Hey there! Welcome to The Community Club! This is our very first welcome thread, and we're so excited you're here 😃
In this thread you can:
Leave a comment below to introduce yourself to the community ✌️ Feel free to share a bit about your background, what brought you to this community, and any other fun facts you want to share!
Say hi to other folks who've joined the Community Club this week!
Let everyone know your favorite part about community building 👐
Discussion (157)
Hi! I'm Alex, Head of Community @ The Community Club/Commsor. I've worked in online community since 2010, and I'm super passionate about connecting people, building fun things, and trying to make the internet a safer place.
In my free time, I'm most active in communities dedicated to knitting, the Cleveland Browns, cats & beers, and a few video games.
Nice to meet you Alex!
Hi Alex, great to be a part of the Community Club
Happy to see you here! :D
Ohai! Nice to meet you, too :D
Hey everyone, I'm one of the Co-Founders of Forem. We're honored and excited to be working with The Community Club team to help power this new space for for such an amazing community.
If you have any feedback about the platform, please leave a comment in this open thread or create a new post in the #foremfeedback tag.
Forem is open-source and we're pushing new fixes and improvements every single day.
SO pumped to see Forem in another use-case. I love it!
This is great! I was wondering what Commsor was using. So far so good - I just want WYSIWYG! Markup makes me feel dumb lol
Hey Peter! Good to see you here :)
This is really cool. I'm excited to get to know the platform better. And hey 👋
Nice to meet you Peter
👋 Hello there! I'm Cole, Community Advocate at The Community Club & Commsor. I've been in the community world since 2016, starting in the gaming space with games like Minecraft and Apex Legends! Since then, I've developed my passion for improving member experience and connecting people across the world.
On the side, I'm an avid Discord user and love to spend my free time playing a little game called League of Legends 😄 Looking forward to meeting everyone!
Nice to meet you Cole!
Hello hello!! 🙋♂️
Hey y'all! I'm Carter. After working in community since 2010 in customer success (UserVoice), gaming (KIXEYE), and social (Google+), I originated Google's Internal Community Management Team about three years ago. We work in the world of evolving corporate culture using CM fundamentals - and I couldn't be more thrilled about it.
This community has been a serious bright spot of 2020 (not even kidding). I'm always down to chat community, dogs (mine are very large and slobbery), or what's your favorite hazy IPA ATM.
Oh, and if you wanted to come work on my team as our team, take a look and let me know if that sounds interesting to you.
👋 Hey hey! I'm Mac, and I typically spend my days drinking tea and building The Community Club and Commsor. I've been building community (without even realizing it at times) for about 10 years, and got my start in the gaming space with a Minecraft network and community called The Chunk.
Always down to chat about community in any form, so feel free to message me whenever about whatever!
Yay! So excited about this offering! My name is Tessa, I am Head of Developer Community at Twitter, working with the #TwitterAPI specifically. (If you know anything about the past, you know I have a BIG job to do!)
I have been a developer for many years and moved into Developer Relations & Community work within the last 5 years. I also run a publication + community around Developer Mindset over at thedevelopermindset.com.
When I am not thinking about my professional career, you can find me hiking, shooting archery, rollerblading, swimming or playing with every dog I meet as I am obsessively in love with all dogs, ever!
Nice to meet you Tessa! I'm a Global Developer Community Manager at Amazon Web Services. I completely relate to the "BIG" job we have to do. If you ever want to meet or even present at one of our developer events, let me know! In the meantime I'm going to check out your website. Take care!
Hello Karissa! It's great to meet you. And thank you for the Twitter follow! Would love to connect and chat. It's nice to share notes with fellow community folks, especially those focused on developers too! (I assume you are since its AWS) I am always up for presenting if the content and need matches my offerings. Feel free to shoot me a Twitter DM and we can chat more. 💜
Wow, that is a big job. I feel both excited and terrified for you. :)
🤣 You and me both. All joking aside, I am actually really excited about the challenge though. It's definitely the most stressful job I've ever had, but I think the reward will be worth it when we can successfully run projects, initiatives and hackathons that developers WANT to happily be involved in.
Hey, I work at Reddit - I totally feel you on the "massive challenge is massively rewarding" front. :) Would love to hear how it's going sometime!
