aheadindustry

Doctor of Community Management, Cmq.

The discussion of education and certification for online community managers is raised today on the blog of the always insightful Jeremiah Owyang. To summarize: the demand for community managers is rising, but no accepted standards exist yet, and while training can be beneficial, hands-on experience is still the dominant criteria for hiring.

Of course, this also echoes discussions being had about entrepreneurship, journalism, and bar tending. The central question in all these debates is, “If the best way to learn a skill is to spend time doing it, why is a school structure necessary?” Usually answered by stating that education is not necessary, but as an individual, your probability of a successful outcome is greater if you have a certificate of study (diploma, master’s degree) than if you don’t. I disagree with that thinking about online community leaders for the following reasons:

1. Empathy can’t be taught. In my experience interacting with customers and users on behalf of brands, empathizing with their experience is key to improving it, or solving their problem. In the same way that software developers thrive on solving puzzles, community developers thrive on solving customer issues. This is a community manager’s greatest asset.

2. Diplomas are like Yelp. A statement of your skills that is true on the day it was posted, but less so with each passing day.

3. Each community is successful in its own way. Driving successful business outcomes will come from understanding what motivates and inspires a community to use a product. There is no formula for this and it has much more to do with #1 than any list of best practices. Pinterest is my favorite current example of this.

Formal education for community managers will come, though I believe it will always be more like business school, which is about the networks and thought process, than law or medical school which is about specific information everyone needs to know.

Yes, Gadget Fatigue is Real - No, Don’t Do Anything About It

A report released by Underwriters Laboratories last week has found that of 1200 people surveyed in 4 countries, 48% feel, “high-tech manufacturers bring new products to market faster than people need them.” The NYT Bits blog does its part, calling it evidence of “gadget fatigue,” while TechCrunch says mainstream consumers are stuck in the ’90s and need to speed up. Both articles blame marketing departments for the incessant touting of “revolutionary” products.

Of course, in the mainstream consumer population gadget fatigue is very real. More and more products are being released, and regardless of how they sell or how well conceived they are - many of them will end up stashed in drawers or [hopefully] recycled less than a year from purchase. This isn’t actually a problem though, and here’s why:

1. Most of the media industry isn’t even close to an endgame for digital distribution that produces revenue at a level they’ll accept. Until then every new device is an iteration on finding a product/market fit that works at scale, and it needs to happen.
2. The consumer software industry is in the middle of a once-in-the-history-of-planetary-evolution development period, where each new app has the potential for a billion downloads. This is the stuff that actually makes gadgets “amazing” and “revolutionary,” after all.
3. Companies constantly trying to win business with new technology products isn’t nearly as scary as the future where consumer electronics are just as ubiquitous but with the same eggshell color computer cases of the mid ’90s.

Eventually, everyone will be a digital native. By then the idea that a person can be fatigued by products that offer access to unlimited information and entertainment should be comfortably resting in peace.