Brenda Young › Comments

Get her a droid. That way, if you decide you like it better than the iPhone, you can give her your iPhone and take her droid. :) - Curtiss Grymala from iPhone

Depends. Do you love her? Then get her the iPhone. - Kevin Pedraja

Android - Jesse Stay

so I can test it - Jesse Stay

Lots of fun phones are coming out this holiday season; I might hold off to see how the landscape looks as the reviews come in. - Matt Cutts from iPhone

Matt's got a good point. I don't think we've seen all that Android has to offer yet (not to mention rumors of a Google-branded phone). - Jesse Stay

Android - James Williams

RAZR - Johnny Worthington from iPhone

I'm all about new toys. Android! - Tamara

I'll throw this out there, what does she want? I'm just say'n :) - Owen Greaves

you should get your self an Android phone so you can test it. Then buy her the better of the two. - J. Abdul-Qahhar

<slide of hand> iDon't think you want AT&T as a service. These ARE the Droids you are looking for! :-) - manielse (Mark Nielsen)

Give her the iPhone and get the Droid for you! - Chris Rogers

I told Phil that in a similar situation I could take his iphone and he could get whatever new phone he wanted. :) (this was awhile back when I knew he was thinking about getting a new phone) - Andrizzle Gizzle

That is the Droid you're looking for. Go Android all the way. - Oracio

Wait... the Holidays are just around the corner, as MC said. - Mark Evans

VZ Droid, by far - LANjackal

What type of phone does she like? What's her main usage? How technical is she? And, yeah, the most important question: how much do you love her. :) - brainno722 (Peter)

We have neither due to our Crackberry addiction. But I have a hint. I use a Curve 8310. Sheryl has a Bold. - Ken Camp

What would suit her best? What is she interested in? How would she use it? What a woman wants better count sometime or you won't count for long. :) If it were for me, I'd get a Droid. - Sheryl

6 months ago I would have said a PRE... ugh.... wait until you read the Droid reviews first! :) @SherylBreuker remembers my misguided Pre enthusiasm. ;) - Mark Evans

Why not ask your wife what she wants instead of using her as a guinea pig or giving her your hand me downs? Or, is this may sounding much too egalitarian - sofarsoShawn

Shawn-- such a softie... - Bren - il Machia

*hands head* (Bren my #FF crush no more! :) ) - sofarsoShawn

awww... I didn't say I didn't like softies! ;) - Bren - il Machia

Get a Droid! She can have the iPhone! (Nice suggestion Chris) - Nathan Snyder

droid, droid.....DROID! - imabonehead

Asking them questions - Lilian Mahoukou

Give them a call to action - make it exciting but most importantly make it relevant to them - Watch what they're talking about amongst themselves - Sometimes the glue that brings them together is not your brand - Arié Moyal

I actually blogged about this about a week ago. Make sure features aren't a distraction, prompt members to contribute, have a newcomers only section (or an area focussing on newcomers), make sure your community is fun and interesting, make sure contributions are recognised and new topics lead to discussion, and reach out. - Martin Reed

But it depends on why they're lurking : running out of time ? Are they introverts ? Too complicated topics ? etc ... - Lilian Mahoukou

Members asking members for advice or help always generates response - Beth Brodovsky

Here's a link to the post: http://bit.ly/cOK1O - Martin Reed

@Arie So, maybe start by listening and interacting elsewhere in SM where they talk? - Joe Kikta

@Joe Well it depends, do you enable them to have discussions right inside your community? - Arié Moyal

Yes @Joe Maybe it's about content. We need to keep on listening and finding the best topics to address - Lilian Mahoukou

I've been emailing new members each month that haven't posted. The emails were sent on batch but were sent from my email address and I made it as personal a message as I could. I've had lot of positive feedback and many of them have responded to the email and thanked me for taking the time to contact them personally. In the email I ask them to let me know if they've got any questions... more... - Sue

@Arie I guess my question is really about generating discussion when there is a lack of it currently. - Joe Kikta

@Joe Well exploring what your members are passionate about elsewhere could help you find topics to seed the conversation within your own community - Arié Moyal

I think a mix of questions helps. And every once in a while I don't think it hurts to bring up a topic that has lots of opinions on either side of the question. Some of the quiet people will often step up to make a few thoughtful comments that will stimulate more conversation. - Brenda Young

@Sue That's good to know :) - Arié Moyal

unfortunately in the community in which I work, we are not allowed to engage our members or promote conversation, which I believe is a true loss for the site and community. In previous positions, we engaged members by addressing them individually, as well as throwing out general conversation starters. It is my personal belief and experience the more you are seen and active the more activity you generate. - lizGreaux

