Influence Marketing Podcast: B2B influencer, advocacy, and community marketing

Today our guest is Gregarious Narain! Greg is a serial entrepreneur and product strategist, co-founder of the innovation firm Before Alpha, and previously the CTO and founder of Chute. Prior to Chute, Greg was the first employee and vice-president of product at Klout, where he established the Klout store we know and love as the standard for online influence. We discuss the common misconceptions of influence marketing, how Greg works with different companies to show ROI, the traditional vs.current ways of message distribution, the challenge of a brand portraying the right personality, and how brands can create great experiences for their customers.   Gregarious “Greg” Narain has been at the forefront of social media marketing, influencer marketing, and product marketing for more than 20 years. In his illustrious career, Greg has helped drive marketing verticals — such as content management, email and customer relationship systems, and marketing research — with a focus on product development and launches. Greg has been the founder of numerous startups in the influencer marketing space, as well as being the founder of his own agency that worked with startups and Fortune 500 companies on product development and business strategies. Greg brings his product experience to marketing by leveraging his experience and problem-solving skills to dissect industries, define problems and create innovative product solutions. Gregarious has spoken internationally at many leading industry events, including Cannes Lions Innovation, DreamForce, NAB, SXSW, AWS Re:Invent and is involved with numerous nonprofits and organizations.   The Influence Marketing Podcast is a podcast from the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Podcast co-hosts John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer are also co-founders of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Our guest today is Doc Searls: journalist, writer, and speaker.  We started off this informative conversation talking with Doc about his background, the emergence of the Internet, and the conceptual flaw that could have avoided a lot of today’s problems — overlaying the concepts of the client-server world and centralized control over what is inherently a peer-to-peer network based on TCP/IP. We went on to talk about privacy, VRM, and CustomerTech; what the consumer world could learn from B2B; implications of GDPR and globalization, and how people can protect their privacy. Doc also dispelled  This is the first episode of Season 2 of the Influence Marketing Podcast. This podcast was recorded in September, 2017. Recently, we’ve seen a lot more public discussion about Facebook and privacy, but as Doc insightfully points out in this recent article, it’s not just Facebook and Cambridge Onalytica: the same problems are inherent in the entire online advertising industry (and thus all companies that advertise online). Doc is co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge, by Doc Searls, a fellow at the Center for Information Technology & Society (CITS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an alumnus fellow (2006–2010) of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.  The Influence Marketing Podcast is a podcast from the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Podcast co-hosts John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer are also co-founders of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today we are talking with Amy Lewis and Matt Broberg, who along with John were the co-hosts of The Geek Whisperers podcast that came to a close at Episode 140 in October 2017. It was great to reconnect on the mic and have a laugh with Amy and Matt, but we also wanted to talk about their roles in influence marketing and what they are up to now. We talked about building a community at a startup, creating great content with a low budget, how their roles fit in across departments within their company, some highlights of the now retired Geek Whisperer podcast, and what projects we can look forward to from them both in the coming months! About our Guests: Amy is an energetic, effective marketing professional specializing in marketing strategy, communications, and customer engagement. She is a diplomatic collaborator with a passion for improvement. Amy is results-oriented with a knack for extracting business intelligence from marketing programs. Matthew (Brender) Broberg is the VP of Community at Sensu. Matt is a technologist with skills in marketing and a focus on product development. His role in a team is most powerful when cross-organizational and driven by the pressing needs of the company. He has the most fun when he’s empowered to lead a team to a collective goal.

