Podcasts Business Community Signal Bridging Continents and Countries in a Professional Association Community

Bridging Continents and Countries in a Professional Association Community

Published: Aug. 1, 2022, 9:30 a.m.

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Do you manage an international community? How do you thoughtfully foster community across different continents, languages, and norms?\\xa0Mercedes Oppon-Kusi, the community manager for Europe for the\\xa0International Legal Technology Association, is working to do just that for their community of technology pros working at law firms.

With ILTA originating in the U.S., Mercedes shares the differences in behaviors between U.S. and Europe-based community members, and how she has approached expanding the European chapter to include more countries. Her strategy comes back to advice that\\u2019s helpful no matter what stage your community is at: Overcome your biases as a community professional. Take time to learn the interests and challenges that impact your community members and scale thoughtfully.

As Mercedes puts it, \\u201c[It\\u2019s] about building that practical knowledge of the market, and then figuring out where to go first.\\u201d

Plus:

  • How to help community members break through the \\u201cI don\\u2019t have enough time\\u201d barrier
  • Why U.S. members are more engaged than their European counterparts
  • In-person events that help members feel bought-in to the ILTA community

Big Quotes

How ILTA community members help each other grow (6:45):\\xa0\\u201cYou have the people that have been there and done it, you have people that are looking to branch into it, and you have the people that want to grow in it. That\\u2019s what our communities do. They help our members learn how to become better than they are.\\u201d \\u2013@M4Mercedes

Tech pros at U.S. law firms are more likely to share experiences (7:38):\\xa0\\u201c[With] our membership pool in the U.S., you will not struggle to get a big firm to share. They\\u2019re proud of it. They\\u2019re like, \\u2018We\\u2019ve done this so well because we\\u2019re amazing, and this is how we did it,\\u2019 but in the UK, they\\u2019re decidedly more reserved. It\\u2019s very hard to get the big firms to share about anything. I don\\u2019t know what it is, but it does seem like people are nervous because they do not want to be seen as bragging, so it differs according to the geographies. It\\u2019s not really by firm size.\\u201d \\u2013@M4Mercedes

Localizing matters to your community members (19:07):\\xa0\\u201cA lot of our material has the word attorney, which doesn\\u2019t exist in the UK. We have solicitors and barristers. \\u2026 There are little tweaks around the material and our language that we\\u2019ve had to do in order to localize what we\\u2019re providing to [the UK] region. \\u2026 It\\u2019s a big deal to people.\\u201d \\u2013@M4Mercedes

Growing the ILTA community and reaching new members (24:25):\\xa0\\u201cThe challenge is finding your first [community members] that are going to be your champions. Once you have that, they\\u2019re usually a good insight into the networks and what topics exist, and they\\u2019re really good at introducing you to other individuals that might have similar interests.\\u201d \\u2013@M4Mercedes

About Mercedes Oppon-Kusi

Mercedes Oppon-Kusi\\xa0is the community manager for Europe for the\\xa0International Legal Technology Association, a community for technology pros working at law firms.

Transcript

Your Thoughts

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you\\u2019d like to share, please leave me a comment,\\xa0send me an email\\xa0or a\\xa0tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported\\xa0Community Signal on Patreon.

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