. And then shows people that they can trust the community as a place to actually have that conversation. And have it be impactful.
• Yeah, yeah. I love the way that you organized that because it’s definitely, there can be so many reasons why you’re not seeing engagement. But are they even getting there in the first place. And if they’re not that could be a strategic problem. But if they are there and they’re just not engaging what can you do to help them to learn that that’s a trustworthy place, it’s something that they want to engage in that’s worth their time and it’s easy, it’s easy for them to do it too?
• It all, like, motivation and behavior is such a complicated set of things but and here’s where I’ll give Facebook credit. They have invested a lot in learning how to engage people. And so, there’s a lot of new. And I point people towards B.J. Fogg all the time.
• Yeah, I love B.J. Fogg.
• It’s a complicated thing and it’s not just inclusive of the community itself. Meaning, the whole association, if you’re a member of a association the whole entire way the association engages you impacts your behavior inside the community. Because people know that there’s motivators out, like, there’s umbrella motivators to the community piece.
• That’s so true, that’s so true. You had mentioned before about how people trust their peers more more than looking at like a figure head or somebody in a hierarchical sort of position of power. And for a while, I mean, now it has this horrible influencer marketing sort of name. But influencers who, you know, people who are the peers that you look to and you say: I trust what they, I kind of trust what they say. I will read what they suggest. I will participate if they say it’s good. I’m probably going to try it. And how, you know, what have you learned about the role that influencers or we can call then something else but the influencers play in a community?
• Well, I’ll answer it a little bit of a different way which is.
• Okay.
• Orthogonally a little bit. Which is, like if you have a pile of sand it’s never gonna become glass without a catalyst, right? So, if you get a bunch a people that are exactly like each other into a community it’s gonna be very hard to engage them because they all know the same things, making assumptions about each other is kind of dicey politically. And so, you need diversity in a community to get engagement. And so, when we go in and talk to a client about strategy we identify their target member. Like: Who’s the primary member of this community that’s gonna benefit from it? And then we look at everybody in their life that they interact with. And who they interact with and pay attention to the most. And we kind of say: If the top two or three of those people are not in the community, you’re gonna have a hard time capturing their attention. And so, those people don’t necessarily need to be members but they need to be brought in for webinars or ANAs or. They need to show up in the community somehow. Because those are the people that are already capturing your members’ attention. And so, those are the influencers. And in a work setting they’re a little different than the popular kids, right? They’re the people who, you open their emails when they send you an email, right? They’re the people you interact with a lot. Because they’re critical to getting your job done. And so, they look a little, like, I think of influencers a little bit differently that way. They’re not always just peers. Although they can be. They’re subject matter experts and bosses and heads of associations. There’s a lot a different variety in that group. You need to include them all. Or not all of them but a good portion of them in order to get the attention of your members. And to get them truly engaged. And so, I don’t know if that really answers your question.
• It does, it does. I just, this interview is just flowing so well because I have to say that for, and I don’t know why we haven’t had this discussion before now. But after years of thinking it would be great to meet you and ask you these questions you do not disappoint Rachel. You do not disappoint. Just such a brilliant mind.
• Oh, I don’t know about that.
• So much fun to talk with. Yeah, yeah, I love it, I love it. And so many quotable moments. Like, I am going to have a really easy time going through and figuring out what I want to pick out and share with people. I guess, you know, before I wrap up this interview and turn off the record button I guess the thing that I wanna ask is you know: What got you into this, into committing so much of your career and life into exploring community? Is it the, what got you into it? And what’s keeping you in it today?
• It’s a big question. But my father was a congregational minister. And in that church the congregation hires and fires its minister, meaning you don’t have top down authority at all. And he used to hold deacons meetings. Which is the operating committee for the church in our living room. And when I was six or seven I used to sit in deacon’s meetings. And they thought that was innocuous enough. And I didn’t really care what they were talking about but I was fascinated by the power dynamics. And so, that’s something that’s always really fascinated me. At the same time my mother was a community activist. So, she was running the Nestle boycott back in the ’70s and ’80s. And so, I grew up with these alternative leadership and management approaches. And I went to school and I ended up studying politics, not surprisingly ’cause I. Power dynamics and international relations. And then I got in, I lived in D.C. for a couple of years and worked in the government. And I was like: Oh, no, bureaucracy is not. I can’t do that. And I ended up at a management consulting firm that did innovation and new product development management. And that was just fascinating to me because, like, I have found over time that my passion is in enabling potential. So, I love the idea of new products that offer new solutions. I love mentoring people and seeing them thrive and come out of, like, come into their own. So, I just love, like, I can’t get enough of like seeing people thrive and learn to be assertive and all of those things. So, I worked at this management consulting firm and then they spun off a technology company. So, I was building innovation management, ideation, new product development portal technology in the late ’90s. And then I went out to the Silicon Valley and I was working in a e-payments company for a while. But as I was doing that we were also experimenting with social networks. And it was the Friendster, LinkedIn era of, Orchid, all of those things. So, I got really familiar with that. And from there IDC hired me to cover the social software space. So, I was the first analyst covering that technology market space. And I didn’t really like being an analyst because I had drank my own Kool-Aid and my operations background from the management consulting world and my technology background. And this management leadership background that I had from childhood came together and I was like: Oh my god, this changes everything. Like, everything is going to change. And people have no idea. This was like, this was 2007. And I was like: people have no idea they’re opening this garden gate. And they have no idea that it’s gonna slam behind them and it’s gonna disrupt their entire organization. And they’re not gonna know how to deal with it ’cause they haven’t changed their culture. They haven’t changed their approach to leadership, yada, yada, yada. And so, that’s that’s why I started this because I had a, I never thought I was gonna start a company but I had a unique perspective on the market as does my co-founder Jim Storer who was building early communities. And it was just a opportunity that fit my unique set of experiences really well. And I was like, I saw things that other people didn’t see because of it. What keeps me in the space is and this may be self serving and it may be like, whatever but I see so much anxiety and isolation and distrust and misery. And I think the entire problem is lack of community. Because I think people need what communities offer people that you don’t get from one to one relationships always is they need support when they need support. And they also need to be challenged to be their best selves. And they need that from different people at different times. So, one person is not enough. One person may have a lens on one thing that you’re doing. But not all the things that you’re doing in your life. But communities are rich enough that they can give you that support and challenge whenever you need it when you need it. And so, I just think they’re essential to us being able to be whole people. And I see that as causing so many issues in the world today. So, that’s kinda what keeps me in it.
• I love it. What a wonderful, enriching, inspiring conversation. I hope that you will agree to let me interview you again some time. Please say yes. I’m asking ahead a time. And putting you on the spot. Because there are so many other questions I have to ask. But I–
• Well, I’m in D.C. all the time.
• Don’t wanna take you up for all the time.
• Do something down in D.C., get together.
• We definitely should. So, I wanna say: Thank you for joining me today on Association Chat. Thanks for listening to this episode of Association Chat. If you like it, please subscribe or better yet, tell a friend. You can join the Association Chat book club or support Association Chat by visiting Association Chat’s Patreon site. You can also find more information about live events, private communities, special projects and more on associationchat.com. See ya next time. Hey, Association Chat is in it’s 10th year and independently owned and produced by me, KiKi L’Italien and a very small crew of freelancers and volunteers. We appreciate our sponsors like you wouldn’t believe. So, I wanna give a special thanks to all of our sponsors. Today that includes: Boulder, Event Waves and Amplified Growth. Thanks to all of you. And if you wanna find out more about sponsorship then go to associationchat.com or email me: Kiki@amlplified growth.net and we’ll be happy to talk with you. All right, thanks.