Brenda: I suppose it depends on your goals and what the focus/purpose of your community is - Arié Moyal

@Liz that sounds counter-intuitive! - Arié Moyal

@Arie, it is! - lizGreaux

@Liz So they wouldn't be open to having some of the community members as volunteer moderators? - Sue

Why not encouraging some of the most active members to write guest posts ? - Lilian Mahoukou

@Liz #headdesk - Arié Moyal

@lizGreaux That really makes it difficult for you. Are you allowed to post links that might be of interest to the group? - Brenda Young

@Lilian it definitely comes down to people - Arié Moyal

The stories they pick is related to their needs - Lilian Mahoukou

Mark Sylvester, community manager of our customer/prospect site http://testdrive.intronetworks.com - finally able to carve out time on a Fri am to participate in the chat - Mark Sylvester

Hi Mark, how are you doing today? - Sue

Lee Anne Orange, learning about CM, our company hasn't gotten that far along that we have designated staff. I'm in McLean, VA - just outside of Washington DC. For dinner tonight, I'm hoping hubby will take me out to dinner! - Lee Anne Orange

@sue - thanks for helping us promote our Community Conversation next Thursday with @rhappe - Mark Sylvester

Hi, I'm Megan. CM for Ovation TV, a year and a half. Live, work, play in Los Angeles. Not sure about dinner yet, probably chicken nuggets. I love them. - Megan

@megan - step away from the nuggets. - Mark Sylvester

@mark you are welcome. Wish I could listen in but I have a sociology class at the same time - Sue

I'm Beth, I run a member-focused marketing firm and believe that building community in these orgs is critical. So I visit here to learn what I need to learn about taking those relationships online. And its Turkey Pot Pie...or pizza depending on how the day goes. - Beth Brodovsky

Hi Megan. - Sue

I'm Arié, I am the community manager for babyTEL, a VoIP company (http://babytel.net) I`ve been in CM since June (not long I know) and I'm based in Montreal For dinner tonight I'll be eating at synagogue and am not sure what to expect Wish it was Pad Thai! I miss getting it from the stand on the corner in my neighbourhood in Bangkok - Arié Moyal

@mark = haha its an addiction. Hi Sue. - Megan

Joe Kikta, Free Agent looking for marketing opportunities, ideally involving social media. Not sure what's for dinner, but I give beef a 50/50 chance.... - Joe Kikta

Sounds like some great choices for dinner tonight. :) - Sue

Joe: Pass on the beef :P - Arié Moyal

@Arie Beef. It's what's for dinner. - Joe Kikta

Okay. Thought we could chat about moderating content today. I just pop the first question up now. - Sue

Hi everyone! Like joe, I'm a free agent looking for CM opportunities in France and abroad :) - Lilian Mahoukou

Joe: Not in my house :P - Arié Moyal

Hi Lilian, glad you could join us - Sue

I have a question. Many people are at the stage of using LinkedIn Groups as communities but I see them not able to activate participation and/or getting hijacked by members pushing message and selling. Any thoughts on how to deal with that? - Beth Brodovsky

I've put the first question up. To want to say how much I enjoy cmtychat. I've learnt so much from all the great people who participate. - Sue

That's a good question Beth. If you give it moment, I'll add it as our next question. - Sue

Perfect - Beth Brodovsky

Have had to miss the last few cmtychat sessions. Looking forward to today's session. Thanks for hosting , Sue. - Brenda Young

My pleasure @Sue :) - Lilian Mahoukou

@Brenda, I promised Sonny and Bryan I wouldn't break anything. lol - Sue

@Sue LOL - Hey what's this button do? - Brenda Young

@Brenda ... lol - Sue

@Brenda Oooh shiny! Must push... - Arié Moyal

@Sue Brenda made me do it.... - Arié Moyal

I hope you are not getting sticky hand prints all up the walls! - Sue

Beth, I have forgotten about your question. Will stick it up soon. - Sue

@Sue here have some jam from the wall to stick it up with ... err I mean I don;t know anything about jam on the wall - Arié Moyal

We have a client that started an Ambassador Group - they are volunteers and manage the conversations in the various forums on their site. It is working really well for them. - Mark Sylvester

the funny thing is, when your community gets invested they will self moderate automatically. - Megan