Today we are talking about user groups — programs that gather local communities in the real world. Our guests are Victor Bohnert and Brad Tompkins. Victor is a Principal at the Innovatis Group and has worked with associations and user groups for nearly 20 years. Brad is the current CEO of the VMware User Group and his career background spans a number of operations and management roles in the tech area. We discuss the value of a user group program, how you start one, why a company would want one, who should be running the program, the different kinds of user groups, and what makes them different from other professional associations. About Our Guests Victor Bohnert. Victor has worked with various associations for nearly 20 years. He has extensive experience in building and managing customer communities in the all sectors and has led several organizational turn-arounds and mergers. Brad Tompkins. Brad is a 20-year industry executive with a broad and diverse leadership background in corporate technology operations. He currently serves as CEO of VMware User Group (VMUG) and is responsible for building and leading top-performing teams, increasing profitability and managing costs.   The Influence Marketing Podcast is a podcast from the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Podcast co-hosts John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer are also co-founders of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today our guest is Marshall Kirkpatrick, Product Director in Influencer Discovery & Research at Sprinklr. Previously, Marshall was Co-founder and CEO of Little Bird. Prior to that, Marshall was Co-editor and Lead Writer at ReadWriteWeb, and the first hired writer at TechCrunch.  We talk with Marshall about his experiences with the early days of Twitter, and how using a tool like Little Bird to identify people influential in a given space can be used both to get new insights for your business as well as to change the world. Marshall Kirkpatrick works as a Product Director in influencer discovery & research at Sprinklr. He was previously co-founder of Little Bird. Prior to that, he was Co-Editor at ReadWriteWeb, the first hired writer at TechCrunch, and a consultant to companies large and small. The Influence Marketing Podcast is a podcast from the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Podcast co-hosts John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer are also co-founders of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

On this very special episode of the Influence Marketing Podcast, we recount the origin story of both this podcast and the Influence Marketing Council. We’re a husband and wife who have operated on two parallel tracks — one in personal growth and leadership development, and the other in fostering communities of technologists. The Influence Marketing Council connects people in both of those area — it’s a group of marketing peers who bring the practice of developing deeply human relationships and connectivity to companies, and it’s a group of professionals who are both innovators and business leaders. Both the IMC and our consulting practice combine John’s bent towards the academic and Kat’s client-centric attitude together with our shared values around empathy with others and making the world a better place. We hope that comes though in this podcast as well! Thank you again to our listeners, and our amazing team for all your help in these projects! We love meeting people at conferences and events, so if you see us, please say hi! -John and Kat

Today we are talking with Matthew (Brender) Broberg , VP of Community at Sensu, Inc. Previously Matt was at Intel working on Developer Advocacy for cloud automation; he was also the founder of the program now known as the Dell EMC Elect. Matt was also one of the three co-hosts of the Geek Whisperers podcast along with John. It was really fun to hear about the things Matt has pulled from his past endeavors into making Sensu the best it can be. We take a look back and hear how Matt got into advocacy marketing, and how his love for connecting with community and pure curiosity are two things that never stand still. Matt helps develop the balance of business and community at Sensu, and we finish with a fun lightning round to hear who inspires him! About Matt Broberg  Matt is a technologist with skills in marketing and a focus on product development. His role in a team is most powerful when cross-organizational and driven by the pressing needs of the company. He has the most fun when he’s empowered to lead a team to a collective goal.   The Influence Marketing Podcast is a podcast from the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Podcast co-hosts John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer are also co-founders of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today we are talking with Eric Nielsen, Senior Director of Social Media and Communities for VMware. Eric and his team run the VMware vExpert program, one of the most successful advocacy programs in the enterprise technology area. John created and managed the program with Eric, and the vExperts make up a community that John and Kat are both still engaged with.  Eric reinforces throughout our conversation how the program is first built for its participants — to help make them successful. We also discuss creating programs and process, scaling the program to be global, demonstrating value to the rest of the organization, and how to keep innovation going as the program matures. Eric Nielsen is the Senior Director, Social Media and Community at VMware. At VMware, Eric’s team is been responsible for community, blogging, social media, and advocacy programs. Prior to VMware, Eric was a Director, Enginering Systems Management for Sun Microsystems. Earlier in his career at Sun, Eric created BigAdmin, one of the web’s early technical communities. Eric lives with his family in Palo Alto, CA. The Influence Marketing Podcast is a podcast from the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Hosts John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer are co-founders of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

In today’s episode, we have the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with the great and fantastically unique Eric Wright. Eric is the Technology Evangelist at Turbonomic, and he shares with us his passion of building a community and engaging with them. Giving with no expectations while having faith that this generosity will be returned in the long run are two main themes that come up for Eric, both in his personal and professional life. This mindset has helped him develop a strong gut instinct and ability to show the impact of intangible efforts to Turbonomic’s internal team. And wait — there’s a twist! Turbonomic does not have a traditional advocacy program, and it’s on purpose. Eric shares what the Green Circle Program is, and finally gives us his forecast on the upcoming future for influence marketing. We appreciate and admire the energy, generosity and thoughtfulness he brings to everything he does! About our guest Before joining Turbonomic, Eric Wright served as a systems architect at Raymond James in Toronto. As a result of his work, Eric was named a VMware vExpert and Cisco Champion with a background in virtualization, OpenStack, business continuity, PowerShell scripting and systems automation. He’s worked in many industries, including financial services, health services and engineering firms. As the author behind DiscoPosse.com, a technology and virtualization blog, Eric is also a regular contributor to community-driven technology groups such as the vBrownBag community and leading the VMUG organization in Toronto, Canada. He is a Pluralsight Author, the leading provider of online training for tech and creative professionals. Eric’s latest course is “Introduction to OpenStack” you can check it out at pluralsight.com.   The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.  