YES! We should. I would love to do that. It's really nice to hear about others challenges and how they solve for them as so many areas have a lot of cross over, even when the audiences differ.
Nice to e-meet Tessa 👋. We have a lot in common. I'm also a former developer who moved to Developer Relations & Community. Just subscribed to your blog!
👋 It’s so nice to meet you! Thank you for subscribing. Always up for meeting fellow DevRel folks. 💜
Hi hi hi! I’m Danielle! I’ve been building community programs for a little bit (Etsy, Airbnb, Lyft). I’m currently on a mission to make online meetups a little more magical. If you want to talk about online events for small groups, ping me! Also can’t stop talking about web communities 🕸
Non-community likes: comedy, dogs, silly tattoos. 💕
Oh and I write about my community feelings: daniellexo.substack.com. ✨
waves
Love to chat about magical meetups and online events! I'm in the research phase and have looked at a LOT of tech options on the market without finding the right solution yet...
Let’s chat!
Hey everyone!
I've been working in the community industry for over 20 years (yes, I am old). These days I co-host a podcast about community called In Before The Lock (ib4tl.fm) and own my own consultancy business to help people build better communities (brianoblinger.com).
Looking forward to engaging with you here! 🚀
I dunno Brian, I see an emoji so clearly you're hip.
HI, I'm Leslie, Director of Customer Education & Support at PeopleGrove.
I help administrators run their own community platforms to encourage connections between students, alumni, faculty & staff, and stakeholders (mainly) in higher education.
I'm a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Mongolia '08-'10), former music therapist, and doc student in Education Leadership. Love travel and time with my weird tiny family with my husband and my 6 yr old daughter.
So excited to be here! I'm heading up community and social at Shuffle, a new podcast app (try it out 😉) but have been part of digital communities for nearly 15 years and can't wait to see what happens in here! Let's chat all things digital, theatre, New York, and TV.
Welcome Sam! Very curious: what does community look like for an app like Shuffle?
It's a good question 😂 Right now the app has a pretty homogenous community in terms of interest, so mostly it's been my job to build bridges between people who I know are interested in similar things but don't know each other yet. In the future we're looking to diversify the types of podcast listeners we cater too, at which point I'll definitely have to rework my strategy.
:) Is there a space where the community is housed, or is this more of a diffuse audience across social media?
Right now we're housed mostly on Whatsapp (We're small) and across a couple different twitter group chats. I'm thinking about moving us elsewhere soon because having single thread communication is fun but it can get a little overwhelming re:notifications when it gets big enough.
Sounds intense but fun. :)
Heya! Andy here. Senior Community Manager at GoDaddy, looking after our GoDaddy Pro community programs.
I started working on forums and fansites in the early 00's as a hobby, then pivoted to organizing local meetups and conferences in 2011. Didn't start thinking about this as a profession until I joined GoDaddy in 2015.
My background's a mix of digital marketing, web development and user support. I'm a stickler for user-friendly web experiences, customer advocacy and remote work.
I live in Durham Region (just east of Toronto) with my wife and our bouncy little poodle. We're expecting our first baby in the next couple of months, so everything is chaos at home right now!
Excited to see Community Club roll with Forem, I love what I see coming out of DEV. :)
Hi folks! I'm Sergio Mattei, founder & community at Makerlog, a community of 6,000 makers building products together.
I've been meaning to join Community Club for quite a while, so glad to finally be here.
Sergio! So awesome to see you here. This community, in some ways, honestly wouldn't existed without me having been a part of Makerlog ~2 years ago!
Aww yeah, Community Cluuub!
I'm John, a Software Engineer at Commsor. Loving my journey with community so far, it's an amazing thing to be a part of, essential to the human experience. :)
I play bass (jazz-funk stuff) and take photos in my spare time. I also love cooking!
Hey all! I'm Evan and I lead community at Reddit. I've been in this industry for quite a long time and am lucky to know some of you, but always happy to meet more. :) I absolutely love talking community, which is why I stretch myself too thin reading all the things and being part of all the spaces, so I'm excited to join this one today!