@megan, you are right. People are people, whether online or not - Mark Sylvester

We have moderators in each of our country forums. The amount depends on the type/size of the activity in each forum. They generally facilitate conversation and react to reported posts etc. Personally I think the key to moderation is "less is more" In other words you don't try to be heavy handed and stifle discussions. It is a delicate balance. All our moderators are volunteers. - Sue

I like to think that members are the best moderators - You just need to give them the tools to do so. Also a great way to recognise an active commuity member is to make them an official moderator - Arié Moyal

@arie couldnt agree more - Megan

Do you think it makes a difference to the way a moderator carries out his/her duties if they are paid or volunteer? - Sue

I think you do want to establish rules and enforce them but that is not a long-term solution it's more in the community forming stages (Learned that from the slideshare I posted earlier) - Arié Moyal

I agree with @Arié Members could help filter content - Lilian Mahoukou

@Sue I don't think moderators who are paid do a better job - In fact sometimes the best carrot is a sense of belonging and importance - Arié Moyal

i think its acually better to not pay a moderator. especially if they are a community member. it makes the task a chore, a have to, and therefore not fun. if they are gettting a sense of ownership in the community that is often a bigger reward - Megan

@megan But, as with all volunteers, don't you often have time conflicts? Maybe they don't have time this week or that week due to work and family activities. - Joe Kikta

I don't often come across paid moderators, but I believe that in some of the online game communities the moderators are paid staff. Would love to compare their duties with a volunteer moderator from a non-gaming community. I wonder if they differ much - Sue

I think paid vs non-paid might relate to whether the community is associated with a non-profit vs a corporation. A company might give the wrong impression about the value of the community if they do not associate a salary with the task. - Brenda Young

In my community there are only 2 CM's and we definitely need moderators - lizGreaux

@Joe Maybe but paid moderators take vacations too - Arié Moyal

@joe - none of them are scheduled to moderate at any given time. we chose the most active members who are on the site most often and asked them to help keep the discussions friendly, etc and flag instances of bad behavior. - Megan

@Arie For 2 or 3 total weeks a year, but you know about that ahead of time and can plan for it. - Joe Kikta

Q3 is up - Sue

i'm the only CM here. i had some part time help for a while but not any more. :( i rely heavily on the members for feedback. and our 'moderators. - Megan

Hi Liz, glad you could join us. Is your company open to the idea of volunteer moderators? - Sue

@megan So, it's more informal and you have multiple people. Makes sense. - Joe Kikta

I honestly believe that if you have a large community you need moderators. They really go a long way into helping the community keep on track and therefore facilitate a positive posting environment for the community members. - Sue

I agree Sue but to get to a large community you were once small and I expect you have users who qualify to be moderators based on their participation that you can assign but I like to think of them as animators more than moderators - Arié Moyal

Our moderators are member who have been with us a long time and have grown with the community. At one point we had no moderators (well I was moderator, dinner lady, cleaner, etc) and our moderator number has slowly grown. We've gone from 0 to 26 mods, but that's been a slow process over 10 years. If there is one thing I've learnt is that you can't rush anything in the online community world. - Sue

@Sue or anywhere else really. Keyword: Organic - Arié Moyal

I was also wondering if having outsposts like LinkedIn and Facebook add options or dilute contributions to the main community - Beth Brodovsky

Again, talk to the people doing it. If all else fails, send them on their merry way! - Arié Moyal

@Beth It depends, if you can drive them to your community from there do so but you have to fish where the fish are - Arié Moyal

@Mark I think it definitely depends on the group and how closely it's moderated. - Joe Kikta

@Arie, - Beth Brodovsky

@Arie, that seems to be what I am hearing from others too - Beth Brodovsky

Agreed! @Arié One first step is to send them a friendly private message and having them focus on the aim of the group - Lilian Mahoukou

Does anyone send or post rules of engagement on sites? Are there best practices for letting people know what you want before they blunder? - Beth Brodovsky

@Lilian yes, and ask them why they aren't - find out what's got them acting up - Arié Moyal

Is it the larger groups that suffer from from this issue? The community manager group I am a member of on LinkedIn doesn't appear to have been hit by this problem yet. - Sue

I think some of the groups are so broad that it creates issues. Starting the subgroups was probably a good idea. - Joe Kikta

@beth have you looked at this: http://www.slideshare.net/rhappe... - Arié Moyal

@ Joe, yes that's a good point, some are very broad. No real direction. - Sue

Also, some groups are open and people just join to sell or get people to read their blog - Beth Brodovsky

I've joined a number of LI groups in the last year and they run the gamut from dreadful to very informative and useful. -- I think it's like any other activity. The people in leadership for the group set the tone and can add to the conversation by their own posts and having guest posters and attracting great people to the group. - Brenda Young