Today we are talking with Perrine Crampton. Perrine is the Influencer Relations Community Manager at Citrix. Created in 2006, the Citrix Technology Professional program is currently made up of 50 dedicated members. From sending meeting notes and feedback to holding an unconference, Perrine is thorough in her dedication to having the CTP program give back a rewarding experience and win/win for the members and the internal Citrix team. She takes what does work at webinars and in-person events, such as Synergy, and molds it into the future path to best connect Citrix and CTP’s. Both sides have to understand and respect each other, and Perrine does a great job of fostering that environment. Perrine is the Influencer Relations Community Programs Manager at Citrix. She has been a technology geek for more years than she cares to admit. Her experience has been in customer-focused roles at AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive, Symantec, PayPal and Citrix. Her first experience with social media was in 1997 when she created a mailing list for owners of Pembroke Welsh Corgi dog owners (Corgi-L.) Her current exposure is through Twitter, LinkedIn and a wide variety of other social channels. Her motto: Pay it forward wherever / whenever possible. @pcrampton Perrine is engaging the community on an ongoing and frequent basis, acting as a conduit between our external community of experts and internal Citrix experts and stakeholders. She is part event emcee, part content developer, part cat-herder, part geek, and part cheerleader and community champion.   The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today we are joined by Francine Hardaway, friend and advisor to the IMC. We cover a lot of ground on the current state of marketing, new vs. old marketing methods, the important roles of influencer marketing, and her personal experience as an early adopter of most leading marketing trends. Francine does an amazing job of getting products to market and helping startups, and we appreciate her sharing her expertise and advice! About our guest, Francine Hardaway Francine is a marketing strategist who leads Stealthmode Partners, where she focuses on helping startups grow. Prior to Stealthmode, Francine held several executive marketing roles at Intel, where she worked on digital imaging, in-car computing, USB, and home networking. As an entrepreneur, Francine built the largest marketing and public relations firm in Phoenix, Arizona before leaving it to join Intel. Mentioned In This Episode: John’s Twitter: @jtroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @dailykat To Join the IMC or for more information: info@influencemarketingcouncil.com Francine’s email: francine@stealthmode.com Twitter: @hardaway Stealthmode Partners The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today we are delighted to share our episode with Mark Browne. Mark serves as the manager for the Dell EMC Elect Program and the Community Manager for the Dell EMC Community Network. The (then) EMC Elect Program was started by Mark and another colleague, Matt (Brender) Broberg who came together from different parts of EMC with the same goal of recognizing others for good work. Now with the program combining both the Dell TechCenter Rockstars and the EMC Elect, Mark sees himself in a trustee role for the members, making sure they have help getting what they need within the program. The Dell EMC Elect overall has a huge ROI for both members and for the company through the trusted peer-to-peer influence of these micro-influencers. Mark has a Master’s Degree in Data Business, and is currently building a guide to the value of advocacy program and measuring their value. Thank you for sharing your time with us, Mark! About our guest, Mark Browne Mark has more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry, in technical and customer support. Mark serves as the Community Manager for the EMC Community Network (ECN) Support Community Forums, which have over a quarter of a million members, including customers, partners, and EMC employees. The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today our guest is Jonas Rosland, Open Source Community Manager at {code} by Dell EMC. The {code} community has become an active way for the Dell EMC ecosystem to participate in open source projects. There are currently 3700 members in this community, and Jonas forecasts even more future growth. In this episode we really enjoyed speaking with Jonas about his background of developer advocate to community manager.  Jonas goes into finer detail about the {code} Catalyst program and hisrole as a community leader, and how important it is to them to use the program as a way to thank those who are out there interfacing on behalf of Dell EMC, and to keep a good balance between the internal and external engagement. Leading and managing an open source community inside one of the world’s largest technology giants is not an easy task, but Jonas finds much motivation with real life examples, such as his colleagues in Japan finding their work lives easier because of the {code} Catalyst program. Finally, we talked about perception with big companies’ involvement in open source. Jonas feels Dell EMC sets a great example of how a large traditional company can interact with the open source community and we appreciate his dedication to making sure the goal is to integrate with projects in the larger open source ecosystem.   About our guest, Jonas Rosland Jonas Rosland is a community builder, open source advocate, blogger and speaker at many open source focused events. As Open Source Community Manager at {code} by Dell EMC, he is responsible for the growth and prosperity of the {code} Community. The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Today our guest is Sam Moulton, Senior Manager of Influence Marketing at NetApp. Sam has held a variety of roles in technology industry spanning sales support, product management, media and analyst relations, and marketing communications. Throughout her career the relationship she develops with other members of the community, colleagues and peers has remained of top importance. This is why being a champion for The NetApp A-Team and their team of dedicated and passionate influencers suits her well. The A-Team is the marketing and development arm for NetApp, and Sam shares with us the origin, present successes, and tips for those starting their own advocacy program, on how she helps support the A-Team members in their own path to success. About our guest, Sam Moulton Sam has held a variety of roles in the technology industry spanning sales support, product management, media and analyst relations, and marketing communications. Throughout her career, one thing has always been paramount: the relationships she develops with members of the communities she supports as well as with her colleagues and peers. So it’s no surprise that championing the NetApp A-Team suits her well, and she considers it a privilege to be working with such a smart, dedicated group of influencers.   The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.  

