Daniel Johnson, Jr.

No one cares more about your cause more than you.

When I first got started as a community manager, this was one lesson I had to learn quickly. I often wondered why it felt like I was the only who cared about putting together a networking group and online community management framework.

Even now, many years into it, I’m extremely grateful for all the volunteers who put their time and effort into helping make the group work.

Some would love to do more if only asked. Others cannot.

Especially as volunteers in a community, everyone plays at their own level of commitment and involvement.

Be respectful of that fact.

Level Up letterpress (Photo credit: artnoose)

It’s April 2009. I’ve been running the New Media Cincinnati social media group for a year and a half. Still connecting with people in the Greater Cincinnati area. Still passionate about taking online connections in the real world.  I decide to take the day off the job that had the commute up to the Dayton area and make time to connect with my online friends in Cincinnati.

I put out the call on Twitter and Facebook, saying that I’d like to meet anyone who’s interested at the Max and Erma’s on Montgomery Road.  Among many who respond is Andy Warner, whom I’ve only known on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve never met in person.

Lunch at the Max and Erma’s goes really well. We’re all encouraged to meet together on a day that’s not the second Saturday of the month.  Andy and I hit it off well, and over the next several months we continue to meet from time to time.  I share my copy of Chip and Dan Heath’s “Made to Stick” with him, because it resonates so deeply with me. Andy even makes it out to a New Media Cincinnati event.

Some months later, Andy lets me know via Instant Message (because we’ve become that great of friends) that he’s moved to Portland, Oregon for a new job.

Many months later he invites me to be on his new podcast, “Mind Tilt.”  Andy describes it as “thought leadership at the intersection of sales, marketing and strategy.”  Last week he releases it to the public:  (more…)

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via Bill Trammel

I’ve been playing Real Time Strategy (RTS) games for about 10 months now. Thanks to a former coworker, I started playing Starcraft 2 (SC2). Thanks to Daniel Lewis, I also recently started playing Lord of Ultima (LoU).

Both of these games have multiple processes going on at once, and good game play requires adequate attention be given where needed; i.e., a good combo of micro-management and macro-management. For example, in StarCraft 2 you have to get your economy up and going at the beginning. Once you get that going well, you begin building the rest of your base and your battle forces. Eventually, you go in for the attack. At every step you have to make sure your economy is still going strong. When you’re sending troops to attack, you have to make sure your troop production is still going.

I’ve only been playing Lord of Ultima for a couple weeks now, and yet again, timing is key. You have to get your resources going, so you build and upgrade Wood Huts, Cottages, Quarries, and Iron Mines, for example. But you only have so many build and upgrade orders you can issue at any one time, and the higher the upgrade, the longer the process will be.

Similarly, you have a recruitment cap. You can only recruit troops based on the levels of your barracks, training grounds, and other related buildings. When you want to issue commands to raid dungeons, you can specify a mix of troops, but it takes time for them to travel to and from.

It’s like building and managing community. (more…)

Image by leslie feinberg via Flickr

Last year I worked for a payroll software solutions company, primarily on their integration between their flagship product, which is based on Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  I enjoyed the experience immensely because it gave me a “behind the scenes” look at how businesses in the Professional Employer Organization (PEO) industry can create and manage customer interactions.

Of course I came from years of experience with social technologies and community management, and I was intrigued at the potential to bring some of that into my work. In my learning, the question of ROI would often come up as businesses and organizations were considering entering the social media space.

“Rushing into social computing initiatives without clearly defined benefits for both the company and the customer will be the biggest cause of failure.” — Gartner.com

What I love about CRM is (more…)

Image by danieljohnsonjr via Flickr

Organizing New Media Cincinnati events has been something that I’ve grown into, ever since the very first one in October 2007. I sincerely appreciate the NMC Steering Committee members who have been volunteering their time to help make New Media Cincinnati the best version of itself in the area that it can be, and I hope the community can feel their influence and impact.

Back in 2007, these events initially were extremely informal meetups where we’d let people know we were meeting and would see who’d show up. Eventually, we began having more structure around a certain topic, and it gave me a chance to explore different sorts of events. Some of these were conducted well, and these were certainly some great learning experiences.

I’ve been thinking about different types of events I’d somehow like to be involved in, whether organizing, running, or just participating. (more…)