As Community Managers, we should be working ourselves out of a job.

From Thomas Knoll and Miz Ginevra‘s session suggesting that we’re killing our communities by over-managing them, to the revelation in my session on support vs community that everyone feels like they should and will become one organization, to Andrea Murphy‘s reputation system session generally deciding that they can’t be entirely based on numbers – everyone seemed focus less on how to handle the next tweet that came in than on how to build a community that was sustainable, self-policing, self-motivating and perhaps even (dare I say it?) beyond anyone’s “management”.

It makes sense. Community Manager as a profession is new – it’s not something born out of the tech industry. There have always been community managers, in some shape or form. As I mentioned in my post about the inauguration, Obama is a community manager (he just has a larger community than most of us). The guy who owns Woody’s Cafe in Oakland curates a community of passionate locals who just happen to also drink his coffee. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, embodies community management and makes it the key focus of the company.

The problem is that as a culture we’ve collectively forgotten how to have an honest relationship with our communities, and instead begun to focus on controlling and automating communities.

The marketing and business innovations that began in the fast food revolution of the fifties have turned our communities from real people into commodities that are pushed through an assembly-line system of targeting, advertising, harassment and gouging. If the customer is requesting support of some sort that is too costly, they’re ignored or dropped from the service. But with the power of the internet as their communication device, people are rebelling.

The answer to this shift isn’t a group of people at your company monitoring a Twitter feed, or some guy handing out stickers at a conference. It’s about bringing real community back into company culture. Even if it means we can’t find a job as a “community manager” anymore.

I’m not writing this post from a place of arrogance. I’m not writing this post from a viewpoint of “I’m right, you’re wrong”. I’m writing this post because this weekend I realized that I am failing horribly at this. I keep getting mired in the details of getting through the tweets of the day or writing a good blog post – instead of focusing on creating a vibrant community. So I’m sharing my confession and realization with you all in the hope that we can all help each other get there. Let’s do this, yeah?

Photo of Miz Ginerva and Thomas Knoll by Ginevra herself.
Donut photo courtesy of Marc Buehler.

Them Crooked Vultures is a musician’s album. And it rocks.

I use the term “musician’s album” loosely, but it’s essentially true: Them Crooked Vultures is for those who trip out on insane musicianship, originality, and balls. Big balls. But it’s not necessarily as mainstream-friendly as even a band like Nirvana (who sacrificed very little of their heaviness for the masses).

For the uninformed, Them Crooked Vultures is the culmination of members from 4 unparalleled groups: Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, and John-Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. If you dislike any of the aforementioned bands, you may not like this album. If you like any of them, you will probably appreciate it. If you like all four, you need this album.

First and foremost: every single note that John-Paul Jones and Dave Grohl play are gold. I’m not trying to diminish Josh Homme’s contribution – I just think that the rhythm section of this band is the best currently out there, and possibly the best ever. These two know how to groove and rock harder than any band I’ve heard or seen, and if you want to challenge that just listen to the funk of “Gunman”.

The epicness of this album is felt inexorably in the music, but also in the lyrics. Josh Homme seems unleashed by the power of his bandmates, and offers an amazing range of lyrics. Puns intermingle with the most epic of phrases, and the only thing you can do is smile when he croons:

• “don’t hold it against me unless it gets hard”
• “you get what you give, I give good bye”
• “well if sex is a weapon then smash bang pow, how you like me now?”
• “hold me real close/then do it again/I ache for the touch of my dead-end friends”
• “she said I have a beautiful place to put your face and she was right”
• “know that I wanna be your dangerous side effect”

You can’t argue with that.

I have very much love for Josh Homme, and this album is one of the highlights of his career.  This album explores largely new space for Homme. Most of the songs were written in the studio (unusual for him) and the melodies are both insanely epic and unforgettably original. A few tracks on the album retread some of the same (but not bad) ground as Queens of the Stone Age. I don’t hold it against Homme, but it certainly makes songs like “Interludes with Ludes” and “Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up” less engaging.

I’m happy to blame Alain Johannes for a lot of the familiar territory here; he’s been a frequent contributor on Queens of the Stone Age albums, and his presence as the invisible member of Them Crooked Vultures suggests that Homme was more inclined to stay true to his roots. Again, I’m not complaining – but I’d be interested to hear what a Them Crooked Vultures album would sound like without Johannes.