In today’s episode we talk with Chris Aniszczyk. Chris is the COO of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, aka the CNCF. We spoke with Chris on site at DockerCon 2017 in Austin, TX earlier this year about the CNCF Master Program. CNCF is part of the Linux Foundation, of which he is a VP, and a home to many projects, including Kubernetes. Kubernetes is one of the fastest growing open source projects. We had a very interesting talk with Chris on how the ambassador programs of both the CNCF and Linux mirror other types of open source contributions, where participants themselves often have day jobs and work with commercial products based on open source projects. Chris also shares with us about open source culture and his extremely impressive involvement with CNCF, Linux and Twitter. The ambassador program at CNCF seeks to cultivate a worldwide community of people interested in spreading the notion of Cloud Native Computing. About our guest Chris Aniszczyk is an engineer by trade with a passion for open source and building communities. At Twitter, he created their open source program and led their open source efforts. For many years he served on the Eclipse Foundation’s Board of Directors representing the committer community and the Java Community Process Executive Committee. In a previous life, he bootstrapped a consulting company, made many mistakes, lead and hacked on many eclipse.org and Linux related projects. He is now the COO of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and VP of Developer Programs at The Linux Foundation. Mentioned In This Episode John’s Twitter: @JTroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @DailyKat To Join the IMC or for more information: info@influencemarketingcouncil.com DockerCon Cloud Native Computing Foundation CNCF Ambassadors Chris Aniszczyk’s Twitter — @CRA The Linux Foundation MeetUp Lanyrd.com Kubernetes The Apache Foundation   The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Docker has a huge amount of momentum in the community, and you can feel their enthusiasm and energy, both virtually and at live events like DockerCon, which is where we recorded this podcast with them! The Docker Captains Program is about a year old, and is a calculated way of helping the most active people in their community feel connected to the company and help them grow. We appreciate the way they are both organically and strategically approaching their program, and growing globally. Docker Community has been a large engine to their growth as a company, and they see community as a way to help all sectors of Docker — technical, marketing, etc. They are building a program as a way for passionate community members to bring their value to Docker. They are constantly taking feedback and making changes. At the end of our podcast, Jenny and Victor’s smiles said it all: when a program like Docker’s works so well, magic and synergy happen, to elevate all of those involved. They are proud of the way the program enables members, provides education, and creates a network effect across the globe, and how much is done for community, with little resources. About our guests, Jenny Burcio and Victor Coisne Jenny and Victor with John during our recording session at DockerCon Jenny Burcio runs the Docker Captains program, where she helps awesome Docker community members inspire and educate others. Prior to Docker, Jenny worked at Apigee helping to build their community programs and partner ecosystem. Jenny is a recovering attorney, mom, and wannabe plant whisperer. Victor Coisne is the Head of Community Marketing at Docker. He likes fine wines, chess and soccer in no particular order. Mentioned In This Episode John’s Twitter: @jtroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @dailykat To join the IMC or for more information: info@influencemarketingcouncil.com DockerCon Jenny Burcio Twitter — @TheBurce Victor Coisne Twitter — @VCoisne Docker GitHub The Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

In this episode, we have a fun chat with Angelo Luciani on his experiences with the Nutanix Technology Champions, or NTC, program. Angelo was the Community Manager at Nutanix, and he and another colleague run this program, which is in its third year. There are 151 members in the program, and Angelo’s traits of being hardworking, proactive, and helpful, certainly help give it the right recipe for success. We have known Angelo for many years, going back to the early VMware days. Angelo puts his heart and soul into his projects, and it is reflected in the way people feel about the NTC program, and what makes it a deep technical relationship between company and community to get their insights and feedback, rather than just a service group meant for only marketing the company. Key Takeaways This podcast was recorded last month; Angelo recently has taken a new role with another company. Thanks to Angelo and to Nutanix for sharing with us on the podcast! [1:20] Today we are talking with Angelo Luciani, Community Manager at Nutanix. Angelo manages the Nutanix Technology Champions program, also known as the NTC. He manages the social media and community at Nutanix. [3:20] NTC is made up of about 151 members of IT professionals with a diverse background, which serves to help the group learn and grow from one another. [3:53] The true value of these programs is people helping each other, which sometimes may take a little time to emerge. This was Angelo’s dream when starting NTC. [5:11] Another goal of starting NTC was that it would serve as an ear to the ground of the community, and they could hear firsthand what challenges and suggestions customers or