Hey everyone! 👋 I'm Marsha. I fell into (and fell in love with) community building in 2017 when I launched Fuckup Nights Toronto, a community that shares stories of failure. Earlier this year, I started Create Community, a podcast that explores the human side of community. I love chatting with fellow community builders to define what “community” truly means and how it evolves with changing times.
Outside of work, I love being outdoors (lots of beautiful fall hikes in 🇨🇦 ), cooking, scoping out street art, and binging shows. Currently re-watching The Walking Dead. 🧟♀️
Looking forward to connecting with everyone!
Hi Marsha! I heard about Fuckup Nights earlier in the year (awesome job Marketing) but unfortunately never had the chance to check it out. Sounds like it was a hit!
Some chapters are doing virtual events! We have one coming up this Thursday if you'd like to tune in online: hushama.eventbrite.com/
Hey y'all!
My name is Marissa and I'm a DC transplant, currently based in Boston. I've been in the community industry for 10 years now and like many others, accidentally stumbled into the field via running product feedback programs. I'm currently building the community/customer program strategy for LEGO Edu. We're the education branch of LEGO and work on teaching robotics/coding through hands-on learning. Happy to chat about all things bricks for any AFOLs out there (Adult Fans of LEGO).
Kind of like what Mac said below, sometimes I don't even realize I'm working on community building. In my free time, I co-founded a non-profit group (@wethedogsdc) to build a community of dog owners in a few cities around the country (embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize the parallels to my day job). We work to promote dog-friendly businesses and raise money/awareness for animal rescue organizations. If I'm not telling my dog how much I love him 100000 times a day, I'm probably thinking about food and wine.
I'm super excited and thankful for this group! And I'm hoping to really drill down into data and metrics and refine that skillset over the next few months! Also, any other community managers in the K12 space out there? Holler!
Welcome, Marissa! Have you met Sonali Nigam before?? She's building a community for pet lovers that is awesome, and they've been doing a bunch of remote events that are worth checking out.
I have a vague recollection of seeing this recently in the Slack channel, but we haven't met directly! Can't wait to follow!
Hi, I’m Mark🚀and glad to meet you 👋
I recently published a book 📖 called Community-in-a-Box about the lessons learned building and scaling a professional community, based on my experience founding the Enterprise Sales Forum, a global community for B2B sales professionals.
I currently work at AWS as a Startup Advocate supporting the community of startups in Asia-Pacific. Previously I was at Stack Overflow to launch there Enterprise business and lead APAC expansion. I have been a developer, an angel investor, and a startup founder. I am supposed to be in Singapore, but currently in NJ waiting out the pandemic. Look forward to learning from everyone here on how you launched and sustained your communities as I begin research on my follow-on book! Ping me here or connect over LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/startupmark/
Always happy to chat & share about community building. Cheers! 😊
Hey friends—I’m Jack ✌🏼 normally based in NYC, but hunkered down for now where I grew up just outside of Boston. I run a photo business at jackcohen.com and work at FirstMark where I help run our Platform (Guilds, Summits, Driven series—50k members in NYC, etc.) and also focus on consumer apps.
Prior, I ran social + content + community at Blue Apron in the heyday. See lots of friendly faces in here as well as a ton of others who inspire me. Always happy to chat communities (infra/platform/ethos), photo/video, or really anything else.
Been a fan of this incredible group on Slack for a long time and now excited to try out this new Forem platform!
Hey everyone 👋 I'm Willa — I lead community at Public.com, where we're building a social layer around the stock market and building community around an activity that's often been thought of as an isolating one. I'm a big proponent of starting conversations around topics that we normally don't talk about.
In my free time, I'm usually working on perfecting my at-home matcha latte, going for a hike, or traversing New York City by foot. Looking forward to connecting with you all!
Hi I'm La Donna! I just heard that I won swag from you guys, so I should at least say hi! 😍
I'm falling in love with community MVPs while building a professional dressing and upskilling community for women essential workers. Your resources have been a life saver.
So glad to have you here, La Donna! That community sounds amazing and I'm so glad that resources from other community builders have been helpful. If you have any specific questions please don't hesitate to reach out to me or to make a post using #discuss to solicit answers from the community :D
Howdy! I'm cris, I run community at theSkimm. Prior to that, I helped run community at Imzy, and at an early-stage community chat platform before that.
