1. The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite
A SXSW Interactive Workshop
March 10, 2013
#CManifesto

2. Workshop Hosts
Natalie Rodic Marsan @rodicka
Founder: BrokenOpenMedia & Early-Stage Startup
Co-Organizer: Community Manager’s Meetup
Community Manager is not a job title, but a frame of mind and
reference for all the work I do.
Tim McDonald @tamcdonald
Community Manager: Huffington Post Live
Founder: MYCMGR
Community Manager is responsible for letting people know they
matter.
Nick Cicero @nickcicero
Lead Strategist: Livefyre
Editor: SocialFresh.com
Community Manager is an organization’s eyes, ears, voice, and soul.
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

3. Case Studies
When She Started
• 1st Community Manager at Livefyre
• 3rd Employee Hired - before any engineer
• Built a community without a product
Today
• VP Customer Experience
• More than 40 Enterprise Users, Thousands of
Community Users
Jenna Langer • 7th largest Online Site Network
VP Customer Experience: Livefyre
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

4. Case Studies
When She Started
• 2.5 Years at Mashable
• Started: Community Assistant
Today
• Built a team of six. Community is its own
department
• Focus: social & community strategy,
operationalizing, team leader
• Gatekeeper with community-first perspective.
Works across almost all aspects of business:
• product: tech & UX
Meghan Peters • sales
Community Manager: Mashable • editorial
Co-Organizer:
Community Manager’s Meetup
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

5. Why We’re Gathered Here Today
Current Challenges
• Buzzworthy job title
• Not always the title, and not always the role
• Countless variations of the job
• Little clarity on where it falls in the organizational hierarchy
• most digital agencies = entry level
• startups and brands = expected to design and run entire program
• Limited support or understanding of the role
across the company
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

6. Why We’re Gathered Here Today
Our Goal
• Frame the discipline, not just the role
• Mold the discipline into what we collectively believe it
should be…
….in the future
• Create a Community Manager’s Manifesto
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

7. How the Day Will Go
Let’s Co-Create!
1. Massive Brainstorm with Post-It Notes
2. Get into Groups & Break-Out Group Exercise with Assigned
Theme
3. Writing of the Manifesto
4. Reading of the Final Manifesto
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

8. Rules for the Road
1. We’re going to be strict on time. Please obey the time keeper.
2. Remember, you’re not at work right now. You’re not
representing your company.
3. You can put your name to the manifesto, but you don’t have
to.
4. All opinions are valid. Think big. Think utopian.
5. We here to co-create with a win-win positive-sum approach.
Make your partners in this room look good in the process of co-
creation.
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

9. Exercise 1: A Massive Brainstorm
Task:
Identify the top three themes or pillars that you would classify as
essential for the development of the community manager discipline
Some examples:
- Maintaining 1:1 relationships at scale
- Connecting both internally and externally
- Determining the value of mattering
Write one per Post-It-Note and you’ll send it to the end of the row at
the end.
You have five minutes to come up with themes.
GO!
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

10. Exercise 2: Break Out Groups
1. Make sure you know everyone in your breakout group.
2. Identify one scribe and one presenter in your group.
Task:
Take your assigned theme(s). Come up with two to four declarative
statements that define the support for your theme.
Example Theme #1:
What are the KPI’s for measuring the success of a community
department?
Example Declarative Statement #1:
- Community practitioners should not be judged based on sales, but on
new community member acquisition, converting lurkers to active
members, and the number of self-proclaimed brand advocates created.
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

11. Exercise 2: Break Out Groups, cont.
Example Theme #2:
Speaking the language of varying stakeholders.
Example Declarative Statements #2:
- We must evolve perspectives to understand business objectives, while
maintaining the position of the lead community advocate.
- We must expand the defintion of community to include both internal
and external stakeholders.
- We need to prioritize nowing how, why, and when to communicate with
stakeholders.
You have 30 minutes.
GO!
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

12. Presentations & Writing the Manifesto
Send your scribe and your speaker
to the front of the room
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013

13. Wrapping Up
Download the SXSW Community Manager Manifesto
http://mycmgr.com/cmanifesto
Connect with us online and continue the conversation as we go forth on
this journey together with #CManifesto
@NickCicero @TAMcDonald @Rodicka
#cmanifesto | The Community Manager: Enter the C-Suite | A SXSW Interactive Workshop | March 10, 2013