members of the community are having, that they could help with or change. [7:48] To build the best program possible, ensure that you have strong management commitment internally, because it does take resources and time. Also, have a roadmap of activities that you plan to involve NTCs in, so they know what to expect. [9:58] There are two running the program, one other individual besides Angelo. [10:31] Some of the benefits in the program include: early access to software, access to key people, and almost immediate responses at the company through the Slack channel, exclusive briefings before released to public, access to conferences, lunches and sessions with engineering and product management employees. Peer to peer “unconferences” with a webinar with the NTCs. [13:23] Swag includes nice NTC Polo shirts and Amazon dots. [14:46] The NTC community is made up of a diverse group that bring fresh perspective and conversations to the table. Applications are open to anyone, and the amount of applicants can be overwhelming! The applications are opened in October, for about a month; then they announce in December. January spent is onboarding new members and also welcoming back previous year members. [18:32] Angelo doesn’t see NTC as a niche sub-community, he sees everyone as part of the V-Community. (Virtualization / technical community) [19:31] This is NTC’s third year, and there are currently 151 members. [20:25] He has a colleague, Valeria, that helps deliver content and looks for things NTCs are asking for. He spends 70% with the NTCs on larger structural items and she spends 30% on the tactical end of things. [21:37] Angelo feels like one of the benefits of the programs is immediate feedback on product and platform. [23:49] Sometimes they extend the opportunity to some of their vendors who may want to beta test their software. [26:34] Angelo does see the program growing, but wants to keep it manageable and make sure everyone participating keeps getting value. The current group is very active in the online community, which helps elevate the entire platform. [28:22] Angelo and John were part of the same V-Community many years ago, and he was an early listener of John’s podcast and did the show notes. He was then a mentor in the VMug community, and then saw a need and filled it, instead of waiting for an opportunity to come his way. [30:42] Angelo would like to do more speaking, outreach, and evangelism for the current platform, and a forward view on things of what he thinks is coming next. [32:49] Looking back lightning round! If he could go back in time, he would figure out how to deliver swag in a self-service model, vs. having to personally hand it all out. [33:40] He is amazed at the level of interest in the program and proud of how the NTCs give back and support one another. About our guest, Angelo Luciani I’m the community manager over at Turbonomic and advocate for building communities that engage, enable and equip. I’m always looking for ways to give back to the vCommunity and was fortunate to start the Silicon Valley and Toronto VMware user groups, join the VMUG Board of Directors and be a mentor. I am the co-founder of the first online IT reality show called Virtual Design Master — challenging system administrators who want to develop their skills. I enjoy connecting with people and always have time to hear a good story. I blog at virtuwise.com and hope to connect with you at an event or meetup, don’t be shy! Mentioned In This Episode John’s Twitter: @jtroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @DailyKat To Join the IMC or for more information: info@influencemarketingcouncil.com Nutanix Angelo Luciani’s Twitter: @angeloluciani Nutanix .NEXT conference The Influence Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

  With Great Passion Comes Great Responsibility, featuring the Splunk Trust with Eric Grant— EP003 Eric Grant, Community Manager for Splunk, sits down with us today to discuss how the SplunkTrust started, evolved, and now helps active members of the Splunk community be “geeky in all the right ways.” Giving those who help Splunk great benefits and a positive identity is very important to Eric, and he details exactly how they accomplish that. Today we are talking with Eric Grant, Community Manager for Splunk, who manages the advocacy program SplunkTrust. Eric shares with us the importance of building a team you can count on and trust, and how he was surprised at just how much people would do when asked. Eric gives great advice for those looking to start their own advocacy programs and gives us some behind-the-scenes insight on what makes SplunkTrust members the vivacious, raucous, and fez wearing “ubergeeks” that we know and love. Listen in as he describes how they took a community that was already there, and shaped it to be the SplunkTrust. Eric inspires us as program managers and leaders to have the courage to ask others for help, along with finding the right people, tell them to keep doing what they are doing, and ask them for even more, with providing great benefits and recognition in trade!     