Podcasts Business Community Signal The Chief Community Officer Hype Machine

The Chief Community Officer Hype Machine

Published: Jan. 9, 2023, 10:30 a.m.

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As we celebrate Community Signal\\u2019s 7th birthday, Patrick takes questions from Community Signal listeners and supporters in this first ever \\u201cAsk Patrick Anything\\u201d episode of the show.

Questions include:

  • If everything had worked with CNN+, what would community look like for the platform?
  • Would you rather be a working community professional or a community consultant?
  • Will we ever see community leaders in the C-suite as the norm?

2023 will be Patrick\\u2019s 25th year of community work, so this is an opportunity to reflect on that passage of time. A lot has changed and, surprisingly, some things haven\\u2019t.

Joining Patrick to ask the questions and dig deeper is\\xa0previous guest\\xa0Jared Smith. They also cover:

  • The early promise of CNN+\\u2019s Interview Club
  • How community moderation tools have changed over the years
  • Why community isn\\u2019t special when it comes to the C-suite

Big Quotes

You have to commit to be successful with D2C products (11:55):\\xa0\\u201cIf you build interactive products and kill them after three weeks, it\\u2019s hard to prove out anything. It\\u2019s hard to build out loyalty. It\\u2019s hard to build out a D2C product if you\\u2019re not willing to commit.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

The magic of the unexpected in media products (13:04):\\xa0\\u201cI think there is something magical that can happen when you take some of the expected nature of television or media, of what we expect is going to happen, and you throw the consumer, the community, the members, the subscribers into that. You give them the freedom to make other things happen.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

Operators drive moderator tool development more than platforms (22:24):\\xa0\\u201c[When it comes to moderator tools], it\\u2019s often the community of people who need something driving it more so than the platforms themselves.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

Developers still focus on the frontend more than the administrative backend (23:35):\\xa0\\u201cIt\\u2019s a clich\\xe9 to say that software developers focus on the frontend and the user experience and not so much the admin and moderation experience. That\\u2019s a clich\\xe9 in our business. I think that is largely the case with some exceptions. Those exceptions tend to be people who have run communities themselves or who have a really good foundational understanding of the web from being in it for so long.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

If you want to make a difference in moderator tooling, start with the communities that don\\u2019t have money (23:58):\\xa0\\u201cI get pitched by developers, and I always tell them that the way to make change in this industry is to make your product available to the people who don\\u2019t have anything. The Fortune 500s of the world are always going to have money, and they\\u2019re always going to have engineers. They can figure their way around problems and pay for solutions. Most communities, 99.9% of people, don\\u2019t have any money. That\\u2019s where you make change.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

Artificial intelligence isn\\u2019t a moderation panacea (24:36):\\xa0\\u201cIf you think about it [going back 25 years], forums are not dead and the mod tools are basically the same that we had. Remove user, close thread, things like that, a lot of that stuff. It\\u2019s the same. I also don\\u2019t think it\\u2019s a bad thing. If it ain\\u2019t broke, don\\u2019t fix it. One of the things about these AIs is sometimes they get it really, really wrong in really offensive ways. You still need that human element to counter that.\\u201d -Jared Smith

Banning Andrew Anglin is not brave, it\\u2019s obvious (27:09):\\xa0\\u201cWhen [Elon Musk decides] to unban Andrew Anglin, who\\u2019s arguably the most prominent real nazi on the internet, the founder of The Daily Stormer, the most prominent nazi publication on the internet [that makes Twitter a place I am less likely to engage]. \\u2026 Andrew Anglin can join any platform I own and he\\u2019ll be banned. That\\u2019s not a brave thing. That\\u2019s not a talking point or like, \\u2018Wow, that\\u2019s amazing.\\u2019 It\\u2019s obvious. It\\u2019s not an amazing thing.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

Hyping the chief community officer role isn\\u2019t helpful (39:46):\\xa0\\u201cWe\\u2019ve seen these tweets that are like, \\u2018Half of the Fortune 500 will have chief community officers in the next 10 years,\\u2019 or \\u201810% of this or all big companies or all the Fortune 100 or the future of companies will be a chief community officer.\\u2019 It\\u2019s all hype. It\\u2019s all nonsense. For the most part, it\\u2019s to encourage hype in our industry. I don\\u2019t see it as healthy. I don\\u2019t see it as good. I don\\u2019t see it as aspirational. I don\\u2019t see those people as friends or allies of the work.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

Be wary of the hype (41:42):\\xa0\\u201cI don\\u2019t trust anyone who says chief community officers are the future of community, that there\\u2019s going to be one at every big company. It\\u2019s always hype. It\\u2019s always because they have some financially-vested interest in community work proliferating in that way or at least sounding like your friend. They want to sound like they\\u2019re in your corner or they\\u2019re your ally because there is some financial incentive tied to that for them long-term.\\u201d -Patrick O\\u2019Keefe

About Jared Smith

Jared Smith\\xa0is a manager of software engineering at\\xa0BoomTown\\xa0in Charleston, SC, leading engineering teams and encouraging developer career growth, including a ten-year stint working on and eventually leading a team of engineers dedicated to implementing WordPress for real estate agent websites. In addition to BoomTown, Jared runs\\xa0@chswx\\xa0(shorthand for Charleston Weather) and the\\xa0chswx.com\\xa0blog, where he writes forecasts and disseminates National Weather Service alerts for the Charleston, SC metro area. Over nearly 15 years, @chswx has emerged as a key catalyst in the weather conversation, not only acting as a conduit for sending alerts but also for receiving reports in real-time, improving situational awareness for public, media, and NWS warning forecasters alike.

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Transcript

Your Thoughts

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you\\u2019d like to share, please leave me a comment or\\xa0send me an email. 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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