Podcasts about cmx

Parbinder Dhariwal, VP and GM of CVS Media Exchange, discusses CVS's self-service advertising offering and the future of DEI initiatives in retail media. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.[00:00:00] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse Liffreing. [00:00:01] Damian: I'm Damian Fowler. [00:00:02] Ilyse: welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast. [00:00:04] Damian: This week we're delighted to talk with Parbinder Dhariwal, or Parbs as he's known by friends and colleagues. He's the Vice President and General Manager at CVS Media Exchange. [00:00:14] Ilyse: Launched in 2020, the CVS Media Exchange, or CMX, helps brands and partners reach CVS Pharmacy customers and members of its Extra Care Loyalty Program through a variety of digital platforms, including social channels, programmatic display, and on cvs.com. [00:00:32] Damian: There's been a ton of advertiser interest in the retail media space. In fact, it's become one of the fastest growing digital media channels. [00:00:39] Ilyse: According to Group M, retail media networks are expected to grow revenues by 8. 3 percent in 2024. We start off by asking Parbs about this revolution. [00:00:50] Damian: So, Parbs, we keep reading about the retail media revolution from retail media networks exploding to self service and data portability. What do you think the next phase of this [00:01:00] revolution is? Well, the [00:01:01] Parbs: the retail media revolution is in full swing, isn't it? it's rockin and rollin right now. and, doesn't seem to be slowing down and letting up. [00:01:08] I think the, Group M stat and growth that they're forecasting for this year is an interesting one. we also know that it's gonna be the fastest growing channel, right the way through 2027. If you look at the market to stats, we're gonna outpace linear TV in the next couple of years. [00:01:23] So there is tremendous amount of growth. I think as we think about that revolution as we think about the way in which we operate as an organizer, as as an industry as a whole. measurement, transparency and clear campaign attribution are going to continue to be the driving force of the way in which we think about our business. [00:01:42] this has got to be central for brands. We have an opportunity as an industry to really change the game there and we're very much leaving in. the other piece is, is around how do we continue to advance in technology, how do we continue to advance in, using AI, [00:02:00] machine learning, a lot of the analytics tools that are going to be available to us and build our capabilities so we can really start to compete with some of those larger platforms, within the industry. [00:02:11] And then also, let's always not forget, retail media is nothing without the core brands that we are retail media networks, and a part of. So, in this instance, we're very much a retail media network. CMX is the retail media network for CVS, pharmacy. we operate under that guise, And what is most important to us within that capacity is for us to really understand and meet the needs of the consumer. [00:02:36] If we don't understand the consumer, we can't meet their needs. If we can't service the consumer and help understand, whether they're in a store environment and how could we create a level of discoverability in the in store environment? Or how do we create that discoverability in digital environments? [00:02:53] That's when we start to lose our gravitas. So thinking about the consumer first and then how do we add [00:03:00] to their experience as they're shopping through our stores, both, as I said, from a physical as well as digital and looking at it through the omni channel lens. [00:03:09] Damian: and just off the back of that, you do have tremendous scale. What kind of customer reach are you looking at? [00:03:15] Parbs: Yeah, it's a, great question. And you got to remember CVS, pharmacy is a national brand in the United States. And I'll give you some, this probably the moment for me to, throw a few stats at you, right? Like, let's do this. so first and foremost, CVS stores, there's 9, 000 locations in the U S. [00:03:32] we are, part of CVS health, which is, The largest health and wellness, business in the U. S.  [00:03:39] Parbs: As you think about our stores in particular, we have close to 5 million interactions with our stores every single day from consumers. So, vast amount of traffic that comes through our stores and for various need states as well. [00:03:52] from a digital perspective, we have almost 140 million, Users who are coming to the CVS. com site and again interacting with us [00:04:00] with various different need states. but shopping is a core component of that. And then the most important stats certainly from a CMX standpoint is we are predicated and built upon our loyalty program. [00:04:11] And it kind of differentiates us a little bit from other retail media networks. Our loyalty program is 74 million extra care consumers. substantial. at scale, but also gives us that really strong purview of that omnichannel experience. So hopefully that sort of just helps you give an understanding of the scale that we operate within. [00:04:33] Really? [00:04:33] Damian: yeah, I mean, it's massive and we want to talk a little bit more about the Extra Care Loyalty Program. [00:04:38] Parbs: Program. If there's anybody out [00:04:39] Damian: further on. but you know, I'm not sure if this question if there's anybody out there right now who doesn't actually, subscribe to retail media. the power of retail media. But what would you say to such a person, an advertiser who believes retail media doesn't fit into their media investment? [00:04:55] Parbs: Yeah, I say that to them that, you know, retail data, [00:05:00] the way in which we see the transactions within our stores, that level of wealth of proprietary data is an understanding of. Of behaviors and the way in which consumers are shopping between digital, physical environments when they're coming into store, the frequency by which they're purchasing product. [00:05:17] That is a highly effective tool. And as a brand, if you're not leveraging that, you're missing out on an enormous channel. This is the reason why. Brands are leaning in heavily. They're becoming much more sophisticated in how they use retail media. I think they're also really pushing retail media as well to become more sophisticated in the offerings, more sophisticated in the way that we measure more sophisticated in the way in which we provide that level of transparency across our businesses. [00:05:46] Closing the loop and building that attribution model is also really, really important. That sets us apart from any other platform. like that. There are some of the larger platforms that have continually [00:06:00] struggled to provide that level of closed loop attribution as I think about I saw an ad or I've engaged with an ad. [00:06:08] And what has that driven me to do? And what is the outcomes as a result of that? That again is something that retail media is very much in an exclusive camp. And we've got to make sure that brands truly understand how to use them. [00:06:21] Damian: that [00:06:22] Parbs: And the other thing that we should, make sure that we, that we understand is that there's retail media networks that have enormous amount of first party data. [00:06:33] And as a result of that first party data, [00:06:35] Damian: not [00:06:36] Parbs: it gives us the ability to leverage that consumer across the omni channel. But not just on our own owned and operated properties, but how do you leverage that data or that asset across the open web. Right when you're trading with, through be it through DSP environments or otherwise. [00:06:53] How do you leverage that CVS data, the extra care loyalty program to continually [00:07:00] enrich your programs, your marketing efforts to drive more performance to drive more product to drive more engagement with the consumer. So we're sitting on a we're sitting on a massive opportunity. And it's in our hands, right? [00:07:14] It's in our hands as the retailers to, To step up. It's in our hands to make sure that we continue to provide all of the things that brands are looking for and provide that level of transparency on how we're measuring our performance and more importantly, bringing brands in the industry along on this. [00:08:38] We're, it's got to be additive to their journey, not disruptive. we want to, we don't want to put things in the way of the consumer getting to the products that they need. But we, what we do is we want to enable a level of discoverability through the retail media networks that gives them access to products that they didn't realize that they could buy at CVS. [00:08:55] They didn't realize that they were, in the beauty counter. I think it's, I think those are really [00:09:00] important. [00:09:00] Ilyse: really important. Yeah. On that note, last year, CVS is extra care. It was named one of Newsweek's best loyalty programs. How has CVS cultivated such a strong relationship with its customers? [00:09:12] Parbs: Yeah, and look, extra care has been around for over two decades. The longitudinal latitudinal nature of the program gives us a really strong insight into the way that the consumers have been having and purchasing products with us. again, I'm sounding like a little bit of a broken record here. [00:09:30] It's not my intention, but the consumer is at the center of everything that we do. Understanding the way that the consumer purchases, it enables us to deliver message, personalized message to those consumers in the environments within which they operate. We can understand certain need states and how that consumer is wanting to go, and work with us in the, in our environment. [00:09:50] we will continue to build, that loyalty program for, with extra care. It's the foundation of CMX, we've talked about it at the top of this podcast. There's [00:10:00] 74 million of those consumers, they're swiping at really high levels. they're engaging with our, with our program as well. [00:10:06] And, yeah. that's where the opportunity comes on. I was providing a level of service back to them with the ads business as well. [00:10:12] Damian: self service. The [00:10:13] Ilyse: On that note, no, separate notes. but along the line of service, CVS Media Exchange introduced the self service option for advertisers that was announced this past CanLion. why is launching a self service important for increased transparency? I know that's a popular buzzword around, the industry, but it's also extremely important. [00:10:36] Yeah, [00:10:37] Damian: transparency [00:10:38] Parbs: Transparency is, it is a buzzword, but it's a it's an old. It's also an incredibly important foundational pillar for us as a business. and the way in which we operate. So I think that's the, I would say that. the, related to the self serve announcement, that we announced at CAN, it's actually more about, whilst the transparency is there, it's also about accessibility.[00:11:00]  [00:11:00] How do we provide a level of accessibility to our inventory, in, ways in which they can access that inventory through a DSP platform through a particular seat. So sell serve opens up how brands want to work with retail media. And we've only really been in market as a retail media network since 2020. [00:11:21] We're developing this business. We're bringing it to market. I think we're doing it at speed. I think we're doing it very thoughtfully on The partners that we work with, in this instance, we're working with a trade desk on this self service program. trade desk shared our values. [00:11:35] They share the way in which we want to innovate. They share the way in which we are looking at the consumer and driving that technology in order to continue to develop solutions for our advertisers. What I don't want us to forget is You know, as we think about that accessibility, as we think about transparency, how do we continue to iterate from here? [00:11:57] How do we continue to develop innovation with [00:12:00] other tech partners, with the trade desk to, to further enhance how we're, bringing new solutions to our advertisers? [00:12:07] Ilyse: Can you actually explain it a little bit more? Where, in using your self serve option, where can advertisers expect their ads to appear, or how are they accessing your data to, to drive [00:12:23] Parbs: Yep. So we're going into a closed beta, with the trade desk. That will allow a certain number of select advertisers to come and work with us and develop programs, within our closed self serve beta environment. we're building audiences within those environments. The way in which it will operate is that the brand will use their Trade Desk C in order to activate campaigns through the Trade Desk DSP into the open web. [00:12:52] So they have the ability to buy OpenWeb or CTV and all of the different products that are available through the Trade Desk [00:13:00] but accessibility to 74 million extra care consumers. It's the first time that we've made that available in a self serve capacity, with the Trade Desk. Now. , that's not always how brands wanna operate. [00:13:11] Some brands want to go into the self-serve world and others want to just cont continue down the managed service route. So we will continue to offer managed serve as an option. so that product will remain and we have a strong team to support that. But we also want to create, again, accessibility options for the way in which brands wanna engage with us. Very interesting. [00:13:34] Damian: Now, you wrote an op ed for The Current, this year, and in that op ed you said something, if I may quote you, creating a tailored customer experience across channels and pulling together data from various touchpoints, that being website visits, mobile apps, in store interactions, loyalty programs, and more. [00:13:53] It can be a challenge, and I know we often like to talk about, opportunities and hand in hand with challenges. I wonder if you [00:14:00] could talk a little bit about the challenge you're referencing there. [00:14:04] Parbs: Yeah, the challenge stems from, again, retail media is predicated on really closing the loop, so how do we attribute an action, right the way through to purchase. And if you think about, hyper personalization, for the consumer, to drive more engagement. That consumer is, it's, they're difficult to reach, but they're more importantly, they're difficult to make sure that we continually serve the right level of message to them in the right environments. Previously, retailers have struggled with, bringing that, the assets, the data components, and then how do you target personalized message to them within the channels that we want to talk to them as well. That's where, our first party data and the use of our first party data and as we're building our audiences really actually comes [00:14:59] Ilyse: [00:15:00] the [00:15:00] Parbs: its own. [00:15:01] That challenge of, Understanding the consumer and how you can actually leverage that consumer in different channels That's really the driver to building a performance business for our brands [00:15:15] Damian: a lot [00:15:16] Parbs: We're seeing a lot of work around, whether it's through customer data platforms or other technology, to bring our consumers to life. [00:15:23] We use data clean rooms to make sure that, we always drive the security of our, uh, consumer, that we're not passing any data, any information through to, consumers. [00:15:33] Ilyse: tech [00:15:34] Damian: to maintain [00:15:35] Parbs: or through to any other platforms. We're maintaining that level of privacy. These are all obviously challenges. but it's important to mention that, as we think about propriety data, we think about precision targeting, we think about that real time optimization and that also the attribution [00:15:51] Damian: attribution of [00:15:52] Parbs: of an end to end reporting. [00:15:54] That's where brands are really embracing retail media networks. That's where we've got to lean in as an [00:16:00] industry, and we've got to get better, we've got to get more transparent about how we're providing those solutions. because that, again, will grow the industry. And, look, we've seen the IAB come to the market with some clear guidelines on how we should be measuring, and what are the standardization of metrics. [00:16:17] There's got to be more of that. Then there's got to be more of that lean in from retail media networks, because we've all got to move together to build a better industry, to build a better way in which brands can use our platforms, and give them options in the way in which they're talking to consumers. [00:16:33] And, that's the exciting piece. It's phenomenal for retail media, right? Like It's a real moment. [00:16:39] Damian: Yeah, you're writing them on the front lines of it. one aspect of retail data is that, advertisers can connect their digital environment with the physical shopping environment. And as you mentioned, CVS Pharmacy has all of these environments, physical environments across the United States. [00:16:59] Why does it [00:17:00] matter that you connect those up? [00:17:01] Parbs: connect those up? because the connection of the digital and physical environments, it's crucial because consumer shops, How they want to shop, depending on that current need stay or this particular situation that they're in at any given time, right? [00:17:17] there's, if we think about that level of integration of data around online and offline buying behaviours, like advertisers are consistently trying to understand, first of all, how do you create a seamless experience between those two environments? But then more importantly how do you influence the consumer through that journey? [00:17:37] Like we, we talk, for a number of years within this industry we've talked about our traditional funnel approach and there's no funnel anymore. retail media has actually condensed the funnel and you're, Point of delivery of message to through to point of purchase has shortened so much. [00:17:55] it's it's almost an in. It's there's no awareness. There's no consider. It's just go [00:18:00] straight down to the bottom of the funnel and purchase from the moment that you see an ad. And so we've got to think about, how do we continue to add value in that process right the way through the digital and physical, experiences. [00:18:14] There are some challenges there as well, right? Like it's, when we think about showing a, an ad to a consumer in a digital environment and then whether they purchase that product in digital or they, It's, buy online, pick up in store and send it to a store or they, go into a store and purchase, we see 52 percent of our, web and app users who start their journey in the digital capacity and then finish it in a physical capacity as well within 48 hours, right? [00:18:43] Like that's the kind of thing. Yeah, and we've got to make sure that again, like working with the brands to to really surface those kind of insights so they can then be along that journey with that consumer as well through the experience. [00:19:00] Some of the in store activations when we got around about, we've got screens within our in store environments, at the pharmacy counter, we have digital audio, we have out shelf promotions and so on. [00:19:11] Some of those are a little bit more difficult to measure. I think one of the challenges that we will face as an industry is how do we bring a level of measurability to those components and, I, there's a lot of, different outfits that are driving that. but with that, I think personalization needs to be consistent. [00:19:27] Showing the value of connectivity between the digital and physical environments being with that consumer across that entire journey and every single touch point will also set you apart from the rest of the industry. ongoing. this is an evolution, right? As, as we continue to [00:19:44] Ilyse:  [00:19:44] Damian: That's [00:19:49] Ilyse: that in the retail media space as it stands today? And how do you think it can evolve since it's so new? [00:19:58] Parbs: Yeah, I am passionate [00:20:00] about it, and I'm passionate about it because I've been in this industry for 25 years, and I have I think we can do better, as it relates to D and I, and As we give opportunity across all different layers of an organization, these are really important for the growth of our industry. [00:20:26] And I'm not just talking about retail, I'm talking about the advertising industry, for us to build opportunity for more diverse voices within our business, for different ways of thinking, for the way in which we want to be change agents within the whole industry. And We've got to continue to do better. [00:20:48] Where retail media comes into play is that as we build this industry from the bottom up, it gives us an opportunity to think about D& I a little bit differently. we're building teams that are new teams. we might [00:21:00] already have a blueprint from different organizations that we work with on what's worked or what's not worked. [00:21:06] And as we've looked at CMX, we've built purposefully A level of diversity into our organization that gives us an understanding of not just the way in which we want to think as an organization, but it also gives us a relationship with how our consumers are. we have consumers shopping us from across the United States. [00:21:28] They're consumers from various walks of life. And if we understand the consumer and we can share it. an understanding of who they are and live in their shoes because we have, then that gives us an ability to think a little differently about our businesses. And then how does that relate to retail media? [00:21:47] I think we can do better. I would like us to do better. I do challenge the industry around there. but overall, I think, retail media can really pave the way for how we think about D and I initiatives and bringing more [00:22:00] diverse voices Into our industry, and we're definitely doing that in CMX. [00:22:03] We can stand behind that. [00:22:04] Parbs: And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast. [00:22:06] Damian: We'll be back next week, so stay tuned. [00:22:09] Ilyse: The Current Podcast's theme is by Love Caliber. The current team includes Kat Vesce and Sydney Cairns. [00:22:16] Damian: And remember, I'm Damian. [00:22:18] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse. [00:22:19] Damian: And we'll see you next time. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, tune in to our other podcast, The Current Report.