Regardless of my gripes, this is an album I can’t stop playing, and the live show was just as intense. The joy of seeing Dave Grohl smash the drums with reckless, happy abandon while Josh Homme belted and riffed and John-Paul Jones kept a relentless bassline rolling was enough to make me want to chug Ketel One out of the bottle while playing epic rock’n'roll (as Josh Homme did during the show).

Nirvana – Live at Reading is a concert goer’s album. And it rocks.

My other purchase this week also included Dave Grohl, which is a testament to his rockness. If you don’t like Nirvana, go home now (and don’t talk to me). If you are a hardcord Nirvanaphile and have a bunch of bootleg recordings, this isn’t going to do anything for you. But if you haven’t heard Nirvana live and want a peek into their greatness onstage, Live at Reading is perfect for you. How can you not love the out-of-tune singing, laugh, and “screw it” affectation at the start of “Sliver”?

With any deceased artist it’s hard not to see things in their art that might not be there. I found it impossible not to feel a twinge when the audience is singing along to “today I found my friends/they’re in my head” during “Lithium”. Perhaps it’s just a well-produced piece of concert mastery, but for a moment you feel like Cobain had the friends he had been searching for.

The setlist is great, hitting all of the major songs but also some less-popular gems like the “Blew”, “Aneurysm”, and “Lounge Act”. But what fascinated me most were the changes to the singles. There’s the intentional or subconscious middle-finger of screwing up the two-note signature riff of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, an anthem that Cobain thought had jumped the shark (before the phrase existed). There’s the change of the “All Apologies” lyric from “everyone is gay” to “all my birds are gray”…perhaps out of guilt for the negative connotations?

Regardless of on what level(s) you enjoy this record, Live at Reading is just plain fun. After an hour of screaming, cracking snare drums and thumping bass, the set ends with a totally destroyed rendition of the national anthem, which seems to wrap up the vibe of the show: “welcome to our united states of insanity”.

Photo #1:http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamdb/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Photo #2:http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrontourage/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Photo #3: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlos_restrepo/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Let me be totally honest: I was scared to make the upgrade without the help of my web developer friend.  I know the basics of web development, but mucking about with databases is past my comfort point.  I finally found time with my friend and we got everything rolling.  The process was surprisingly simple…I think I could probably even do it myself next time, and I certainly won’t let such a long gap go by without posting again!

So…what now?  I am determined to get back on track with posting, and not let myself get behind.  A few of my goals for the remainder of the blogging year:

• Document the process of recording the new Monsters are not Myths album.
• Tackle the challenging subject of “what is the role of a Community Ambassador/Manager/Evangelist, as I touched on in Defending the Community Ambassador.
• Clean up the blog. I’ve already started on this, but I’d like to do some SEO (which I’ve been dabbling in) and perhaps even move all my evanhamilton.com pages to WordPress.
• Be impulsive. I want to post what’s at the top of my mind and get my small base of readers involved in the conversation, rather than mulling on a post for weeks.

For those that are still here, thanks for sticking around during the dry spell. Get ready for some rock’n'roll!

-Evan

I am constantly using real sticky notes around my cube. Some are on the desk. Some are on the monitor. Some are probably under all those papers to my left. Some travel home in my laptop to hopefully remind me of what I need to do in my personal life. Sometimes I just send emails to myself with tasks. I’ve even tried Outlook (uugh) Tasks. All these combine to some semblance of keeping on top of what I have to do, but it’s just awkward.

Stikis (theoretically) solves this by giving you a website that you put your sticky notes on. You no longer have to worry about being in your office or even on the right computer to know what you should be doing. Choose from five different colors (all nice except for the glaring yellow and green…perhaps that’s for those really important notes) and resize and move as you need to.

(names blurred to protect the corrupt)

I’ve put all my permanent, evolving stikis (the status of conversations with outside companies, my priorities for the week) in one color off to the right, personal stuff down on the left in another color, and left plenty of room to replace the roaming paper stickies that normally bury my office.

I’m digging it now. Will I actually be better organized after this? We’ll see…I’ll post again after a few weeks of use.

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