Key Takeaways [1:20] Today we are talking with Eric Grant, Community Manager for Splunk. [3:30] Eric started in program management and release management. He has been at Splunk for 5½ years. One of the responsibilities he had during that time was running the beta programs for their enterprise product. He enjoyed user perspective on the products — both the praise and critiques of upcoming releases. When an opportunity came up to work on the community end of things, he saw it as a great way to get more involved with customers. [5:04] Being part of the Splunk culture, and knowing the product and the customer base, helped him transition over to the community manager position. [6:46] Their annual conference has been held for 8 or 9 years, which is a great way for customers, partners, and employees to get together. That led to an online community of a large number of these people, who started communicating both professional and informally on an IRC. They have something called “Answers,” where they have over 80,000 questions posted by customers and partners, with a quick turnaround time of answers within 20–30 minutes, and 70% answered by other customers. They have 90 user groups around the world. [8:03] SplunkTrust is an MVP program, grown out of consistent contributors from customers, app developers, etc. This was to thank them for what they were doing, to empower and encourage them to do more. The goal was not to set specific quantitative hard numbers, but just to see what it could do. [10:08] They had some qualitative goals when starting the program, but it’s hard to set up quantitative goals. It’s challenging to get wrapped up into hard ROI before you know the outcome. [10:55] The initial goal was to help with customer success, which is why it was in the support organization, and that stays as one of the top goals of the company. [11:34] For people starting a program, Eric recommends to look for the people that are already passionate and championing your company. The initial membership was picked by an internal team, plus support and sales engineers, product engineers, etc. They looked at who the most helpful people were, in the programs that they already had going. Once they identified those people, they looked at their attitude, availability to participate, and ability to represent Splunk well. [14:42] Some keywords that Eric describes Splunk culture as: snarky, irreverent, geeky. IT admin and implementers are highly represented. The group is geeky people who enjoy hanging out online with other geeky people! [15:39] SplunkTrust is known for their cool T-shirts and swag. Some people say Splunk is a T-shirt company who happens to make software! They wear Fezzes as a unifying symbol along with a pin that signifies the year of the program. [17:41] There are two SplunkTrusters that Splunk hired, and the community still wanted them in even though they now work for the company. The program is split up primarily between professional service consultants and customers. [18:31] This is the second year and there are 30 members which include the two Splunk employees. [22:40] Some of the other benefits of the SplunkTrust program include rewards and ways they can promote themselves and Splunk. Free training and certification through Splunk education courses, free pass to annual user conference— .Conf, Fez, pins and capes. Presentations on products are coming up where they can share their thoughts, and virtual conference sessions where they present to a public audience. [24:45] ROI is difficult to measure, but one way is support case deflection. [30:41] They do want to grow the program, but want to do it slowly, in order maintain the tightness of group identity. If it continues to grow larger, they may start segmenting and subdividing the group into service type categories, or industry vertical categories, rather than just growing it, which fragments and loses cohesion. [35:10] Eric was surprised at how much the group would do, when not even asked. Brainstorm all the possible things program members can get involved with. Then let community members help define the path after that. [35:50] Sometimes it can be difficult balancing the journey of the program and passion of the SplunkTrust members with what is optimal for the company’s long term goals. It’s a delicate balance to satisfy both. [36:42] Eric has been blown away by the strength of the identity and interest level of the program. They expect it to keep growing by 75% in the next year. About our guest, Eric Grant Eric Grant is the Community Manager for Splunk. In that role, he manages Splunk’s local User Groups, the SplunkTrust MVP program, and the realtime chat service. Eric has been at Splunk for five years and previously served as a Program Manager and Release Manager for Platforms, as well as running Beta programs for Platforms. Eric serves on Splunk’s the Open Source Standards committee, sits on the Onboarding Steering committee, and helps guide Splunk’s culture as a Values Ambassador.   Eric has spent his professional life melding technology, education, and collaboration. He started life in New York, got some degrees in Information Systems and Political Science from CMU, and then started working in enterprise software, learning and development, and edutainment software in Austin and New York. Then he came to Stanford for a Masters in Learning, Design, and Technology, and fell in love with California. Since then, he has worked in high-tech classrooms, educational foundations, government tech, and several educational startups. Prior to working at Splunk, Eric was about to go to Libya to roll out a citizen participation technology, but then the citizens revolted and he decided to stay here. Eric lives in San Francisco and enjoys motorcycling, camping, skiing, fostering rescue dogs, and eating too much cheese. Eric also volunteers as a first responder at Burning Man just about every year. Mentioned In This Episode John’s Twitter: @jtroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @DailyKat Eric Grant’s Twitter: @SenatorGrant Splunk Website Splunk Live: SplunkTrust.Conf   The Influence Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