In this episode of BRAVE COMMERCE, Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter are joined by Parbinder Dhariwal, VP and GM of CVS Media Exchange (CMX), to explore the distinctive approach CVS takes to the rapidly evolving retail media landscape. Parbinder discusses how CMX leverages CVS's extensive loyalty program to differentiate itself from other retail media networks. With 74 million active ExtraCare members and a vast network of digital and physical touchpoints, CVS is uniquely positioned to deliver personalized and seamless shopping experiences across channels.Parbinder shares insights into how CVS integrates its loyalty data with both on-site and off-site media, ensuring every interaction is measurable and attributing value back to the retailer and its partners. He also discusses the significance of CVS's omnichannel strategy, which is built to meet consumers where they are—whether online or in-store. This conversation delves into the crucial role that loyalty programs play in driving retail media success and how CVS is setting new standards for the industry.Tune in to hear about the future of retail media in a world where cookie deprecation is imminent and data-driven personalization is key. Parbinder offers a deep dive into how CVS is not only keeping up with industry trends but leading the charge in innovation and consumer connectivity.Key Takeaways:Loyalty as a Differentiator: Discover how CVS's ExtraCare program provides a foundation for personalized consumer experiences, driving both digital and physical growth.Omnichannel Engagement: Learn about CVS's approach to blending online and in-store interactions, ensuring that consumers can seamlessly transition between channels.Future of Retail Media: Understand how CVS is preparing for the cookie-less future, focusing on data-driven targeting and measurable attribution in both on-site and off-site media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave has an illuminating conversation with Parbinder Dhariwal, VP and General Manager at CVS Media Exchange (CMX).  For over 20 years Parbinder has had a successful career driving performance at multiple industry-leading global organizations, including Walmart Connect and Spotify, among many others.Parbinder shares the incredible story of his family's business (6:44), an overview of his previous experience working for big brands (11:34), what makes CMX stand out from other retail media networks (15:25), the transition from "trade dollars" to "brand dollars" driving retail media business, and what "Retail Media 3.0" looks like in the aftermath of cookie deprecation (29:09).Connect with Parbinder on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parbinderdhariwal/Learn more about CMX: https://www.cvsmediaexchange.com/Take advantage of a special offer from It'sRapid and get a free image, video or banner ad by emailing sales@itsrapid.io with code "BEYOND2024"Learn more about ItsRapid: https://itsrapid.ai/Theme music: "Happy" by Mixaud - https://mixaund.bandcamp.comProducer: Jake Musiker

Pacto por la Primera Infancia buscará garantizar salud, alimentación y educación de niños en México. Los ecos del debate CMX: cómo va la contienda. Las afores y el fondo de pensiones del bienestar: Eduardo Torreblanca. Marea Rosa anuncia nueva mega marcha para el 19 de mayo. Mario Maldonado presenta su libro:"Confesiones desde el exilio: EPN".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al cierre de 2023, las remesas alcanzaron los cinco mil 490 millones de dólares: Profeco El cuerpo de Obed Beltrán Sánchez, víctima del tiroteo en NY es velado en Puebla Rusia se niega, por tercera jornada consecutiva, a entregar el cadáver de Alexéi Navalni Más información en nuestro podcast

Alex and Jeff discuss whats WAKO USA building, What they learned from AKA Warrior Cup, landings in CMX, and what would you do if you had a tournament???

In this bonus podcast episode, I interviewed Juniper Networks' Chief AI Officer, Bob Friday,  to discuss changes in AI and how AI impacts the networking industry.   Mr. Friday also defines AIOps and what it means to deliver what Juniper Networks calls an AI-native platform.   Bob Friday's Bio: Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer and CTO, Juniper NetworksBob is the co-founder of Mist Systems and currently serves as the Chief AI Officer at Juniper Networks and CTO of Juniper's enterprise business following Juniper's acquisition of Mist. Bob started his career in wireless at Metricom (Ricochet wireless network) developing and deploying wireless mesh networks across the country to connect the first generation of Internet browsers. After Metricom, Bob co-founded Airespace, a start-up focused on helping enterprises manage the flood of employees bringing unlicensed Wi-Fi technology into their businesses. After Cisco's acquisition of Airespace in 2005, Bob became the VP/CTO of Cisco enterprise mobility and drove mobility strategy / investments in the wireless business (e.g. Navini, Cognio, ThinkSmart, Phunware, Wilocity, Meraki) and product / industry innovation (e.g. CMX, Cleanair, HS2.0 / Passpoint, indoor location). He holds more than 15 patents.Social LinksYou can follow Bob at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobfriday/You can follow Maribel  at: X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/maribellopezLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maribellopezYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MaribelLopezResearchJuniper Social Links:X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JuniperNetworksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/juniper-networks/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JuniperNetworksHashtags: #JuniperNetworks #AI, #AIOps, #datacenter

Today my guest is Beth McIntyre, a Community Director for Bevy and CMX, joke lover, travel writer, as Blake Ethridge once said, a lightning bolt of energy, passion, business focus, and creativity, and a person who impacted my professional life very much because of hiring me for conducting an audit for the CMX community without even knowing me well!

