Community Manager Says What? - Latest Comments

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

Evan Hamilton — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:50:32 -0000

Hah! Glad to hear we're not the worst.

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

AzureLunatic — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:02:12 -0000

I moved here from Phoenix, AZ, and it's actually refreshing to me how very calm and stable San Francisco is when faced with water from the sky.

Re: The Message of CLS 11: Community Managers, It’s Time to Take Charge

Evan_Hamilton — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:40:22 -0000

You know, you showed up in my blog post about CLS last year. You really need to stop providing useful info all the time. ;)

Re: The Message of CLS 11: Community Managers, It’s Time to Take Charge

Rachel Luxemburg — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:29:27 -0000

Thanks for the shout-out, Evan!

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

Evan Hamilton — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:30:28 -0000

You're welcome. :) People from out of town always say "well, it gets crazy here when it rains too"...then they come to town and their minds are blown. Total chaos. Ahhh, San Francisco. ;)

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

Adiel — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:10:29 -0000

Okay, I'm seriously dying over this post. You had me at just the title. I lived in Utah for my whole life until I moved to the Bay Area two years ago. It's the most baffling thing to me, people here absolutely lose their minds when it rains. Thank you for this. :)

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

Evan Hamilton — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:37:35 -0000

Ugh, seriously. It should not be as hard as it is. My favorite? The person who stands IN THE STREET a foot or two while waiting for the walk sign to change. What??

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

Kim Thaker — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:19:53 -0000

wonderful. and #5 could be its own spinoff guide. san franciscans seem to be deeply, hopelessly confused about what to do with crowded sidewalks, rain or not.

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

Evan Hamilton — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:29:45 -0000

Amen! I just did. :)

Re: Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

kate — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:27:14 -0000

Just a request: Come to farmers' market when it rains so us poor schmucks selling there don't spend all day damp, bored, and lonely! ;)

Re: Who cares about the homeless? I just want to read the funny pages.

Evan Hamilton — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:55:27 -0000

! Totally! We kill ourselves trying to generate good content that isn't that good when people just want comics. :)

Re: Who cares about the homeless? I just want to read the funny pages.

davinabrewer — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:13:35 -0000

I read somewhere that people spend X amount of time with the newspaper, and the majority of it is checking sports scores, reading the funnies and working the puzzles (my favorite part of the paper). Gonna have to look that up someday.

This is an interesting idea, kinda out there.. I can dig it. I read every day about creating "good content" so if the paper was optimized better, to appeal to reads by being more entertaining with comics and Sudoku and coupons for half-off overpriced lattes, perhaps they would get better circulation. Marketing 101. FWIW.

Re: How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

Evan Hamilton — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:00:41 -0000

Nice, that'd be awesome! It's worth checking out the suggested questions in Confessions of a Public Speaker. Let me know if you wanna borrow it. :)

Re: How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

Cass Phillipps — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:13:26 -0000

We got feedback from other workshops that they would love for US to print feedback forms to have in the room for each workshop, as all of you would love to hear back from attendees. We're aiming to have that next time. Thanks for letting us know here, too. :)

Re: How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

Evan Hamilton — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:46:22 -0000

Anytime...I hate how hard it is to find beginner's info on the new for things like this.

Re: How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

Evan Hamilton — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:44:22 -0000

Thanks Adam! I've done a few small ones before but nothing like this. Appreciate you coming by to listen!

Re: How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

Adam Monago — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 22:25:41 -0000

You did a nice job, man. I would not have guessed it was your first public speaking engagement.

Re: How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

Daryl — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:59:36 -0000

Sounds like this was awesome. Would never have guessed you were the nervous type. Thanks for sharing what you learned.

Re: Software Community Managers: How Do You Know Your Best Customers?

Evan Hamilton — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:25:32 -0000

Oh dear, your comment got lost in the spam filter, Suzy. Thanks much for the suggestion. I agree completely...I spent an hour today brainstorming on how to connect my community members better and it occurred to me in minute 47 that I should probably just meet up with a few. :) Rock on, hope your community-building goes well!

Re: Community Managers Should Be Working Towards Unemployment – Community Leadership Summit 2010 Thoughts

Evan Hamilton — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:32:24 -0000

Hey Blaise,

Absolutely! For me, at least, it's very easy to forget that the staff is part of the community. I think I've been burned before so I assume I'm the only one who cares and I need to do everything myself. That's definitely a recipe for failure, and I need to stop trying to control things and let go. :) Thanks for reminding me of that!

Re: Community Managers Should Be Working Towards Unemployment – Community Leadership Summit 2010 Thoughts

Blaise Grimes-Viort — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:28:23 -0000

Hi Evan,

I have been thinking this myself for a couple of years now. I have seen too many instances of over-marketing or abuse of online communities by their parent brand, and the opportunity for people to have a true unrestricted voice via social media will hopefully make these brands realise that their customers generally won't stand for sub-par service or cold advertising.

I advocate a community-minded approach to all staff members in any company I work with, training them to incorporate their customers into their workflow. It's not about the control I exert over my community, but rather how do I empower all staff members to collaborate with their community. I do essentially aim for redundancy, as you say. Hopefully there will be enough work in the meantime to provide me with a career till I retire though! :)

Re: Software Community Managers: How Do You Know Your Best Customers?

Suzy — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:29:01 -0000

Sounds to me like you need to have a community meet up - in real life. Maybe the next time you are releasing a new development you could arrange an evening where the new developments are showcased hours before the release. Not to journalists or PR people, to your users. You will need something to lure them in with apart from the sneak preview, free food and drink should do the trick!
The 'exclusive' nature of the evening will help your users realise how much you value them and their opinions.

Re: TechCrunch50 Post-Mortem: How to Get Your Startup Noticed

Mattie — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:24:29 -0000

Really great article, Evan! I agree 100% and I think you're probably hitting a few things that seem like common sense but in the hustle and bustle and confusion of creating a startup and attempting to market it, these things get forgotten or overlooked.

I especially agree with knowing who you're pitching to. It's definitely a strain to listen to someone fail miserably at pitching a product I may very well like to me without realizing my interests and goals online.

Re: Yikes – Targeted Marketing at the Gas Pump

Amit Gupta — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:55:52 -0000

Haha, that is awesome. Simple and it works.

Probably would be too expensive, but would be amazing if they went a step further and made it interactive somehow.. like while you're standing there watching your money drain away, a little display lets you select your car brand and model, and see exactly how much $ you would have saved if you drove a Prius (or whatever). Maybe even multiply that out over a year's worth of pumps, that'd be a pretty concrete and convincing argument.

Re: All I Want For Christmas Is To Be Left Alone

Dan Lackey — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:41:45 -0000

I kinda get what you're saying. For the past few years Jill has gone out of her way to do just that and come up with something completely off the wall original for me, and it has always been better than whatever I asked for down the road. A Wii is awesome, but who knows, you could be surprised with something you never thought you needed but get so ridiculously attached to. I think the best part of earlier Christmases was honestly having no clue what you were going to receive. But sometimes you just want to get that one thing and it never comes. Just gotta roll with it.