Tag Archives: Yammer

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting Tuesday, March 22nd at the CoTweet offices in SOMA. The title of the event, The Future Role of Community Management, Is It a Dying Role?, provoked stimulating conversation.  The strong panel of Community Guru’s included Moderator Maria Ogneva, Head of Community at Yammer, John Virtes, Head of Community at Flipboard, Paul Gilliham, Director of Customer Marketing at Lithium and Scott Rutherford, Co-Founder at UserVoice.

The Panel with Moderator Maria Ogneva of Yammer, John Virtas of Flipboard, Paul Gilliham of Lithium and Scott Rutherford of UserVoice

The panel opened with the topic of What exactly IS a community manager? It was quickly determined that its hardly on the brink of dying but rather evolving into a critical role at any company whether its small, large, consumer facing or enterprise. As Gilliham stated, “Its not seen as a dead function, just a changing function.” The role is morphing from being focused on customer service to one that is now a key role as an evangelist of the company. Virtes pointed out, “It means something different at different companies. Support should be distinct but it still touches upon so many places in the company.” Rutherford emphasized its essence to a company, “Its become an incredibly important role. A key role, the breadth…the touch point…the positive voice of the company that can be found through blogs writing, marketing and other touch points.”

What makes a GREAT Community Manager? “The great community manager is kind of like your business’s Swiss Army Knife,” Gilliham so aptly put it. Someone who is able to have an agnostic role within the organization and know how to navigate all the different groups within the company, works well with people, is consistent with one’s policies and respectful of those in their community. Meg Clark, Community Manager at CoTweet pointed out, “Its someone who treats others like she would want to be treated.” To focus on the CoTweet brand and not to confuse her CoTweet community, she makes sure to use her handle of @meg_cotweet to refer to anything having to do with CoTweet while keeping her personal handle separate.

What happens when the voice of the company, your community manager who is possibly even seen as a Celebrity Rock Star leaves? You have to set expectations and boundaries with your community from the launch of your community. Most importantly, as Virtes points out, “You have to leave your ego at the door. This isn’t about you, its about the community and you should be able to hand over the role to anyone else in the company if you were to leave.”

A recent graduate from Texas University brought up another great topic. What makes a good community manager and what are the skills and background needed to BECOME a Community Manager? It was pretty much agreed by all on the panel that it takes someone who is not too junior, has a varied background, tremendous writing and communication skills and most importantly, someone who is passionate and perhaps even a“Super User” of the product or service of the company. As Ogneva stated, its someone “oozing with enthusiasm.” How does one actually LAND a job as a community manager? The panel was in agreement that it will almost naturally happen by being a part of your community of interest, networking in person, connecting through events, online blogs, communities and in the communities of social network sites such as LinkedIn, Quora, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The Social Media Club is definitely one way to become connected with like-minded, community people. Another way is to join the Facebook group, Social Media Jobs where there are numerous community manager jobs being posted by contacting them at socialmediajob@groups.facebook.com.

A great way to learn more about this topic is through the The Community Roundtable who just released its 2011 State of Community Management. The Commmunity Roundtable is a virtual table where social media, community, and social business practitioners gather to meet, discuss challenges, celebrate successes, and hear from experts and they are also dedicated to furthering the discipline of community management. You can gain more fascinating nuggets discussed about Community by the awesome panel and Social Media’s engaging audience on Twitter at #SFSMC.

Maria Ogneva, Moderaor and Head of Community at Yammer

Paul Gilliham, Director of Customer Marketing at Lithium

John Virtes, Community Manager at Flipboard

By Miiko Mentz

TechCrunch50 (TC50) had a little something for everyone. The three-day conference was jammed packed with presentations from the 52 presenting companies, demonstrations from the DemoPit companies, and the TC50 exhibitors, partners and alumni showcasing their products and services. We caught up with a mix of these companies to hear about what they were launching and showcasing at this year’s event.

Our first video is highlight clip that includes snippets from Closet Couture, Delver, Fitbit, Five Sprockets, Grooveshark, TechCrunch50 winner Yammer, and last year’s TechCrunch40 (TC40) second place winner Zivity. Also, be sure to check out the full-length interviews (don’t worry they’re short) from watchMEmelt, Fitbit, Closet Couture, Zivity, and Yammer.

TechCrunch50 DemoPit: watchMEmelt

WatchMEmelt is an online video sharing community focused on weight loss and fitness-related topics. Basically, its MySpace meets YouTube for the weight loss and fitness community. The site launched into public beta last week during TC50 and is opened to anyone interested in losing weight and sharing the experience with others. The company was founded by Brian Edward Kenny, who has enlisted two very fun and energetic spokespersons who know first-hand what it’s like to publicly lose weight.

WatchMEmelt’s Marty and Amy Wolff, now newlyweds, met on season three of NBC’s reality TV show the Biggest Loser. We caught up with them at the conference and they shared their story with us and explained what watchMEmelt is all about. It was a fun interview and certainly not something we expected to find at a tech conference.

TechCrunch50 Presenting Company: Fitbit

Ever wonder how many calories you burn in a day or if you exercise enough each day or how well you sleep each night? Well, wonder no more. You can now get those answers with the Fitbit Tracker. During the TC50 mobile session, Fitbit introduced the Fitbit Tracker and Web site.

The Fitbit Tracker and site are designed to help people live healthier by outfitting them with a small monitoring device, which is the size of a USB drive, that wirelessly sends data to the site about the users’ physical activity and other information, so people can track and monitor their progress, and share it with others if they choose to.