"For the first time in a decade, I feel free again." That's how one of my earliest blogging friends, longtime community leader David Spinks, was feeling when I caught up with him in-person in the middle of his yearlong sabbatical, after selling his community-based business. David and I discuss best practices for creating and nurturing communities, for engineering serendipity, what it's like to build and run a conference (and later sell it), and the freedom that comes with taking a deliberate sabbatical. More About David: David Spinks is the author of The Business of Belonging and a popular weekly newsletter for community creators. Previously he co-founded CMX, the leading network for community professionals that was later acquired by Bevy.

Aim to help junior experts, what really damages a kid, positioning of a freelancer in corporates, earn resources for a community, not defend, and what it takes to become friends with British people - that's what I learned this week! Find out more about it in this episode!

Greetings and welcome back to the podcast.This is the place where we empower you to build trust, champion adaptability, and cultivate the courage to unlock your DNA Of Purpose. Here, we provide the insights, tools, and mindset shifts essential for sparking conversations, leading teams, rallying communities, and influencing cultural shifts to steer humanity towards the innovative solutions shaping our future today. So, today we're diving into this pressing question: What does it truly take to spark a thriving community? How can you foster that magnetic pull that attracts and nurtures a community's growth? And, importantly, how do you build momentum while maintaining the delicate balance of igniting a community's passion without stifling the very essence that brought these individuals together in the first place? If you identify as an innovative change-maker, a leader fuelled by purpose, or an entrepreneur propelling an idea forward, leading a values-driven team, or managing a business, today holds the potential to transform your approach to rallying individuals around a core mission. I'll let you in on a secret: the key to effective mobilisation is not about a grand and lofty statement of why. Remember, purpose is not just a noun; it's a verb—an action with the potential to bring people together. Meet David Spinks, a passionate expert in the world of communities. He dedicates his time to studying communities and educating others on how they function. David is known for his insightful weekly newsletter, where he delves into community theory. He is also the author of 'The Business of Belonging,' a book that has literally not left my desk. David has personally advised and trained hundreds of organisations in community strategy, including Facebook, Waze, Salesforce, Airbnb, and Google. Previously, David was a co-founder of CMX, the renowned annual conference and community boasting over 20,000 community professionals. In 2019, CMX was acquired by Bevy, a platform specialising in hosting chapter-based community ecosystems. For three years, David served as the VP of Community at Bevy. For two years, David also hosted the podcast 'Masters of Community,' where he interviewed the world's leading community builders and experts. Today some of themes we explore include:  The importance of belonging and community, delving into the biological and neurological basis for our need for community with a focus on how we create social health.  Discuss how leaders can ignite and strengthen communities, highlighting key elements and avoiding common pitfalls. Outline the SPACES model for community success, exploring the interplay of social identity and meaning-making. David shares strategies for managing behavioural change and guiding communities through transformations. Contemplate the role of Artificial Intelligence in community building and its potential to complement human efforts. And we explore the intersection between remote working, communities and what it takes to nourish our social diets…and that my friends is just the start.  With a wealth of experience and a passion for bringing people together, David is here to share his insights and guide us on the journey of building meaningful, thriving communities. So, let's dive in and explore the art and science of community building with David Spinks. Sign Up To David's Newsletter Here: https://davidspinks.com/ Purchase The Business Of Belonging: https://davidspinks.com/book/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode we are joined by Nicholas Bennett (29 Bedford Row), and Connie Atkinson (Kingsley Napley) who are both experts and enjoy pre-nuptial work including drafting, supporting or challenging pre-nups in Court. Any discussion of pre-nups of course starts with Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42, but we swiftly move on to Crossley applications (an application to the Court that the process of disclosure should be truncated because of the existence of the pre-nup) pursuant to Crossley v Crossley [2007] EWCA Civ 1491https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2007/1491.html.  It is ‘tempting but risky' was the conclusion, so it is only prudent when the pre-nup is a knock out blow. We discuss the three essential procedural points that the Court is looking for before giving weight to the agreement – no unfair pressure, financial disclosure and independent legal advice.  We touch on the suggestion that an agreement has to be signed 28 days before the wedding and its relevance to giving time and space to understand and reflect on the proposed agreement and advice being given. We then turn to duress, fraud and misrepresentation and whether they are vitiating factors and what you would take into account when evaluating their impact on the agreement.  Connie refers us to the case of Traharne v Limb [2022] EWFC 27 (31 March 2022) https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2022/27.html  and AD v BD [2020] EWHC 857 (Fam) (08 April 2020) https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2020/857.html.Nick discusses whether it is possible to entirely exclude what would otherwise be matrimonial property in a pre-nup, and refers to  Brack v Brack [2020] EWHC 2142 (Fam) (29 July 2020);  https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2020/2142.html.  Connie discusses whether a pre-nup meets needs. She refers us to Ipekçi v McConnell [2019] EWFC 19 (04 April 2019);https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2019/19.html, and Cummings v Fawn (Rev1) [2023] EWHC 830 (Fam) (14 April 2023) https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2023/830.html.  Nick mentions HD v WB [2023] EWFC 2 (13 January 2023) - https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2023/2.htmlWe also discuss international agreements, and marriage contracts, including CMX v EJX (French Marriage Contract) [2022] EWFC 136; https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2022/136

In this episode, Wendy Liebmann talks to six industry leaders about key trends that will impact retail in 2024-2025.  Listen to:Susan Lang, CEO, XIL HealthMichael Clinton, CEO & Founder, ROARForwardParbinder Dhariwal, VP & General Manager, CMX, CVS HealthDawn Clark, Co-founder & Principal Architect, Osean StudiosJustin Honaman, Head Worlwide Retail & CPG, GTM, Food/Beverage, Amazon Web ServicesLisa Paley, President, North America, HaleonThey discuss:The health and wellness revolution at retail, and how to define women's wellness.  The new generation cohort driving growth: how 50+ consumers are the big opportunity now.Personalization, retail media, and how one-to-one marketing is finally in retail's sights. The role of the physical store: now a place of engagement, not more stuff.How AI has already transformed business.  Now what? The urgency to create a modern corporate culture; engaging internal and external constituencies to grow.   Visit our website for transcripts and video podcasts. Subscribe and rate us with your favorite podcast app!

“When you're successful, you can open up doors for other people, you can encourage young people… the sky is really the limit.” -Carrie Melissa Jones Carrie Melissa Jones is the founder of Gather Community Consulting and the former COO and founding partner of CMX. Her work has helped build communities with Google, Patreon, the American Medical Association, Coursera, and DoSomething.org. In 2016, Salesforce named her one of three experts to follow in community management. She is the co-author of the book Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging. In this interview, we will cover Carrie's book, her inspiration for it, and a lot of industry questions. Website: https://www.buildingbrandcommunities.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriemelissajones/

“When you're successful, you can open up doors for other people, you can encourage young people… the sky is really the limit.” -Carrie Melissa Jones Carrie Melissa Jones is the founder of Gather Community Consulting and the former COO and founding partner of CMX. Her work has helped build communities with Google, Patreon, the American Medical Association, Coursera, and DoSomething.org. In 2016, Salesforce named her one of three experts to follow in community management. She is the co-author of the book Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging. In this interview, we will cover Carrie's book, her inspiration for it, and a lot of industry questions. Website: https://www.buildingbrandcommunities.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriemelissajones/

In this episode, Wendy Liebmann talks to Parbinder Dhariwal, VP & General Manager of CMX, at CVS Health, about the evolution of Retail Media Networks and the opportunity they offer to create more personalized shopping experiences. They discussWhether this is the moment of one-to-one shopper personalization.The challenge of digitizing a traditionally analog retail business How Retail Media Networks must be consumer-led and add value through the increasingly fragmented shopper journey.How to enable consumers to discover products within categories or adjacent areas, and then become a recommendation engine.The responsibility to utilize data and assets to understand consumers to enhance their lives, and their health and wellness journey and deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.How CVS's CMX is staying true to its purpose to benefit CVS shoppers on their health and wellness journey. Visit our website for transcripts and video podcasts. Subscribe and rate us with your favorite podcast app!

In this episode David describes his childhood contact with entrepreneurship, and how he was looking for and found community and acceptance in the video game world. We learn how he discovered and almost invented the profession of “community manager” and created the CMX community of community managers. We also hear about the problems that community managers face in making their communities sustainable, and discuss his book: The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage (Wiley, 2021). We also learn about how CMX became part of Bevy and multiple other ups and downs in David's life so far. The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee. About our guest David Spinks launched his first online community at 14 years old for his favorite video game, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. Today he's become a prominent leader in the community-driven business movement and has trained and advised community teams at companies like Google, Facebook, Udemy, Waze, and Airbnb. Spinks has long believed that community is the future of business and has made it his life's purpose to help others learn how to build thriving, meaningful communities. He is the cofounder of CMX, where over 20,000 community professionals gather to learn and support each other and is the host of CMX Summit, the largest conference in the community industry. In 2019, CMX was acquired by Bevy, where Spinks now serves as the VP of Community, helping companies launch and scale event-driven community programs. About the NBN The New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”. Historically NBN only did audio recordings. E&L is the first NBN podcast distributed on Youtube. About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter Linkedin Kimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here, About Richard Lucas Twitter Linkedin Richard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/entrepreneurship-and-leadership