@Sue I reckon the reason for that is that they're community managers ;) - Arié Moyal

@Arie, thanks no I haven't seen it but I'll take a look - Beth Brodovsky

@Arie, you've probably got a point there lol - Sue

Opening a specific subcategory for sales pitches could also be a great idea to manage UGC. What do you think of it ? - Lilian Mahoukou

Q4 is up. - Sue

Thanks are really good suggestion Lilian. - Sue

The subcategory might be a good way to manage this if the group is not too out of hand. I have seen this done successfully on several groups. But they were pretty well-run groups to begin with. - Brenda Young

@Lilian Sounds good! If you frame it correctly they will understand that's where sales pitches go - Arié Moyal

We tried moderation tools and found that they were largely unused - they were only there for regulatory compliance. CM's don't have the time to moderate, and philosophically is that how we want to run community's? I think having post-posted editing tools works better (for us and for clients) - Mark Sylvester

I'd say premoderating blog comments is important because you know those will get spammed but when it comes to user-generated content like videos, photos etc I think you will have good response from the community on reporting abuse I suppose you have to provide those tools though - Arié Moyal

@Arie, I know a company who was running a campaign who wanted 24/7 moderation cover for a video site. They wanted to make sure no inappropriate video's were posted. All the video's would go live straight away, there was no pre-moderation. - Sue

I would think it would depend on your community and how long they have known each other. If someone joins a well-established group to spam, I think the community will react to that. Newer or less cohesive communities may not make the effort. - Brenda Young

I think maybe my experience (with internal communities) is that people tend to behave when they are not anonymous. When co-workers can see how you are and what you say, you tend to be more circumspect. If you are running an external, public facing site, then I can see where you might want to worry, but with volume so high, are automoderation tools not far off? - Mark Sylvester

I note many newspaper/news channels pre-moderate comments/posts in their communities. Do you think that's a good way to handle posts or a bad idea? - Sue

Spam was mentioned. How well do the anti-spam utilities for blogs work? - Joe Kikta

@sue - Media/Newspapers/TV/etc all pull quotes from blogs, emails, letters to the editors, posts, etc to back up a point of view for a story or ideology. I think that it is different than moderating content. - Mark Sylvester

@Sue It's work-intensive to constantly monitor sites and not conducive to sharing etc I know we've discussed as part of my start-up (everydayactivist.org) and we've decided to trust the community Newspapers and media outlets that pre-moderate say to me "We only want to hear what we agree with" - Arié Moyal

Moderation doesn't scale - Arié Moyal

@mark Do you think they approve all posts submitted? I've always wondered what the ratio is for posts they don't approve and why they don't approve them. - Sue

they don't publish those stats - would love to see their metrics and decision matrix - Mark Sylvester

i agree @arie - Megan

@Sue @Arie It does make you wonder what gets through, what doesn't and why. - Joe Kikta

@Joe. Yes spam is always the elephant in the room isn't it. It gets into the cracks and crevices of everything. - Sue

Is anyone here familiar with the work of W. R. Bion? He did work with groups in therapy and came to the conclusion in working with groups that people are conflicted. They want to be part of a group and they want to have their independence. People will act out this conflict in different ways to hijack the conversation. His conclusion was that rules are necessary for groups in order to... more... - Brenda Young

Which is why I support pre-moderation for blog posts but again it depends on volume - Arié Moyal

Rules are defintiely important but in this case I think addressing behaviour with a person is more effective than pre-moderating their entries I fyou reject them and don;t talk to them about it they'll get turned off - Arié Moyal

I've seen blogs that pre-moderate somebody's first post, but after that you're not pre-moderated. I think that's a good balance. You can always delete a comment if someone goes over the deep end later. - Joe Kikta

@arie - you are exactly right. You need to engage the people one-on-one. - Mark Sylvester

Have you all seen @rhappe's slideshow? http://www.slideshare.net/rhappe... It addressing rule-setting - Arié Moyal

Can you imagine if twitter was premoderated? - Arié Moyal

Actually @sue, I would love to have us discuss how to get more people actually making comments and not just lurking, viewing and then not getting involved. What are strategies that others are using to bolster participation? - Mark Sylvester

thats also why its important to set community guidelines for rules of the road in behavior becuz u dont want to have to premoderate every conversation but have the ammo if someone gets out of line - Megan