On today’s episode of The Influence Marketing Podcast, we are joined by Mark Finnern, founder of the boutique consultancy Playful Enterprise. Mark shares how he built the SAP Mentor Program, explains the terminology and ideology behind the concept of an “Enterprise Tribe,” and gives tips on how a company can encourage mentors to highlight and support the community. Finnern discusses bringing passion, purpose, and playfulness into the advocacy program to create deep connection and trust. Key Takeaways [1:56] This podcast will show listeners both the business and personal values of advocacy programs, and what does and does not work. [2:06] Enterprise advocacy programs are about taking the people who are the most engaged with your company and community, and interacting with them in a structured and programmatic way that interacts with the rest of the business. [4:14] Mark developed and and ran SAP’s Enterprise Tribe, the SAP Mentors, and the SAP Developer Network, which has three million members. He now brings that knowledge to other organizations as a consultant, and has his own Playful Enterprise program. [6:20] Just the term “advocacy program” can sometimes be too short for all that is possible. The term Enterprise tribe encompasses deep engagement of people from ideation to maintaining shorter feedback cycles as the project continues, so they are proud of what they helped build and develop. [8:17] Mark mentions how Enterprise should be playful, and what led up to people singing a lullaby in front of thousands with no warning when they thought they were just going on stage to accept a T-shirt. Once the attendees got out of their comfort zone, it set the tone for playfulness and created an environment of trust. [13:52] An environment of excellence and aspiration is necessary to succeed. These and other key principles of what makes a successful mentor are listed in the SAP Mentor Magic Foundation Document that Mark developed with his tribe. [27:10] Mark’s Playful Enterprise grew from his discovering how powerful it was to reward people for exceptional community work. [27:35] Top advice: Get executive sponsorship. There will be critiques and you need your boss to help give you support. Create a steering committee nominated by support, product, etc. They will help you make sure your tribe is connected to all assets of your company. [31:24] Mark talks about the importance of webinars. [36:22] Mark talks about budget needed to get deep connection and growth within advocacy programs. He also addresses the “velvet rope,” and exclusive element of the tribe, by driving home the fact that their purpose is to help others and encourage connection. [49:40] Mark discusses the powerful and important nature of well-organized community Meetups run by mentors. [55:12] Mark is proud of bringing the community together with things that grow with time, such as Run with the Wolf Pack, in Las Vegas, that started from a fun idea to an official annual run on the Vegas strip, and a band playing on the showroom floor at a “Back to the Future” themed event. Mark Finnern on enterprise tribes “You want to have your top influencers in it for the whole product development process.” “I didn’t want to do hazing or anything, but the microphone was out there already, I gave them the shirt and said you know, how about you sing a song?” “You can only be really playful if you trust people.” “You don’t have to be playful, but you have to support other people’s playfulness.” “Deep curiosity and being technically friendly is much more important than having a technical background.” “If you can align with the purpose of people, you have won.” “The only lasting competitive advantage is to have a strong community.” About our Guest As if a magician, Mark Finnern creates communities from thin air around work, ideas, and local playfulness. Recently Mark Finnern founded Playful Enterprise, a boutique consultancy where he brings his “magic” social technology for community to organizations ready to engage their enterprise tribes. As SAP Chief Community Evangelist he developed and ran the SAP Mentor Initiative. The SAP Mentors are the top ~ 150 community influencers of the SAP Ecosystem of ~3 million members. At the 10 year anniversary, the community voted him as the “real founder” of SAP Community Network for his Don Finleone performance. (also voted most likely to join the circus….) Since 2003, Mark has hosted the Future Salon he founded, a get together of a group of eclectic change makers curious about a world that works for all. At TEDx he shared his 5 Ideas on How to Bring All of Our Schools Into 21st Century. Mark also initiated Sandwich and Play, a weekly informal play time of families in the San Mateo Highlands. He also founded and led the San Mateo Highlands Renegade Marching Band to two consecutive best of 4th of July parade wins. While it may seem like a romp at the circus, Mark Finnern’s magic creates the conditions and culture for community to thrive. Mentioned In This Episode John’s Twitter: @jtroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @DailyKat Mark’s Twitter:@finnern Mark Finnern’s website: finnern.com Mark Finnern’s email: finnern@gmail.com Playful Enterprise website: finnern.com/playfulenterprise Mention of his past blog Future Salon: futuresalon.org SAP Mentors: Sap.com/community/about/mentors-program.html The Influence Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B brands who innovate in influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. Your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer, are co-founders of the IMC. The Influence Marketing Podcast is part of the research program of the IMC. For more information, go to influencemarketingcouncil.com.