Etienne Nichols is a mechanical engineer, PMP-certified project manager, the host of the Global Medical Device Podcast, and the builder of the Greenlight Guru MedTech Excellence Community. In this episode, he shares a plethora of advice and great stories, including why gratitude and curiosity matter so much, how writing helps you to identify what you truly believe, his passion for furthering the medtech industry, and how an article he read changed his life.  Guest links: https://www.greenlight.guru/podcast | https://www.greenlight.guru/etienne-nichols-thankyou | https://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennenichols/  Charity supported: Polaris Project Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editor: Tim Oliphant Producer: Velentium   SHOW TRANSCRIPT Episode 009 - Etienne Nichols Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey with Velentium and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello and welcome to The Leading Difference. I'm your host Lindsey, and I am excited to introduce you to my guest today, Etienne Nichols. Etienne is a mechanical engineer and PMP certified project manager with a wealth of experience in the medical device industry. He's worked with Fortune 500 and startup medical device companies and has taught classes on quality management systems and design controls for Regulatory Affairs Professional Society and American Society for Quality. He is a frequent speaker at MedTech conferences, the host of the Global Medical Device Podcast, and the builder of the MedTech Excellence Community. Thank you so very much for joining us, Etienne. I'm so excited to have you here on this show today. Welcome. Etienne Nichols: Thank you. I'm excited to be here as well. I'm super pumped to be with you today. Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Well, I would love, if you wouldn't mind starting by just telling us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got to where you are now. Etienne Nichols: Sure. I guess if I was to break down as simple as possible, I'm the host of the Global Medical Device Podcast, and I say that partly because we just interviewed Dan Purvis, the CEO of Velentium on his book, "28 Days to Save the World." Loved that, but, anyway, just had to throw that out there because I'm just such a big fan of you guys as well. Okay. To your question, specifically, my background, the word background can meet a lot of things. I just finished a book called "Livewired" by David Eagleman. He's a neuroscientist at Stanford. He basically says, our brains aren't so much observers of reality, but filters. So we filter out our past, we hone in on certain things. Okay? I say all that to say when I think of background, I imagine a picture of Mona Lisa, what's in the background? You think Mona Lisa, what's in the background? Only things that matter to Da Vinci. So I'd like to tell you a quick story. It might not seem super relevant, but this is a story of kind of help shape who I am. When I was in my early twenties, I thought I was in love, but it turned out that it wasn't meant to be. So as an early 20 something without a fully grown prefrontal cortex, I did what any self-respecting Oklahoman would do. I signed up for Terry Don West School of Bull Riding. Terry was a world champion bull rider 1985 to 2003, and he had a school outside in Henrietta, Oklahoma. So I went there. I was the only city kid there. After a few rides, like I literally got on multiple bulls and I got on one where it laid down in the shoot, it was bucking around and laid down in the shoot and it, it was dark down there. And my brain immediately said, "abort mission, jump outta here, jump outta the shoot." And I jumped out and I was terrified. Terry ran over, he yanked me by the collar, he stuck his gloved finger in my face, and he said, "you never ever ever get off a bull in the shoot." And so I, I'd say that story to say, when I think about background, that was a pivotal moment in my life when I thought, you never give up. You know, no matter how dark or scary it is, you never give up. So that, that was one of the things that before I was engineer, that was one of the pivotal moments.  I'll talk about my real background, I guess that's more traditional. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade. Before coming to MedTech, I worked in aerospace, the steel industry, so both regulated and unregulated. I'm gonna close my window because I actually have a rooster right outside my window. Lindsey Dinneen: I've been enjoying him. Etienne Nichols: But I've worked in manufacturing regulatory. I actually got my project management, professional certification on a regulatory project product development. Finally was a project manager of a drug delivery combination product. So, all of those things before I came to Greenlight Guru, which is where I am now. I've worked with dozens of companies to help them set up and implement their quality management system. And so as I mentioned before now, I manage the Global Medical Device Podcast. So it's been a really fun ride. Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Yeah. And a very eclectic ride. It sounds like you have come at this in a very unique way. Okay. I would love to hear a little bit more about your story on joining Greenlight Guru, because I recently read a post on LinkedIn about it. I just thought, "wow, what a great story." I'd love if you'd share that with us. Etienne Nichols: Sure. This was several years ago. I was working as a project manager for a drug delivery combination product company. I walked into the VP of Engineering's office. He and I were talking about some things that were going on, and I thought, I need to do a little bit of research. I went back to my computer. I started looking for an article, and that was when I first stumbled across Greenlight Guru. I came across the article, "DHF Versus DMR Versus DHR." It's a helpful article because FDA and their acronyms, if you're familiar with those. So after reading that article, I did what anyone would do. You know, you reach out to the author, thank them for their writing. And so I, I reached out to Jesseca Lyons who was the author on LinkedIn, and I told her I really appreciated the things that she had written, and she just responded, "yeah, you're welcome." The very next day she posted, "Hey, we had a great quarter last quarter, and by the way, we're hiring" and I thought "hiring?" So I clicked on the link and it looked really interesting and I just applied on the whim. I was not looking for a new job. I wasn't interested in getting a new job, but I wanted to learn more about this person and their company. And after my first interview with her, she literally put a Zoom meeting on my calendar that afternoon. Three days later I had an interview with Tom Rish. Four or five days later, I had an interview with Fran Cruz, who was the VP of Customer Success at the time. And I basically had an offer in less than 10 days, I I believe.  So, Jessica and I joke about that article changing my life a little bit, but it's a really good article. But it's been a fantastic ride and I've really enjoyed my time at Greenlight Guru. And I'll say one other thing, it felt like a big risk at the time to move because I was in a great position. I loved the company I was working for. I really respected the CEO. But after looking at this company, it felt like a risk, but the more I thought about it, it was so in line with what I really loved doing: content creation, interacting with customers directly, and the potential to get on stage and speak on the podcast or at conferences. I felt like it was a bigger risk not to take this job. So this is something that I would throw out to some of the listeners is you may be facing different career steps and there's always a risk no matter what you do, but you always have to think about the risk of not taking a risk. And I think that's something we sometimes forget. So I dunno if that answered your question. That's the story as least as it's coming to me at the moment. Lindsey Dinneen: No, That's a great answer. Yeah, I love those collisions, I like to call them. All of a sudden, things work out, but it takes intention, right? You read an article and then you reached out to the author and that led to a series of events, and here you are. But, I just love when those, those kinds of things happen. Those stories are my favorite. Etienne Nichols: Yeah. It makes me think-- oh, I'm probably gonna butcher this-- but the definition of luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. Etienne Nichols: And I think if you're always preparing, you, you may or may not be lucky. The opportunity may or may not arise, but when they do, you know, you almost have an obligation to take that sometimes. Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely agree. Yeah. A theme that I have picked up on from following your work on LinkedIn and whatnot is gratitude. And I would love if you would share just a little bit maybe about your philosophy behind it, because it seems like something that you often express gratitude, whether it's to the author of an article that you appreciated or it's to an interviewee that had a particularly inspiring thing to share. I just have noticed that theme throughout your work, and I would just love to hear your perspective on it. Etienne Nichols: Wow. I actually got like little chills when you were saying that because I don't think anybody, nobody's ever mentioned that or called that out. So I'm glad that's showing through, for sure. I'm really thankful, I'm thankful that's showing through. It's funny, let me rewind to a period in my career that I thought this was one of the toughest parts of my career. It, looking back, it was one of the toughest. I was in a situation where I was leading a project that if this project did not succeed, many, probably dozens of people would be laid off because the company wouldn't be able to support them if this project didn't succeed. That was my perception. And I think even looking back, I think it's accurate. So, I was really stressed at the time. We were working 60 plus hours a week, me and my team, And during that time, I honestly thought a lot about giving up. I never gave up. I told my wife, no matter how hard it is, I've gotta finish this. And then, if it's still difficult, after we're done, we're gonna move on. And that is what happened. We brought the project to fruition and moved on. But during that time, I remember standing outside a conference room and I stared at an empty whiteboard and I looked at that whiteboard and I thought someone should put something in there. So I put just a question. "What is your definition of success?" I believe that was the first question. A few days later, I walked by again and lots of people had answered that with their different definitions, and I thought, huh? I took a picture, went home, and I wrote a memo. I said, "what is your definition of success? This is what you said." I went back to work and I sent this out to, I don't know, 20 different people. I didn't know who had answered on the whiteboard and I wrote a lot of these different things and people kept telling me you know, appreciate you translating our words into this memo. Just kinda your giving it your own thoughts. By the time I left that company, I had over a hundred people who I was, you know sending a Monday memo to, and I learned somewhere along the way that people don't mind getting a little bit of encouragement. During that time, the way I was able to get through the stress was every morning I would write that Monday memo. I would think about those things people were saying, and I would try to focus, what am I really grateful about these people? And that's really what helped me get through. So, that was kind of a circuitous way of answering your question, so I'd like to be a little bit more succinct here in the, my last couple phrases here. There is, there's a lot of scarcity in the world, but gratitude really shows you what you have. When you start looking and comparing your life to other people's, it's easy to wish you had this, wish you had that. When you're grateful for what you have, you start recognizing all the things that you do have. And so it's more of an abundance mindset. So that's been my philosophy. I believe gratitude is at the heart of of an abundance mindset. Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And that story is pretty awesome. So was that maybe the start of your content creation journey? Etienne Nichols: Yeah, I do think that. Oh,, if you'll let me go through another story, which is Lindsey Dinneen: Yes, please. Etienne Nichols: When it comes to content creation I'm a big believer in writing and having a writing practice of some sort. So, to answer your question just directly, yes. that was the beginning and I learned the value of writing every morning. In fact, at that time I was very disciplined. I have three kids now, I'm not quite as disciplined. I would get up at 4:45 every morning. I would go work out and then I would stop at a coffee shop on my way to work. I would write for 30 minutes, and then I would go to work. That was before the pandemic, coffee shops closed. And it was before kids and all these different things, but that's when I started writing. Fast forward to Greenlight Guru. I was working with different customers and I was loving what I was doing. Occasionally I would post on LinkedIn just a long form article about, this is something I learned about, I don't know 21 CFR part 820.40 document controls. Why do you need to show a Rev A to Rev B? Why do you justify those changes? All these different things. I've just wrote an article about that, and I would do that every now and then. Well, while I was in that position here at the company at Greenlight Guru, the CMO, Nick Tippmann reached out to me and said, "Hey, we're thinking about building a community and we want you to build the community. I've been watching what you post on LinkedIn." So this is a guy I'd never met before. He's within my company, but he saw what I was doing on LinkedIn, the content creation. At the same time, the founder of the company, Jon Speer reached out to me and said, "Hey, I've watched some of the things you wrote on LinkedIn. Wondered if you'd be interested to be a co-host on the podcast." And so these are two separate situations happening at the same time because of the content creation. Now I'd been writing for years up until this point. And I'll tell you one more thing about writing is it helps you identify what you truly believe, what you actually think. You may think something, but once you write it out, you may change your mind or tweak it slightly. And so that really helps. And so I've been doing this for multiple years and it got me to a point where two different people approached me and I was able to accept that, and it's been really fun. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love that story. When you had the opportunity to do the podcast, was that something that you felt immediately comfortable taking on? Was that something that took a little bit of a learning curve, or how did that work for you? Etienne Nichols: The way I would describe it was terror. I had never met the founder of this company. And not only was I meeting the founder, we were interviewing the best in the field-- people like Mike Drews or your CEO, Dan Purvis. Every time I saw those names on my calendar, the pit of my stomach would ball up and I'd go through some breathing exercises, do some squats, whatever. And it's okay, we could do that. But, when you get scared like that, to me, you, you have to qualify it a little bit, but a certain amount of that fear, to me says this is the right direction for me. And the same thing happened at multiple points in my career that sort of confirmed this is the right thing and that little bit of fear is one of 'em. You can look at it as fear, but you can also be excitement because I'm reaching beyond my grasp, and if I keep reaching, I'll grow and I can actually reach this thing. So that's how I looked at that. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I was once told by a friend that she felt that whenever you were nervous it was because you cared. And so use that nervous energy to do a really good job because it can be harnessed, right? That fear, that, that nervousness, but it's not a bad thing, it's just along for the ride. It's there to help give you a little extra boost and that's okay. And I've always kinda liked that. Etienne Nichols: So I'm curious about you because I love talking to other podcasters, so I just, if we could flip the script just for a minute. I'm curious how you handle that nervousness or is, are there any specific things you do? Lindsey Dinneen: That is a great question. Yes, I still do get nervous. And it does depend on the situation, but I think one thing that I have learned is that being yourself, being just normal and natural and a little vulnerable and a little bit not polished is actually a lot more relatable to people than being perfect. And I'm not perfect. My interviews will never be perfect, but I can do my best and I can be me. And the more that I embrace that, the more comfortable I am. Etienne Nichols: Oh, yeah. I think that's great. The one thing that I I can't remember who told me this but curiosity-- you talk about like what is the opposite of love? Is it hate? Some people may say hate, but I actually think it's indifference. Indifference to me is the opposite of love. So what's the opposite of cowardice or being afraid? The opposite of that isn't courage, because you have to be afraid in order to have courage. To me, the opposite of being afraid is curiosity. Someone may disagree with me, but that's the way I banish fear is, man, be really curious. " Why did I react that way? Or what are they really trying to tell me?" And instead of thinking, oh, this person's title is this, and this, I'm like, "what are they actually saying?" This is really interesting. So that's how I look at that. Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. That's great advice too, just in general because curiosity allows you to explore and exploration is always a success, right? It doesn't lead to failure, it's just a way to learn more about the world around you. Etienne Nichols: Absolutely. Lindsey Dinneen: Well, okay, so you have mentioned that there have been a couple of moments along your journey that I guess confirmed to you that this is the right path. But I'm curious, specifically in the medtech industry, what is it that drives you, that gives you that passion to continue doing what you're doing? Etienne Nichols: Yeah, I can tell you a couple different things. So the spark I would say happened when I was in college. I broke my arm and it was a go-karting accident. And I went to school with arm in a cast. But before I got my arm in a cast, the guy's name was Garrett Watts, the hand doctor who put me back together, and he knew I was a mechanical engineering student. He talked to me about the Synthes DePuy, I don't can never pronounce that word, but the little piece that was going to be placed into my arm with different screws and talked about the physics of it really fascinated me. I thought, man, as a mechanical engineer, I could contribute to this industry. That would be great. That was a spark. Then when I met my wife, she has had a pacemaker since she was 11. So, I've seen her through multiple surgeries to get new pacemakers. And every time I see that, it's man, I am so thankful somebody developed this medical device. There have been other times when I had to watch a loved one go back to the OR, and just talking to the surgeons afterwards and learning about the things that they have to go through. I want their life to be easy. I want them to be able to do their job efficiently. And so I really am passionate about the medtech industry for those reasons. You know, I love all of the things that go into engineering. I will never be the best at those things. And I kind of had to realize that somewhere along the way. The people who are really the best at anything are the people who do it for a living and also do it for a hobby. And those are the people you want in your life in different roles leading technically and things like that. But when it comes to MedTech, I realize I could be passionate about this product because I know the end user is going to be truly affected by this. Not only some unknown person, it could even be my wife, my son, anybody I love could be affected by this. To me, MedTech is really personal, and that's what confirmed this industry. For different roles, I see myself as, I just want to help the industry and so whatever role I can be in, whether that's mechanical engineer or a project manager, or a regulatory consultant or a podcaster. However I can help further the industry to where we work more efficiently and more streamlined in a way that produces safe and effective medical devices. That's the role I want to be in, whatever that role is. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You've mentioned having opportunities to be in leadership roles, to lead teams, and we've had that discussion in regards to gratitude specifically, but I'm curious, how would you define leadership? Or what does it mean to you? Etienne Nichols: That's a good question. And so two things come to mind. And they're actually both books, and so you don't have time to quote an entire book, but all my best thoughts came from someone else. And so even that's a line from someone. But the two books I could think of first one is "Leaders Eat Last," I believe it's by Simon Sinek. And it's really the idea that leaders are meant to build others up. In fact, actually, a third book comes to mind. That's "28 Days to Save the World" by your CEO dan Pervis. That's a fantastic book. I really recommend that one as well. And I'm not just saying that because it's your, it's your guy. He covers so much ground in that book. It really was something that you almost need to read multiple times. But the second book that I recommend is "Captain Class" by Sam Walker. So he talked about the captains of teams. So usually when we think of a leader, we might think of the CEO, we might think of the executive team, and those certainly are incredibly important. But the "Captain Class" by Sam Walker, he's actually a sports journalist, if I'm remembering all of this correctly. He analyzed all of the great sports dynasties, not just someone who wins one off, but he gave certain parameters as to what he would define as a team sport and a team and a dynasty, and all those different things at the beginning of his book. But he talks about " what do they have in common?" And he looked at the coaches, he looked at the budget, he looked at the manager, he looked at the location, all these different things. And the thing that he found that was really consistent across all of these dynasties was the captain of the team. It might not be the best player. It might not be the person who's most outspoken, but it's that person who brings a certain energy and can recognize when things are going sideways or things are changing, and he somehow tweaks the team in such a way that they can reorient and get back on track. So you want your best player shooting hoops, shooting those free throws. They don't have to lead, they just do what they do. Put your best players in the positions where they can excel. But the captain, like I said, they may not be the best player. They may not be the best person on the team, but they're the person who's kinda like the glue, who gels everybody together. And so those two different concepts are what I think of a real good leader. Number one, leaders eating last, and the second one being that glue who's able to look at a bird's eye view and determine what direction we need to go in, what attitude adjustment needs to happen. I'll give you one more little anecdote that you may have heard before, say you have a bunch of people working their way through a woods cutting with axes trying to get through the woods. The manager is the one running around saying, "Hey, do you have the right ax? Do you need this sharpen? Do you need this? Let's help you out." It's still a servant role, but the leader is the one who climbs the tree and looks up and says, "Hey guys, I think we need to go in this direction." So that's the leader in my mind. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So the visionary and the person who is the cheerleader and motivator and helps bring people together towards a vision. Etienne Nichols: Yeah, so my, my dad actually told me something once that he probably got this from someone else, I'm not sure, but he said, " you know, Etienne, a leader without followers is just a guy taking a walk." And some of us are just taking a walk, but a leader is someone who people are willing to follow too. So yeah, there's lots of different facets. It's a good question. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So you mentioned curiosity before, which I think is a really important theme. And so I'm wondering how that plays into your continued growing and learning as a leader yourself. Obviously, you have had a bunch of different roles even within the industry and through various companies and I'm sure each one of them has prompted you to learn and grow in different ways. So, how do you continue to prioritize that these days? Etienne Nichols: Yeah, that's a good question. I've gotta speak to your question about curiosity first. In every role that I've been in, one of the things that's really important to me is to understand how this role that I'm working in interacts with every other role in the organization. I'll give you a quick anecdotal story, I guess, for that. I was at one company where they put me in a cubicle that was right outside the break room, and that's a terrible idea. You do not put an engineer right outside the break room. The people had to walk out of the break room and either turn left or right or go straight into my cubicle. Since I was new, they told me that my cubicle was cursed. Nobody had managed to be there for more than three months. And nobody knew why. It's just cursed. I'm like, okay. Well, I figured out pretty quick why. It's because I started writing down how many people came into my cubicle to say hi to me, and it was in the 30 to 50 people a day and I was not getting things done. Just a few minutes with each person, and that becomes hours a day. So I realized quickly that this is a problem or an opportunity. And so I tried to treat it like an opportunity. The next engineer who came into my desk or came into my cubicle, I said, "Hey, can you help me with this thing I'm working on my spreadsheet?" And they said, "oh yeah, you just do this, and this." And my 15 minute task turned into a one minute task. And so that happened multiple times. Pretty soon I was getting more things done than pretty much anyone else on my row. And so being curious about what that person knew was really important to me. And I realized it clicked in that role early on in my career. And I said, man, I need to learn what everybody in the company does. And so I started actually making a running list of who is everyone in the company and who do I know. And I put a check mark next to their name and I said, "okay, I gotta meet this person and find out what they know. Meet this person, find out what they know." It wasn't all me. When I came to that company, this is actually a really fantastic practice that this manufacturing company had done. They gave me a list of every machine in the entire company. And so we had multiple buildings, you know, out there. And they said your first job is to find every machine, learn who runs it and what product it touches and how that machine interacts with that product. And that's a big homework assignment. So if I wasn't interested, that would've been hard to accomplish. So, between my situation being outside the break room and my forced interest in the manufacturing floor, I decided to make it a personal goal of mine to meet everyone in the company and to learn exactly what they do, a little bit selfishly, to see if I could make my job a little bit easier to learn what they knew and so forth. And so that really helped. And that really reinforced the importance of curiosity. Lindsey Dinneen: That's a great story and I'm sure you looking back are also quite aware, obviously of how things evolved in your own career. But it's fun to hear it from an outside perspective and go, okay, I see how certain things that you did, maybe just because you were curious, led you to be in a position now where you are comfortable-- maybe still get nervous-- but in general comfortable talking to all sorts of different people cuz hey, you were just going around meeting everybody, learning what they do anyway. Etienne Nichols: Oh yeah. It's crazy to look back. When we look back, we can connect the dots easily, but when you're in that soup, you're in the moment you're like, oh, my life is a mess. You're not really exactly sure. But yeah, yeah, you nailed it, that's true. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. And then nowadays your continued learning and growing as a leader in the medtech industry? Yeah. Etienne Nichols: So the way I answer that, the way I prioritize it is it's true. We all, we only have so much time in a day. It's difficult to get those things in. I try to double dip as much as possible. And so what I mean by that is, let me give an example. The best way to learn something is to teach it, right? When I was approached, I looked at myself, I said, "Etienne, you don't have what it takes to do these things." And that was just my honest assessment of myself. But I said, but I'm gonna take this on and I'm going to get what it takes. And so, after I was in the role a little bit, I started looking at the different conferences I could potentially go to learn more about these things. And you might make the argument, okay, going to a conference. That's a continuing improvement, right? You can learn there. Well, that wasn't good enough for me. So, I have a specific story about this. There's a conference called CMX. It's the number one conference for community building, I believe. I found that and I thought, "okay, I want my company to send me to this conference, but I don't just want them to send me, I want to speak on stage, even though I've been in community for only a few months." I'm going to come up with a problem that I've faced and a problem I've solved, and I'm going to write a proposal for me to speak at this conference. So I sent it in. I sent my proposal in and they wisely said, "no, but you can moderate a panel." I thought, "okay, well that's good enough." So I went to the industry. I moderated the panel, but because I was speaking and I was gonna be on stage, I now had access to all of the voices in the industry who were speaking. So I sent them all messages, tried to socialize with them prior to going to that event. And I now have dozens and dozens of really valuable connections in the industry to that specific subset of an industry. So that's one example. Another example I'd give is double dipping. I gotta describe something real quick. So there's something that I learned early on. Have you ever heard of " The Seven Spoke Wheel of Life" by Zig Ziglar? Lindsey Dinneen: I don't know that I have. Etienne Nichols: Oh, man, you've got to check that out. Lindsey Dinneen: Okay. Etienne Nichols: So I learned this in college, lets see if I can remember them all. But see, he has the Seven Spoke Wheel of Life. Essentially, what he says is there's seven spokes. You have family, career, intellectual, social, financial, physical and spiritual. I think I did it unless I repeated something. So all seven of those spokes essentially make up your life. If you have a broken spoke, you have a flat tire, just think of it that way. So I looked at that and I said, "okay, well, I go running with different people and we usually chat about the same old thing." So I said, I'm gonna start using this Seven Spoke Wheel of Life as much as possible. And so the next guy who I went running with, I told him about the seven spokes. I said, why don't we pick a different spoke every time? We'll just talk about that while we run our 10 mile run or whatever it is. And so we would do that and we'd cover more ground. And so when I say double dip as much as possible it's making those different spokes cross over each other. So that was, let's say, intellectual. Maybe I'm gonna meet with some engineers to go running. So that's a physical thing. That's an intellectual thing. It's a social thing. I have now met three needs in one interaction. Or maybe I'll go to a coffee shop in the morning. I have a book club that I meet with every week to discuss a book that we're talking about. So there's a social interaction, there's our intellectual interaction and it forces me to be reading. If you can double dip, even the podcast-- I get to practice my public speaking. I get to extend my career perhaps. But also meet with people like you, Lindsey, and other people in the industry, and it's really fun. So double dip as much as possible and don't feel bad about it. Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, that's great advice. I really like that. I like, I like the double dip because that's a little better than multitasking, right? Because we're actually not wired to do that. But I really like your idea of combining a couple of different things together for the win. So. Etienne Nichols: Yeah, and I love that categorization. It helps me anyway to kinda have that seven spokes, so you kind of differentiate for yourselves. Okay. This truly is doing multiple things. it's beneficial for me anyway. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Just pivoting a little bit, just for fun. Imagine someone were to offer you a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want, doesn't necessarily have to be in your industry, but it could be. What would you choose to teach and why? Etienne Nichols: A million dollars! Oh, okay. Well, So the thing that comes to mind for me is listening and I know it's a soft skill. And if I thought long enough, maybe I could come along something technical and specific to medtech. But for right now, listening comes to mind. So few people really listen. And sometimes I struggle with this myself, but most of the time we're just waiting for our turn to talk and you've actually done a really good job. I'm actually pretty impressed with your capability and your listening. It's really cool, Lindsey.  But a lot of times when we think we're listening, we're coming up with that next thing to say, but instead if we're able to ditch those lines and listen with your whole body, your whole mind, your whole soul, make this person in front of you the most important person in your life. That changes everything because what I've realized is people are willing to give me the amount of attention I give them and not a whole lot more. And so, you've really gotta learn to listen to, to really succeed. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love that. And actually to your point, I'm curious how do you manage that as a podcast host and when you're moderating panels and things like that because part of your job does entail a certain amount of preparation. So how do you balance the two? Because you, you wanna get to the questions that are important for you, but then you also, of course, wanna be actively listening so that you can have a real conversation. Have you found a good way to balance that? Etienne Nichols: It is really difficult. If anyone ever says moderating a panel or moderating a podcast is easy, I don't know that they really know what they're talking about. It takes a lot of focus. I go back to a quote, I guess, I think it's, was it Eisenhower who says "planning is everything, plans are nothing." And when you go to a, an interview like that or a panel is a good example. I'm glad you mentioned that. When you go to a panel, you probably have a list of questions that you want to get to, but it's hard for our brains to remember every one of those little points that we want to ask. So if you instead focus on the overarching theme that you want to cover, and this is the advice I give people, is focus on the overarching theme and then when you're talking to those people, you have your initial question, you'll ask that question and they'll answer, really listen, because most likely the gold is somewhere in that question that they asked. I'll see if I can think of a example. If they're answering a question about the time that they, took a company public and it was pretty stressful at the time. They managed to get it public. They signed all the papers and now they're retired, but they're really excited because now they're advising other people. I'm like, okay, there's something stressful. I heard them say that. I wanna know, what did your wife think when you decided to take that public? What did your executive team, or what did the people who work for you think? I may have a list of questions, but I really want to dive in and just treat it like a conversation keeping in mind the overarching theme of the panel. So I dunno if that answers your question, but that's how I approach it. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, I really like that. And something that came to mind as you were talking about the overarching theme was sort of in tandem to that-- maybe the idea of what do you hope the audience will gain from it? So if you have that perspective of I want the audience to feel inspired or I want them to know more about this particular topic by the end or whatever, then that can help guide the conversation too. Especially if it doesn't go quite the way you anticipated. Etienne Nichols: Yes. I love that you said inspired or I want to make them feel inspired because that's a really good point. I told someone this recently, man, everything on the panel you could probably Google. Sometimes there's really good tidbits, but for example, Dan Purvis and I, we did the the interview a few weeks ago and it was a fantastic interview and you could go and read his book and maybe get a lot of the anecdotes that he told us about. But you're not gonna get the feeling of passion for the industry or excitement for the future and all these things. And so, that's really what a lot of these live events will give you. It gives you a feeling to move you forward and we think, "oh, that's wishy-washy. We're technical, we're engineers," but you can't forget that we're humans. We're driven in a certain way. And so these interactions that make our job easier, a lot of that is softer skills or softer experiences and not necessarily hard technical things. As important as those are, you have to have the things that pull you forward. So I love that you mentioned that inspiring the audience and things like that. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, definitely. So speaking of inspiration, I suppose, what is the one thing you wish to be remembered for after you leave this world? Etienne Nichols: I think it's interesting that we even want to be remembered. When I'd step outside myself and look at myself, I'm like, why do you wanna be remembered? But you do. And so I can't really get rid of that. That's fine. So when I think about that, the answer I think I would have is the strength of my kids. I heard someone say this once. See if I can remember exactly how it goes. I want my son to be the strongest man at my funeral. It's my job to make that happen. When I think of being remembered, I think about being remembered through my kids. There's another ancient writing that goes something like, "like arrows in the hands of a warrior so are the children of one's youth." So being a good dad, that's probably the most important thing to me in my life. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. And then final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? Etienne Nichols: Oh, It would have to be my daughter. She's 13 months old now, and if a rainbow could become a person, that person would be Darcy, my daughter. Lindsey Dinneen: That's wonderful. I love it. Oh my gosh. Thank you so very, very much for joining me today. This has been so much fun. Speaking of inspiration: lots of it, lots of great advice and your stories are fantastic. So thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. Etienne Nichols: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much, Lindsey. I really appreciate you inviting me onto the podcast and excited to work together in the future. Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, and we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the Polaris Project, which is a non-governmental organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in North America. So I really appreciate you choosing that organization to support and just again, thank you so much. We just wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. Etienne Nichols: You're so welcome. Take care. Lindsey Dinneen: Of course, and thank you also to our listeners for tuning in and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you share this episode with a colleague or two and we will catch you next time.  The Leading Difference podcast is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a contract design and manufacturing firm specializing in the development, production and post-market support of diagnostic and therapeutic active medical devices, including implantables and wearables for neuromodulation and other class three indications. Velentium's core competencies include electrical design, mechanical design, embedded software, mobile apps, contract manufacturing, embedded cybersecurity, OT cybersecurity, systems engineering, human factors and usability, and automated test systems. Velentium works with clients worldwide from startups seeking seed funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