@Arie Talk about a scaling nightmare... - Joe Kikta

@arie Thanks for sharing. I'm a big fan of Rachel. - Brenda Young

Question 2 is posted. - Sue

@mark okey dokey. I'll add that one in a bit. - Sue

@Brenda as am I. Was very lucky to see her present that slideshow as part of her talk in Boston's Social media Breakfast in August - Arié Moyal

@Mark Some lurkers just want to lurk - Arié Moyal

@mark @arie I think of lurkers as 'listeners.' I've been surprised over time how I will get comments back from people who have been long-time listeners but rarely post. They will tell me how much they enjoy the posts but don't feel they have anything additional to add to the conversation. - I can understand since I listen in on several technical blogs but feel inadequate to the task of commenting. Yet I follow those blogs to help me understand some of the tech issues and trends behind social and new media. - Brenda Young

@Brenda I agree - That's why I think they should be left alone :) - Arié Moyal

How is she keeping up? - Thomas Power

I actually just started to have fun with it - Orli Yakuel

Do waves explode? - Luke, Reach Students

This is the best warning message ever - Michael McGimpsey

"Wanna"? What is the world coming to. You'd think a company as big as Google could employ people who know how to write. - Gilbert Harding

Gilbert, I'm sure the Googlers in Oz know how to write proper. I reckon they're just trying to get down with their target audience - i.e. the kool kidz! (Seriously though, do error messages really need to be formal? I like the more relaxed approach...) - Tony Ruscoe

Thanks for sharing with those of us who waited before jumping in. - Brenda Young

NEVER! I prefer Tritter 1'0^15 times - Francisco

Yeah....had to see if anyone knew what was going on! :) - Bonnie Foster

LOL @ Spidras- hhaha I'm tyíng in the dark.. it's difficult. - Francisco

Muhahaha - Mo Kargas

I always miss all the fun... - Alejandro

Twitter, then Facebook. I have a "FriendFeed" list on the latter. - John E. Bredehoft

Twitter - Didn't have to ask. Had 5 answers waiting ... :) - Charlie Anzman

yeah... and was able to read my FF stream there, too. odd - MikeAmundsen

I went back to Flickr. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

Went right to FB and commented about FF being down-----> - Christopher Harley

NOPE. - Steven Perez

i was putting the kids to bed, so i missed it all. - Joe Silence

When was FF down? - Kol Tregaskes

Facebook would be the last place I'd go if FF was down. - Kol Tregaskes

It was down for a few minutes some hours ago. - Steven Perez from IM

Oh, just woke up. :-) A whole few minutes! ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

Luckily I was asleep b/c I don´t have a FB acct :) - Thomas Bøhm

Huh? Was FF down? Did I sleep that long to miss that? - Ton Zijp

Actually, I started with FB first. My brother got me into that. Then I followed the 50 Songs in 90 Days people to Twitter, then Robert Scoble to FF. Stuck with FF even when people started to bail after the FB takeover. I accepted some friend requests from FF people at FB, though (I requested they say they're from FF). So: didn't bail, was already there. But I have a tendency to spread myself thin... - Dennis Jernberg

"Horse Piss Beer on Flickr" an interesting result. - Dean Clark

Dean: yeah there are some fun results there, huh? - Robert Scoble from iPhone

That's what will suck it everyone moves to facebook as friendfeed's features get integrated, there is pretty much no Google Juice on Facebook. Too many privacy barriers...things might change though. - Steven (optionshiftk)

http://www.google.com/search... - Cristo

Dude you are crazy!! Good point though =) - frank barry

Not leaving until they kick me out. - ha3rvey (big appetite)

Like many other people, I think best route is for friendfeed to go Open Source. Then we could keep it going. - Steven (optionshiftk)

This is fleeting. Google always rushes to over-index the vogue site of the day. they did this at one point with myspace profiles, then youtube comments, etc .. http://bit.ly/DoFQI - Derek Pangallo

I'm not going anywhere. You'll have to share the google kool aid with me. - shaun mclane

Shaun: go away! :-) - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I've always wanted to rank for "Octomom eats neighbor's dog." - And NO - I'm NOT leaving. Don't make me speak Russian to you. :) - shaun mclane

That was QUICK! http://www.google.com/search... - shaun mclane

Shaun: yeah Google is indexing a lot faster. By the way that was funny! - Robert Scoble from iPhone

No way am I leaving all this fun to you Scoble....slide over and give me some room :) - Ken

OK. Just pass those potatoes and peas. We're not leaving. - Brenda Young

Um, you got some Google Juice on My Yahoo! - Glen, Bespectacled Elder

Google never ceases to improve. - ashish from iPhone