Rick Vanover, with Veeam Software, shares with us his key principles and beliefs that have made the Veeam Vanguard Program so successful. The program is in its third year, and has 61 members, with a very high engagement rate in activities and outings, such as the VeeamOn event. Rick talks up the importance of starting small, picking your team wisely, and using your intuition, rather than only going by quantitative metrics. The Veeam Vanguard Program features creative and trusted leaders who see some of the following benefits in joining a unique program that only competes with itself, instead of other programs. Who we are: Influence Marketing Podcast, a podcast brought to you by the Influence Marketing Council, an industry council for B2B or tech brands that drive innovation, and influencer, advocacy, and community marketing. We are your hosts, John Mark Troyer and Kathleen Nelson Troyer. Together, we are looking forward to working closely with a select number of startups and enterprise tech companies to develop their best practices, discovering what their marketing programs have in common and working with the council members how they drive innovation between these programs and the rest of their business. It’s part of our research program, and also just our curiosity to have a conversation around influence marketing in the B2B space. We will be surveying and gathering our research from people who run advocacy and influencer programs, to find out what makes them tick. Key Takeaways: [2:50] Rick’s nickname, is the Rickatron! [5:32] Rick and his team administer the Veeam Vanguard Program. This is the third Veeam Vanguard class. There are currently 61 members. Rick was a longtime employee at Veeam before he started this program. Before that he worked at a bank. [6:24] Some of Rick’s advice for getting a program off the ground: start small. Less is more — start with a manageable scope where you know you can be successful. When they launched the Vanguard program they kept it low key and small, and are growing it at a manageable pace over the past three years. [8:03] Their selection mechanism profiles people on different factors such as: internal advocacy, initiation of user groups, social sharing, running community events, and suggestions from other Vanguards and program leaders. Candidates are also welcome and encouraged to reapply. [12:30] Rick shares how the Veeam event, VeeamOn, started and grew into a great community event, and how getting into other cloud native communities helps him bring fresh and new ideas to the Veeam community. He does not feel groups should compete with one another, but instead should strive to be their own best and learn from each other. [14:46] Rick’s main goal to address is geo-distribution. He takes great responsibility in making sure the program is diverse in all ways with gender, location, etc. He would liketo expand and cover more in several countries, such as Japan and Africa. [18:47] The Vanguard is explained as the persona who is an advocate on the company’s behalf, is an evangelist, and is trusted to be neutral out in the community, with an emphasis on creativeness, trust and support. [26:00] His front and center goal is to give his Vanguards an outstanding experience. [30:28] One Vanguard, Kerstin, helps immensely with providing a catalog of cool and unique swag members can choose from. [34:17] Veeam Champions and Veeam Expert Clubs are separate groups, and the Vanguard program encompasses all of those groups, and houses them under its umbrella. [36:17] Rick feels Delta is an example of a company that gives good engagement with customer service questions and responses on Twitter. [38:51] Some of the benefits Vanguards get include access to information early in press releases, webinars, announcements, and top secret product launches! He trusts them to not reveal any information before it is appropriate to do so. [40:41] Continuing to innovate and expand the program is of the utmost importance. New ways to embellish the program include working with partners to keep the program fresh, and providing opportunities for Vanguard members to speak at community events. [42:00] Rick doesn’t think there is competition for influence marketing programs. Every program can share, and benefit from each other, but he strives to make the program as good as possible, through the people on his team and the Vanguards himself. He was surprised how willing people are to say yes to attending VeeamOn events and webinars. When programs are bigger people may engage less. [44:31] They don’t have a community manager, so now everyone is on triage working all angles, like Slack, Twitter, writing, presenting, and working in the labs. Ideally there would be one community manager, but for now this system works! Mentioned In This Episode: John’s Twitter: @jtroyer Kathleen’s Twitter: @dailykat Rick Vanover’s Twitter: @rickvanover Veeam: veeam.com Veeam Vanguards: veeam.com/vanguard.html VeeamOn: veeam.com/veeamon Spiceworks: spiceworks.com   Photo credit: Clint Wyckoff