Today Greg is joined by David Spinks, the founder of CMX and author of The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community Your Competitive Advantage. In this episode, Greg and David talk about sabbaticals, bots as community managers, and having a personal board of advisors.►►Subscribe to Greg's weekly newsletter for insights on community,creators and commerce.You'll also find out when new and exclusiveepisodes come out from Where it Happens. And it's totally free.https://latecheckout.substack.comFIND ME ON SOCIAL:Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@gregisenbergLINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Production Team:https://www.bigoceanpodcasting.comDavid Spinks:https://davidspinks.comhttps://twitter.com/DavidSpinksSHOW NOTES:0:00 - Intro0:50 - Sabbaticals: Why you should take one7:55 - AI community managers23:55 - Ethics around bots in communities31:30 - What's next for David Spinks34:50 - Advice from Seth Godin, Ryan Hoover, Scott Heiferman and others (sort of)

Cory Crespo @corycrespo es fundador de COLOüRS, una de las agencias de creatividad y ejecución de campañas, eventos y plataformas más importantes de México.Por favor ayúdame y sigue Cracks Podcast en YouTube aquí."El que falla en planear lo que planea es fallar." - Cory CrespoComparte esta frase en TwitterEste episodio es presentado por Julius Baer, el grupo suizo líder en Wealth Management y por BEEK, la aplicación de audiolibros que te regala 14 días y 40% de descuento en tus primeros 3 meses aquí.Ha creado nuevos canales de comunicación disruptiva para audiencias en el mundo de la moda, el arte, la música, el entretenimiento y los deportes, entre las que destacan las propias Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week México, Winter Beach, Mexology y las plataformas asociadas VidCon y Advertising Week LatAm.En 2012, en conjunto con su socio Jorge Mondragón, fundó CMX, la primera agencia integral de representación de talento y generación de contenido en América Latina.En asociación con Casa Lumbre y talentos que participan de manera activa en la construcción de marcas de bebidas alcohólicas ha logrado lanzamientos como Mezcal Ojo de Tigre con Luis Gerardo Mendez, el licor de Tequila Gran Malo con Luisito Comunica, Mezcal Contraluz con Maluma y Sotol Noche Luna con Lenny Kravitz.Hoy Cory y yo hablamos de innovación disruptiva, de aprendizajes de Nick Bolettieri, asociarse con Lenny Kravitz y de la importancia del día 1 en cualquier proceso creativo.Qué puedes aprender hoyLecciones de Nick BollettieriEl proceso creativoTrabajar con Lenny Kravitz*Este episodio es presentado por BEEKCon BEEK ya no hay pretextos para no leer. Tienen más de 250,000 títulos, incluyendo el mío y puedes escuchar resúmenes de "best-sellers" en menos de 15 minutos o escuchar el libro completo para nunca dejar de aprender.BEEK te regala 14 días de prueba más tus 3 primeros meses por solo $149 pesos al mes cuando te suscribes al contenido ilimitado de BEEK en cracks.la/beek.*Este episodio es presentado por por Julius Baer, el grupo suizo líder en Wealth Management con presencia en América Latina.En Julius Baer entienden las complejidades de la sucesión y apoyan a sus clientes y sus familias en el desarrollo de una solución que ayude a garantizar que la empresa siga teniendo éxito por muchas generaciones.Para conectar con los expertos de Julius Baer y discutir cómo pueden ayudarte a navegar el proceso de sucesión en tu empresa, visita el sitio www.juliusbaer.com *Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/crackspodcastNotas del episodio en:https://cracks.la/204Regístrate para recibir el newsletter Viernes de Cracks cracks.la/viernes.Conferencias y cursos: osotrava.comLee su libro: en BEEK o en &

