• A Love Letter to Our Communities

    Posted on June 29th, 2012 by and currently 1 commenting.

    Today’s post comes to us from the marvelous Victoria Hammond, Community Manager of DeVry University’s DriVen Class…

    In case you haven’t heard, Brains on Fire is looking for a ROCK STAR Community Manager to join our merry pirate crew. We are so excited about the possibilities and what this new addition means for our clients, Brains on Fire and our happy hour schedules.

    As a result of all the recent, internal community management chat, we keep finding ourselves veering off tangents that ultimately lead to conversations about what we are most passionate about: our communities and the people that we get to interact with every day of the year!

    We’re all aware that we have some of the best jobs in the world, and we often have to pinch ourselves just to make sure we’re not dreaming.

    We couldn’t keep all of the feel good mojo behind the Firesphere walls, so we asked the BOF community manager/shepherd/herder team to share their thoughts on what they love most about being a community manager.

    Here is what we said:

    Community Shepherds are the ultimate gardeners. The soil is tilled during insight, and planted during strategy. Once the seed is in the ground, it’s up to the Community Manager to tend to it and help something remarkable grow.
    - Amy Taylor (The Fitness Rebellion Community Manager)

    Connecting the human spirit to the mission of social movements for social change.
    - Alexis Short (Heroes in Recovery Community Manager)

    I think it’s seeing a customer / member / etc. get truly excited about something. It’s so great when a company provides a truly awesome experience for their customer.
    - Eric Dodds (Tinkernation Community Manager)

    I think it’s the feeling that I am actually building meaningful relationships, both with my client and my Leads in my role as Community Shepherd and as the “voice” of my client across multiple online platforms. It’s also pretty freaking awesome to have a part in doing work that is making a REAL difference in the world.
    - Shannon Kohn (Wonderopolis Community Manager)

    Community is not something you can walk away from. Your neighborhood (virtual or not) stays with you from the first alarm clock buzz until tucking yourself in. I love knowing that I always have a group of advocates out there on neighborhood watch making sure it stays as beautiful, if not more so, then when they first moved in. It is an awesome feeling being surrounded by that passion every day. It pushes me to do my best every single day.
    - Victoria Hammond (The DriVen Class Community Manager)

    Does that sound like career fulfillment or soul fulfillment? We are some of the luckiest people in the world to be able to have both. Thank you to our courageous clients and our amazing community teams. It is because of you that we get to let us do this every day. We are better people for getting to get our hands dirty with you!

    What do you love about community?

  • Tyler durden

    Remember that scene in Casablanca. The nazis are singing their coarse and brutish national anthem crapassery. And some French expat, prolly with really cool hair and a elegant peasant dress, starts singing the marseillaise. 
    And drowns the nazis out? Bam.

    That’s community.  Raising a barn, or a ruckus, or a flagon of ale. In the face of a clear and present danger. Seen and unseen. 
    That level of community-where,kindred spirits will get outta their hobbit holes and work together to make this a better place. 
    That abides. 
    That drives the level five tribe.  
    Itykwim.