As community managers dealing with people, we are all bound to deal with frustrations at some point. This talk goes over a few common ones and reveals a few tips to deal with them.

1. Ten Frustrations From
The Community Trenches
Fabio Tiriticco
@ticofab
Italian Community Managers Summit
15 December 2019
(and how to deal with them)

2. Litfiba ‘Webmaster’ + Community Manager

3. Litfiba Fans Club

4. Community Manager in NL @ticofab
• Around 2000 members
• 90% IRL
• Passion-driven (read: free-time)
• Dependent on external sponsorships 🏠🍕

5. 1. The Amazing No-Shows
• Send a (single) reminder
• Constantly refine your estimations
• Be conservative with food & drinks
• Don’t announce the event too early (for
me, 20 days in advance works)
• 🚫 Charge a small fee
• 🚫 Invite people personally

6. 2. The Leech Members
• Find ways to “extract” help from
them - like ‘feedback pressure’
• Don’t be let down by the leech
members, and focus you energy
on the core group

7. 3. The Trouble Finding Help To Run Things
• Choose who you ask help to
• Be specific in your calls for help
• Make it purposeful
• Try to make it scoped in time

8. 4. The Disappearing Co-Organizer
• Base the collaboration on
clear terms
• Scope expectations clearly
while avoiding pressure
• Be empathic

9. 5. The Disappearing Professional DevRel
•Don’t rely on a single
person / source
•Be quick in finding
someone else to talk to
•…or looking somewhere
else altogether
•Again, be emphatic

10. 6. The Non-cooperating Employer
employers crying that there
is no budget for community
be like
• Somehow make them understand
that learning is the second best
currency for employees
• Try to understand what they are
really after
• Respect their goals

11. employer:
we didn’t do community in the
past but now we different
7. The Fake-cooperating Employer
• What was the second bullet point
in the previous slide?
• Try to understand what they are
really after
Maybe you’ll get them to become
⭐ The Cooperating Employer ⭐

12. 8. The Shameless Marketeer
• Don’t let frustration
take over
• See if you can still get
something out of it -
almost as a game!
• … but eventually feel
free to stop replying

13. me:
I’m totally going to that
other tech event
me on the event night:
9. The Lack Of Energy To Go To Other
Communities Beside Yours
• Start telling yourself everything
you told your employer in slide #6
• Find those hidden energies in you
• Then stay home and watch Netflix

14. 10. The Joys of Meetup.com
when meetup announces a major
overhaul
and all text formatting is gone
• Make a disproportionate
use of emojis ⚡🚀📌⭐
• Find alternative ways to
run your group
• (Which for me is a very
scary idea)

15. Thanks!
@ticofab