Today we welcomed back our good friend Tisha Schuller, Founder and CEO of Adamantine Energy. Tisha first appeared on COBT in March of 2021 and we're thrilled to visit with her just a few weeks after she's published her latest book, "Real Decarbonization: How Oil and Gas Companies Are Seizing the Low-Carbon Future." Tisha is based out of Denver and was previously the President and CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association before founding Adamantine Energy, where she and her team provide thought leadership to energy businesses. We had lots of fun digging into the core themes of the book! In our conversation, Tisha first shares the inspiration behind writing "Real Decarbonization" including the disconnect between public perceptions around decarbonization and reality. We then dive into the importance of understanding the opposing community's perspective and the shift to focus on building things rather than opposing them, Tisha's call for action to create "unconventional engagements," navigating greenwashing, how CEOs are driving the decarbonization force, the four paths to decarbonization as described in Tisha's book, how the IRA has affected traditional paradigms of opposing conservatives and liberals, personal evolution and shifting industry pride, differences in decarbonization goals for public and private companies, the definition of decarbonized, and much more. We had a hard time wrapping the discussion and ended with Tisha's view for the energy world in ten years. It was a whopper of a conversation! The Veriten crew started the show: Mike Bradley focused on the move/volatility in crude oil markets as well as the handful of dynamics (China lockdowns, upcoming OPEC Meeting & EU Russian Price-Caps) that are driving volatility and have plunged Brent and WTI crude oil time spreads into contango. He also noted the 12-month WTI crude oil strip and energy equities have been decoupling over the past few months due to investor's comfort with higher future "normalized" prices, continued significant return OF capital and strict capex discipline even in the mist of high commodity prices. Colin Fenton trained the spotlight on precious metals. Advances in silver and gold prices are suddenly building momentum, as investors flee crypto markets and look nervously at USD weakness and other signs that central bankers will not have the stomach to squash inflation expectations. Mar-23 CMX silver ($21.41 per troy ounce) has gained 22% since its recent low in early September, and Feb-23 CMX gold ($1762 per troy oz) is now priced about 8% higher than at its recent low on November 3, 2022. Each price is far below its all-time high in either nominal or real terms. Thanks to you all for your friendship and support! 

I get to spend a few days at the epicenter of community, and meet all the best experts in the world at CMX Summit, but I want you to meet and hear from them too!That's why I'm inviting my favorite people from CMX Summit on the show to tell you their biggest takeaway, themselves!If there is anything I've learned so far is that the "community crowd" is a warm, welcoming, brilliant crew.  You won't want to miss this special edition of the B2BCB!SIGN UP FOR THE NEXT COHORT THAT WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO DO THIS YOURSELF AT https://bethestage.live/bootcamp/Support the show

Erica and Brian explore how Autodesk, Splunk, and Salesforce built pages for their superuser programs. Community Industry News: DL Grant joined Commsor as Community Operations Manager Isabel Ruiz joined Mews as Community Manager Cody A. was promoted to Community Support Specialist at Reddit Mike H. was promoted to Community Engagement Manager at Reddit Leah Knowles joined Vanta as Community Lead Thea Silayro joined G2i as Community Manager Melissa Ly joined Auditboard as Community Manager Emily Hanssen Arent joined Hibob as Head of Community Jessica Hobbs joined CMX as Director of Community Programming Community Launch Guide — now in German! Superuser Program Pages: Autodesk Expert Elite Program SplunkTrust Salesforce MVPs

If you're a CX pro for small or medium size company, you already know the challenges in designing and delivering the best possible experience for your customers. But what about companies that have multiple locations? What about a company like Starbucks which has over 33 thousand locations? How do they deliver such a consistent experience across so many countries and cultures? Host Steve Walker welcomes Jim Hardeman, chief marketing officer and chief product evangelist for CMX, for a discussion on how larger companies create experiences consistent across multiple locations.

What defines you as an artist, creator? How do people know your work as you uniquely yours? Why do people pay big money to PR, marketing, and branding experts? Does your image matter?  We take a look at some the moving parts in this varied and nuanced subject matter. This week, on the show!--Adam Curtis "The Century of the Self": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_SelfSpotify Canvas: https://canvas.spotify.com/en-usSemiotics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SemioticsShriekback "Signs": https://youtu.be/ZzDEq1aeGFMSydney Croskery (artist for "Nihilism is Real"): http://sydneycroskery.com/:John Karborn: https://karborn.com/Evidence of Time Travel: http://www.evidenceoftimetravel.com/Blog posts about album art systems (a little dated):"Cocktail": https://jinsai.blogspot.com/2009/08/cocktail-digital-album-art-failure-CMX: https://jinsai.blogspot.com/2009/08/cmx-see-cocktail-failure.htmlSurvival Sampler SR-1: https://wimwords.com/2013/12/12/from-the-stacks-various-survival-sampler/ZZ Top BBQ Shack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome,_Smoke_%26_BBQPublic Image Limited Metal Box: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Box--Dee, Michael, and Anu:Anu Kirk:https://www.anukirk.comAnu on BandcampSid Luscious and The Pants on BandcampLuscious-235 on BandcampRêvenir on BandcampMichael Hateley:Lotus Mastering   http://lotusmastering.com/       Extra Fancy "You Look Like a Movie Star":https://youtu.be/0pE1TqlWHCkBaldyloks (Michael Hateley & John Napier):https://soundcloud.com/baldyloks-1Dee Madden:https://www.deemadden.com/Penal Colony “Blue 9” video:https://youtu.be/Fes9E3ea8FYDee Madden on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/4jsYxJ4QxzoGn9t0HRllPk 

In this episode of Masters of Community, our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, hosts a solo episode where he discusses why he is stepping down from CMX and Bevy, his future plans, and what he thinks will happen with the CMX community. Who is this episode for? CMX community, Bevy community, community builders, community managers, community leaders, and community members. Timestamps: (00:48) - I'm stepping down... (03:35) - I'll still be present in the CMX community (05:01) - Pausing the Masters of Community podcast (07:06) - My feelings and thoughts about CMX (11:21) - What's next? (14:35) - Leave me feedback about the podcast (18:03) - Why should you take pauses in your life? (22:44) - Thank you all for your love and support, and see you soon Notable Quotes: “I'm really excited for the first time in my career to take a real step back, to take a breath, to see what the universe has to offer, and just learn more about myself” “I think that's the hope for a lot of community builders that it becomes sustainable, you build a great community, and it will live on without you needing to pour your energy into it” “I believe that CMX is set up to continue to grow and be really successful without me. And I can still play a role, just in a different way.” “I just think it's important to be able to take pauses in your life”