The Fitbit Tracker can monitor daily activity and exercise, calories burned, the quality of sleep one gets, and more. The Fitbit Tracker works in combination with Fitbit’s Web site, which offers many features including tracking weight, logging food intake or activities, connecting with or meeting new friends for encouragement and support, or starting or joining a group, such as a weekly exercise group or walking group. The whole concept is to provide people with advanced tools and a place to connect with others so they can live healthier lives. The site is free and the Fitbit Tracker will retail for $99 when it ships in late December or early January.

The Fitbit Tracker price seems reasonable, but I think Fitbit’s business model could be improved. On the distribution front, they may want to consider partnering with weight loss vendors and health clubs who have a built-in customer base. And they should consider offering a premium service for the Web site that offers additional features for a small monthly fee.

People dedicated to losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle will pay for additional value. One doesn’t have to look far to see this, just look at the success of Weight Watchers (NYSE: WTW) where customers pay a monthly subscription fee to access Weight Watchers’ online weight-loss tools, content and community.

As someone who is very health conscious, exercises regularly and is annoyingly careful about what and how much I eat every day, Fitbit is by far my favorite startup that launched at this year’s TechCrunch50. I will be sure to review it when it comes out, who knows, maybe I’ll do a video review of Fitbit over a period of time and share the results here. Check out our interview with James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit.

TechCrunch50 Presenting Company: Closet Couture

Closet Couture was definitely a company we had to check out as it immediately caught the eye of our very own fashionista and Bub.blicio.us Reporter Alison McNeill. Closet Couture is a social community focused around fashion and a place people can go to get fashion advice from community members or professional stylists. Users can create a virtual wardrobe that reflects their real-life wardrobe and then get advice on what to wear for a special occasion or on a new outfit or advice on adding a garment or accessory to an existing outfit.

Closet Couture is currently in private beta and is free to all users, but it also offers paid services such as time with a professional stylist for as little as $25, which is a bargain considering top stylists are paid thousands of dollars for their services.

I’m sure this went right over the heads of the geek boys in the crowd, but it surely wasn’t missed by us, and it also got the attention of Oprah’s editors. Closet Couture will be featured in the November issue of O magazine, at which point the site will be open to the public. But you don’t have to wait until then to see what they’re up to. Check out our interview with Christine Elia, CEO and founder of Closet Couture. Watch the entire video clip because Elia shares with our Bub.blicio.us viewers how to be part of the private beta and get a sneak peek to the service.

TechCrunch40 Alumni: Zivity (second-place winner at TechCrunch40 2007)

While everyone may have had all their attention on this year’s 52 presenting companies launching new products and services, we wanted to share the love by bringing you the latest from a company who had launched at last year’s TechCrunch40 conference and came back this year to provide a service to attendees with the Zivity Em-power-ment charging station while showcasing the Zivity community.

According Zivity Founder and Editor-in-Chief Cyan Banister, she says the Zivity community is a social networking site where models and photographers can interact with their fans. What’s unique about Zivity is that it’s one of the only social networks and content sites that offer a royalty-distribution platform. Zivity empowers models and photographers by providing them with a place to share and monetize their art. The service is currently in private beta and is by invitation only.

At this year’s TC50, the Zivity team had quite the fun booth with beautiful women (Zivity models), a charging station and cupcakes! Check out our interview with Banister as she shares with us a little bit about Zivity and the growth they are experiencing since launching at last year’s TC40. Also, be sure to keep an eye out for their public launch in early 2009.

TechCrunch50 2008 Winner: Yammer

Surprisingly, we were lucky enough to interview the TechCrunch50 2008 winner Yammer. Of course when we stopped by their station in the DemoPit the day before they won, we had no idea that they would win, and frankly, I was a bit surprised when they did win because I’m skeptical whether or not Yammer will succeed long term. However, as a huge fan and user of Twitter (despite constant outages), I do love the concept of what Yammer offers and my hat is off to them for winning.

With Yammer’s launch, it clearly points out that Twitter has not been quick and agile because the Twitter team should have already launched a “Twitter for business” service. But since they haven’t, Twitter left the door open for Yammer to provide it. Yammer is available now, so companies interested in using the Yammer service can sign up at Yammer and begin using it now.

Check out what David Sacks, CEO and founder of Yammer, has to say about Yammer and how it’s one of the most used communications tool in his company Geni, a genealogy site where families can build and share their family trees and history, and it’s also where Yammer was birthed. With the launch of Yammer at TC50, Sacks says that Yammer will now spin out as a separate company. Congratulations to David and the Yammer team!

Related posts:

- Yammer Takes TechCrunch50 Top Spot
- TechCrunch50 Highlights, Through Words and Pictures
- Zivity is the Playboy of Web 2.0

by Michelle Lentz

The top prize at TechCrunch 50 went to Yammer. Yammer is a rather ingenious, and inevitable, application. At its simplest, it’s Twitter for the workplace. Instead of asking What are you doing?, Yammer asks What are you working on? I’ve always said that Twitter flattens the org chart. This takes that concept to a whole new level.

Yammer was developed by Geni for internal communications. It was such an internal hit that they decided to release it as a product. Here’s the kicker: Yammer has a business plan.

Right now, you must have a corporate email address to join Yammer. Employees can then follow each other, based on email address. You can also follow specific topics and people by using tags. Yammer is free for employees, but if a company wants to take control of thier network, that’s where the cost is incurred (and the profit for the Yammer folks).

Yammer has been live since Monday. According to the company, they had 2,000 organizations and 10,000 people sign up since launching. You can view the video from their TechCrunch presentation.

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