What brought me to this community... well, I've known Alex for many years 😂 and I always enjoy chatting with other community people!
Hey Cris, super small world. @ben , @jess , and I used to work out of theSkimm's original office in Flatiron. Awesome to see you here in The Community Club
Yup. They painted the door teal, and we got a ton of theSkimm mail 😄
We've always thought Forem could embed really well into theSkimm app, if you'd ever be curious about that. 😉
Small world indeed, @peter ! I never worked out of the old office, but I heard many a story about the place!
Ohai Cris
ohai alex. fancy seeing ya here.
Hi everyone! I'm Meg and I'm a product manager at Kaggle, a community of 5MM data scientists and Google company. Previously I've worked in developer advocacy and I was also a product manager at Stack Overflow working on the public platform. So I love online technical communities and I'm always eager to connect with others in this space! :)
Hi everyone! I've been working in the tech market since 2013, and I'm passionate about innovation and human-centric approaches, always curious to understand how technology can help us face the most urgent issues in our society.
Currently, I'm a Premium Community Manager at Vanhack. We want to create a world where talented tech professionals can move wherever they are needed to help companies innovate and grow.
I also enjoy reading (currently fond of philosophy), walking outdoors, and trying different food types.
Hope to get closer to you, network, learn and share!
Ooh that sounds like a fun community!
Indeed, Evan! I love connecting with people all over the world...
Great to be here!
Hey all, Casey here -- I write about what secular communities can learn from religion @ humanmissives.com, am in the early stages of kicking off an open source, secular-friendly divinity school @ opendiv.org, and do community consulting through vgbnds.co.
Formerly ran hackerparadise.org and a bunch of other projects ;)
Looking forward to getting to know you all!
Hey all! I'm Carnun, one of the devs at Commsor and a reforming lurker. :P
Super excited to be a part of all this! I'm no stranger to community, but virtually all of my experience is offline - being an active older brother, playing in bands, leading undergraduate 'Living Learning Communities'. So I'm keen to learn all I can from yous!
In my spare time I like to read and write/think about epistemology, puzzle- and problem-solving, 'Taking Children Seriously', optimistic sci-fi, and reading/writing/thinking. And noodle around on the guitar.
Happy Monday! :D
Thanks for signposting 'Taking Children Seriously' - very interesting, happy Monday!
My pleasure - and you're very welcome! :)
If you're interested, and if podcasts are your thing, one of the founders recently gave a wonderful podcast interview: a great introduction to TCS, in my opinion. (Also available on Spotify, iTunes, and elsewhere.)
Hey! I'm Ido, Co-Founder of daily.dev. Originally a software engineer but I also manage daily.dev community. I always look for great resources to learn how to build communities. I'm so glad I've found The Community Club!
Hi all! 👋 I'm Stephen, co-founder & CEO @ Hi Right Now. During the pandemic, my team and I built a web-app that connects online communities and professionals over a series of 6-min 1:1 video chats.
Love jamming to funky poppy house with a touch of world, fake-slurping ramen, connecting people, and gymming. Looking forward to meeting you all!
Hi folks! 👋🏻 I'm Nick and I'm an engineer at Forem working on all things Forem, the software that powers this community. So cool to see this community live.
More about me below. 👇🏻
Hello! 👋🏻
Nick Taylor (he/him) ・ Oct 26 '20 ・ 1 min read
Hey everyone! I'm Chris, and currently lead community, customer education, and customer marketing programs at Guru (based in Philly). We have an online community (Slack for now), fledgling user groups, and in normal times host an annual conference. Prior to Guru, I had a similar role at Schoolzilla, a K-12 ed. tech. company based in Oakland. And before that, I co-founded a startup called Freshout and wore lots of hats there for about ~8 years.
Before knowing "community building" was a thing, I fell in love with bringing people together through organizing live music, art, and dance events starting when I was 16 years old (think grungy DIY punk rock shows at skateparks and breakdancing/graffiti jams at community centers).
Psyched to join the discussions :)
Chriiiiiiiis
Hey Evan 👋 hope you're doing well!
As well as one can. :) Same to you!