Me and the K2 community

It occurred to me that i have not really told much about who i am and what i do.  I wanted to give you some insight into who i am.  For those of you who don't know me, I am the "community guy" at K2 (WWW.K2.COM) and run the community web site www.k2underground.com

I have been a techie for my entire career so I have been a member of many different communities similar to those I was trying to develop.  So I thought I should be able to help a bunch of people just like me.

I sat down to try to figure what goals I had for working with the community.  I believe that in most cases, the community is already there, people are already working and people are already talking.  So the question really is:

• What are you going to do to help them,
• What are you going to do in order to hear them?
• What are you going to do to try to get more people involved?

My goals/priorities became more obvious the more research i did

1.  Establish an online gathering place. (k2underground)
2.  Ensure that this gathering place enabled the community to network with each other, grow, become a place to do research etc.
3.  Create and grow content.  Once i really began to think about what this community needed most i found that it lacked good content.  Being that this is a primarily technical community what they are going to be seeking first is information. Information about how to do their jobs, learn, grow, be better, solve problems. Content is also going to keep people on the site, keep people coming back, and give people a reason to at least be passively involved.  Good content is/was the most difficult component of my challenge, and one to this day i have not done as well as i had hoped.

4.  Get/Grow community leaders.  I considered myself merely a helper in the community and a biased helper at that.  What this community needs are leaders.  Leaders that were self motivated, not motivated because K2 incents them.  These leaders help evangelize the community, help to get the community talking, engage them be the technical go to people if possible and when necessary. In addition we need solid people in the community that can help us know what the community needs.  We wanted bi-directional evangelists.  Not only did we want to have people go out and tell the K2 story, we wanted people to come to us and tell use the community story so that we can make it better. We have come to call these fine people K2 Insiders. I consider the Insider program a pillar of the K2 community strategy a piece that HAD to be done right and done first.  It has really been that and more.

Now i had my list of goals, to work on.  Once i established these goals, and things began to move, Focus needed to move onto the Underground, what did this site need to be and do to truly help the community?  More on that in a future blog post, as well as other blogs on my adventures building the K2 community.

What do you think, does this sound good to you? What could I do differently?

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com

Can you see the intent

 

When i was first in college i did some internships at a local hospital.  There was always the talk of the differences between those doctors who became doctors because of prestige and or money and those who were in it for the money.  when being around them regularly you could really begin to tell who was who. 

or 

The intent became obvious.  When you being to sit down and think about your dealings with all professions you can tell peoples intent and why they are doing what they are doing.

• Do they really care?
• Do they really want to help you?
• Are you just another customer to them or are you a valued client that they truly care about your success, and or satisfaction?

Getting out there, using Social Media, and  building community gives you more exposure and gives people more views into your work, more exposure insight into your intent.

So ask yourself what is your intent?  Why are you out there?  Why are you interacting with others?  Why are you trying to get more involved in the community?

Think back to some good examples of great experiences as a customer you have had in the past 6 months.  Was the service extra special because you thought that they really wanted to help you?  Was the service great because how you felt special?  Try to be more conscious of this as you interact with people i think you will find that as you try to to notice it more you will see how it affects you more than you thought.

I don't believe that all businesses are going to have good intentions when they start out, or even at any point in their lifecycle.  However I believe that those that do have solid intentions will have the advantage.  This advantage will be even more obvious when delving into social media.    The more you interact the more it will become obvious and the more people will talk about it.

Something i believe everyone should do BEFORE getting out there in Social Media is to completely and honestly examine their intentions.  Ensure you understand why you are doing what you are doing.  What are your motivations?  What do you hope to gain by being involved?  If these motives became obvious, how would people react?  Would this help or hurt your cause?

What do you think? 

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com