The Scrapblog job is taken

I mentioned a community relationships person in my earlier blog about Scrapblog.  I guess I was not clear.  The position is taken.  The lucky person has not yet given notice and that is why I cannot name him until that happens.

I find it amazing that both the quantity and quality of people who have contacted either Carlos or me through email and just a few minutes ago, by phone. It makes a statement about what people would like to do professionally.  I am willing to bet that there would have been far fewer people expressing this very high level of excitement had I posted that a client needs either a dorector of marketing or a product manager.

Employers should pay attention.  If you are looking for the brightest, most creative and enthusiastic people to bring your products and services to communities, I strongly advise you to go Scrapblog's route.  These days you get further by joining conversations then starting them.  You get more rewards online by joining communities who might care, rather than controving to start your own.

Comments

[Rob La Gesse]

I guessed right then, when I decided not to contact you about the position :). You weren't completely clear, but I understood that you had a candidate in mind.

Let's come up with a new title for this person/position that really reflects what you and Carlos were looking for... because I don't think it's any worn out corporate title, or even a "cool" Apple-ish title like Evangelist... it's something more than that, I think. Almost like "Corporate Personality", but that's not quite right either!

Rob

[shel israel]

Rob,
I am sorry for the ambiguity but to be honest I'm pleased to see the huge response.The title is interesting. I don't like evangelist, because it is one-way. It implies someone who is taking the word and spreading it. I want something that implies the interactivity that Scrapblog is intending. Community Services manager, but it sounds too much like a prison work release program. Got any thoughts, anyone?

[Rob La Gesse]

Well, let's start with discussin some of the attributes of this person, and position, and go from there. I'll spit out a few individual words I think apply - nix the ones you don't like:

Community
Voice
Thought
Discussion
Communication
Coordination
Personality
Honesty
Approachable
Human
Humor
Candor
Quality
Caring
Conversing
Neighborhood
Connected-ness
Passion

There's a start ;)

Rob

[Rob La Gesse]

BTW this is the exrecise I used to go through with hiring managers when I was doing recruiting - and it's what I did as a hiring manager. It takes some iteration, but it was surprisingly useful to me.

Rob

[Carlos Garcia]

Rob, I like your approach. I would add that the most important skill of the person who will take this position is to listen. I am listening too. You see, we’ve put a lot of effort into creating Scrapblog. Now, it is time to pay close attention to what users are saying about it and doing with it. We will continue to developed Scrapblog based on that feedback.

[Curt]

ZURB has called it "Master of Conversations" (MC): http://www.zurb.com/zurb/jobs/position4-marketer.html

[Rob La Gesse]

Curt - like the Conversations part - the "Master of" seems domineering though... how about something less in your face than "master of"? Can you think of something that might fit better in that context? (I admit, I cannot right now!)

Carlos - good point. So what you really have is a conduit - someone who listens to customers, gets the company to listen, and then act.

Back in the early 1990's I had an informal title of "Technical Liason / Marketing and Engineering" which basically meant my job was to translate customer/Marketing desire into Engineering directions, and then translate back what the Engineers were building to the customers/Marketing. You probably won't be amazed at how often they both misunderstood what each was doing :)

I have a customer now that calls their PR/Blogger/Listener the "Universal Communicator" :) Cute, but too cute!

I've tried to get some others involved in this discussion, because I think its both a fun one to have, and a worthwhile one to dig deeper into. We'll see if they show up!

Rob

[Rob La Gesse]

And Carlos - just glanced through your blog - didn't see you responding to ANY comments :) Yeah, you need someone to help you with that. Heh. Sucks not being able to do everything, doesn't it?

Rob

[shel israel]

Hey Carlos,

Rob is right. This really should be a conversation on your site and you would be getting all these really great hits. How about "Conversations Facilitator."

[Carlos Garcia]

Guys, I think we are reaching a consensus here. The person we are looking for is a liaison, a moderator and an advocate. I am leaning towards Community Liaison. However, using Shel’s analogy to neighborhoods we could consider the title of Ombudsman. According to wikipedia a ombudsman is a person “who is charged with representing the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints reported by individual citizens.”

Full definition here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman

[Rob La Gesse]

Ombudsman is good! I like Yeoman as well (see Wikipedia). But if people don't know the terminology, it really doesn't help - you can't send everyone to Wikipedia.

Advocate is a good one. Sounds like it needs another word associated with it though.

Rob

[Curt]

Again, your employee does not work for the community, he or she works for you. I think we need to keep our Millenialist tendencies in check with stuff like this. You can do a good honest job for a company while honoring the communities you're interacting with. Too much of this and it's like calling Bush's plans to cut all the woods in the PNW down the "Healthy Forests Initiative."

Rob: I like master ok (they did it to make "MC) but maybe...Superfox of Conversations?