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Sarah Jane Morris, Senior Manager, Developer Community at HubSpot. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. For the past fifteen years, Sarah has been growing and nurturing developer communities at various stages of growth, like Context IO, Keen IO, Shopify, Intel, and Mailchimp. Now, she leads Hubspot's broader developer community strategies. Today, Sarah shares what she's learned from working with these brands and the differences between the different kinds of developer communities that she's built. She also talks about how to get started in a community role, DEIB in building developer communities, and the balance of community capitalism. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, developers, and developers advocates. Timestamps: (00:49) - Intro to Sarah and her experience with developer communities (12:31) - Building a community from the ground up versus managing an existing one (16:55) - The difference between a developer community program and a developer advocacy program (19:06) - Setting up a healthy developer community based on context and the company (24:28) - How the developer community program at HubSpot stands out (28:18) - Why the community team should be the guiding light (35:00) - Auditing and improving a developer community program (48:33) - Working in a community in the world of capitalism (52:46) - Investing in DEIB in developer ecosystems (59:03) - Rapid-fire questions Notable Quotes: “The first question you need to ask is: does the developer community even make sense for this company?" “I feel like the community strategy is more about enabling developers to connect with each other, creating the spaces and clear pathways for that to happen. But, also understand what are the actions that you want to see developers taking in your community to get them more value and to bring more value back to the company.” “When the customer is the driver of the narrative, it's very hard to plug developers into that. But I think once you find that sweet spot and start to tell stories about how developers are impacting our customer's businesses, they love that too.” “I think community plays a big role in making things more equitable across the company because you're representing a good experience and a good journey for anyone in the community” Answers to rapid-fire questions: What's your favorite book to gift or recommend to others? The Business Value of Developer Relations by Mary Thengvall What's a community product you wish existed? Slack for communities. Who in the world of the community would you most like to take to lunch? Evan Hamilton, Director, Community and Customer Experience at Reddit What habit has had the most positive impact on your life? I think the habit of knowing when I'm done for maybe not the day, but at least for the hour. And just like slapping that laptop closed, stepping away, getting a break, drinking a glass of water. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? So, I don't know if this is weird, but the way I kind of went about it was weird. So this is like 2002. I had been in love with pugs my whole life and I never had one. So I established the Montreal pug meetup group. What's one community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter that you like to use in your communities? “Where are you from?” If you could condense all of your life lessons into one Twitter-sized piece of advice to the rest of the world on how to live, what would that advice be? Care less about the things that you don't need to care about as much. Care about what matters because you only live once.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Jason Hitchcock, Founder, and GP at 4 Moons. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. Jason is known as a "crypto sensei" and was among the few to be early to Ethereum, Helium, CryptoPunks, and Alchemix. Today, we talk about crypto, Web 3, and DeFi, so that you can understand them, how they work, and how you might be able to get more involved. Also, Jason shares how he built Yieldopolis, a DeFi and NFT community, and how you might be able to find a community like that for yourself. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, DeFi, crypto, and Web 3 enthusiasts. Timestamps: (00:48) - Intro to Jason and his experience with crypto and DeFi (08:22) - How the Yieldopolis community can teach you about DeFi and NFT (17:08) - Why you should be an active stakeholder to understand a community (21:26) - What is DeFi (26:14) - Top 3 blockchain tools and applications (41:54) - What are the DeFi community dynamics (44:06) - Rapid-fire questions Notable Quotes: “I also think one reason why Yieldopolis is successful, it has always been self-serving for me. Like, I need this to be useful for me a hundred percent. And making it useful to me, it became useful to everybody.” “When I'm referring to DeFi and like NFT investing, I think there's just a more nuanced, practical, realistic conversation. It doesn't feel like hype.” “I don't think you can understand communities without being a stakeholder yourself” Answers to rapid-fire questions: What's your favorite book to gift or recommend to others? All Star Superman by Grant Morrison What's a community product you wish existed? We need a directory of some sort that populates easily and is rich with information so that people in a chat that's growing big or a discord that's growing big can have more context on who's there. What habit has had the most positive impact on your life? I think just showing up for things like bringing my passion along with me on things I'm passionate about. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? There is a Facebook group I'm in where everyone pretends to be ants. What's one community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter that you like to use in your communities? Sometimes I will have a really interesting thought, and it's completely isolated on its own. And I don't know how to talk about this or even have a conversation about it. And so I will sort of say, I've noticed that people like this on Twitter or Discord, I will put my complete thought that is standalone. And then I'll tell people the thought that led to me thinking that, and then I'll ask them, like, what would you think about this? If you could condense all of your life lessons into one Twitter sized piece of advice to the rest of the world on how to live, what would that advice be? Being a snob will not benefit you. And if a lot of people are excited about something, you should check it out.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Austin Robey, the co-founder of MetaLabel and Ampled. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. Austin shares what co-ops and DAOs can learn from each other and the pros and cons of co-ops and DAOs. He details the background of co-ops and their roots in civil rights and agriculture. Austin also talks about his work in going from co-ops and experiencing the challenge of fundraising for a co-op and making it financially sustainable. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, and co-ops and DAOs enthusiasts. Timestamps: (00:49) - Intro to Austin and his experience with FWB (08:55) - What is a cooperative and how you can start one (19:30) - 5 examples of successful co-ops (22:26) - When co-ops meet DAOs (31:49) - Solving co-ops problems from a DAO perspective (38:28) - What are some effective DAO models? (41:09) - Understanding the role of community managers in DAOs (43:49) - Setting up a practical co-op or DAO strategy (47:56) - Rapid-fire questions Notable Quotes: “I think a cooperative model is flexible, but it's also very simple. One of the key defining characteristics of a cooperative is one member, one vote.” “At a core level, the reason for starting a cooperative is different from a traditional company.” “Ownership drives the interest, and interest of an investor who owns a startup is very different from a community using a product or service. And ownership is what drives incentives, which drives behaviors.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: What's your favorite book to gift or recommend to others? Ours to Hack and to Own by Trebor Scholz What's a community product you wish existed? Tools like the Mirror and XSplit What habit has had the most positive impact on your personal life? I adopted a dog, which I like and there are many habits associated with it. What's one community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter that you like to use in your communities? What I did with Ampled was to give everyone my phone number and tell them to call whenever they want. If you could condense all of your life lessons into one Twitter sized piece of advice to the rest of the world on how to live, what would that advice be? Having the guts to do cool stuff results in cool stuff happening.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Hope Wollensack, Executive Director of Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. In addition to her role at Georgia Resilience and Opportunity fund, Hope leads a program called In Her Hands, which aims to help black women rise out of poverty and empower them in personal and professional decision-making. She describes how her team developed the program, its purpose, and its impact on the community it serves. We also dive into building more diverse, inclusive, and equitable communities. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, community facilitators, and black women communities Timestamps: (00:48) - About Hope and her community building experience (07:18) - In Her Hands: helping black women thrive and grow supportive communities (13:49) - How to identify the right solution for your community (19:37) - How to determine the success of a community program (24:13) - Start defining and developing your program (31:31) - Making a community more inclusive (38:16) - How to set up and manage the task force (47:10) - Next steps, plans, and goals (48:56) - Rapid-fire questions Notable Quotes: “What are the root causes of economic insecurities, and what can we do about them?” “So many times, decision-makers are the ones farthest from the problem. What if the ones closest to the problem would become the decision-makers?” “When people have additional cash, they can explore saving and investing tools, homeownership, and job opportunities much better. So we view cash as the ultimate choice mechanism.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: What's your favorite book to gift or recommend to others? All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? Flashmob dancing crew What did education teach you about community? The process is just as important as the outcome. There is no problem that we collectively can't solve. What's a community product you wish existed? A tool that would enable people to talk about what's happening in their community. What habit has had the most positive impact on your personal life? Adaptability What's one community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter that you like to use in your groups? “What is the meaning behind your name?” If you could condense all of your life lessons into one Twitter sized piece of advice to the rest of the world on how to live, what would that advice be? What we can do is done if we're committed to doing the work it requires.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Douglas Ferguson, President at Voltage Control, a change agency that helps enterprises sustain innovation and teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. They discuss the structure and various kinds of meetings, how to facilitate effective meetings, and what people are doing wrong when they run them. This will be useful for those who manage people or run meetings within a company or community. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, community facilitators Timestamps: (03:04) - Douglas' intro (07:02) - What is a meeting? (10:39) - How to build a practical meeting artifact (19:40) - Start reviewing your calendar and prioritizing meetings (25:49) - How to drive collaboration across different teams (33:37) - How to effectively run various facilitated meetings (43:20) - Why should every meeting begin with a clear purpose? (54:50) - Rapid-fire questions Notable Quotes: “A meeting can be when we're gathering to accomplish something or solve a problem” “Do not be a slave to your calendar. You are a sentient human being, and you should be the boss of your calendar.” “You need to have a solid vision and purpose of why there should be a community and how people are going to benefit from it. And so meetings are no different.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. What's your favorite book to gift or recommend to others? A More Beautiful Question 2. What's the most obscure group you've ever facilitated a workshop for? Noise rock 3. Should people be on or off mute in their meetings on Zoom? We need a culture for people to feel vulnerable and have psychological safety to unmute and speak at any time. And a facilitator should have the freedom to mute everyone and not have anyone get upset or feel uncomfortable. 4. What habit has had the most positive impact on your personal life? Consistency 5. What's one community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter that you like to use in your groups? Asking people to tell stories about stuff that resonate with them from a place of appreciation. If you could condense all of your life lessons into one Twitter sized piece of advice to the rest of the world on how to live, what would that advice be? Stay curious

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with David Siegel, CEO of Meetup, Author of Decide & Conquer, and Host of the Keep Connected podcast. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. They discuss the best practices and values for CEO and community leaders in decision-making. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, and CEOs. Timestamps: (05:43) - David's intro and his current role at Meetup (09:27) - The Meetup experience (17:57) - Changing the game (26:00) - Decide and Conquer book (36:00) - What is a decision framework (45:12) - Going with an imperfect plan over a perfect plan (49:31) - Building trust when entering a new company (54:15) - Empowering versus micromanaging people (58:01) - The future of Meetup (01:00:05) - Rapid-fire question round Notable Quotes: “I happen to have grown up with an extremely strong sense of community” “Building a community is about building a quality experience” “And I consider one of my most important jobs as a community leader is to be as transparent as possible so that other people around me are not surprised” “Trying to fit a narrative into principles is much less interesting than creating the principles after you already know what's meaningful and less meaningful” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. What's your favorite book to gift or recommend to others? How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie 2. If you were to find yourself on your deathbed today, and you had to condense all of your life lessons into one piece of advice to the rest of the world on how to live, what would that advice be? Find joy in your day-to-day life as that joy can help set you off for longer-term success. 3. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Sardines 4. Who in the world of community would you like to take out for lunch? Angela Duckworth, author of GRIT 5. What is the most important metric that you look at when looking at the health of a meetup? The number of connections that we create between people. 6. What's the weirdest Meetup group? Hugging groups 7. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? Fantasy baseball

In this episode of Masters of Community, our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, hosts a solo episode where he talks about how he got fired from his first community job. David admits that it was one of the lowest points of his career and life. He was discouraged, and it took him some time to get back on his feet. Having dealt with these moments, he now shares what he learned from them and how it might help others deal with the hardships of getting fired. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, community leaders, community members, employees, and employers. Key takeaways: (00:49) - Overview about today's episode (02:59) - The context of how David got fired (06:52) - Shifting towards community and Zaarly (12:45) - Facing challenges and problems (21:00) - Getting fired (23:34) - The lowest point of the career (28:00) - Help and hope: meeting Thomas Knoll (29:56) - Starting a new job (31:45) - Getting over being fired (38:56) - David's lessons and bits of advice Notable Quotes: 1. “I think there's a lot of stigma around getting fired” 2. “If you are drowning, if you are overwhelmed, if you're not in a healthy place, it becomes hard, if not impossible, to support other people, to take care of them, and to see what they need” 3. “I started burning out, feeling depressed, I had no idea what to do, I couldn't perform, and I couldn't get results” 4. “If you are in a position of leadership, when you think someone did a great job, tell them cause you never know how it could impact their life” 5. “If you're depressed at work, take a step back, gain perspective, pause, take a breath, take space, take time off, take care of yourself so that you can take care of others, turn to communities”

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Cadran Cowansage, CEO and Founder of Elpha. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. Cadran was an engineering lead at Y Combinator, where she started a community for female employees. Eventually, they opened it up to other entrepreneurs and created Elpha, a community of over 60,000 women who work in tech. Cadran shares the entire story of how she built the Elpha community and why she thinks it's important to create your own platform as a community builder. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, women in tech, women entrepreneurs. Three key takeaways: 1. From engineering to a community builder: Cadran worked as a software engineer in various organizations. She started learning about community building at Y Combination, which eventually led to building the Elpha community. Elpha is a professional network focused on helping women succeed at work. To manage it, Cadran built its software from scratch. 2. Built by women for women: Building a community for women requires creating a safe, welcoming, and well-moderated space where women can speak openly. Thus, a great focus of the Elpha community is anonymity, effective moderation, and facilitating engagement. The community offers various office hours with featured guests, long-form editorial articles, monthly lives on Zoom where members can meet, and other types of events. 3. Elpha's monetization strategy: Cardan started working on revenue-generating early after they spun out. They monetized their creation of a high-quality and valuable service for their community members. Through this service, members get a talent profile on the Elpha platform, where companies can find and contact candidates about jobs. When building a community, think about monetizing it early. Notable Quotes: 1. “I'm introverted, so I never thought of myself as a community builder” 2. “You evolve with the community and learn how to manage it as you go” 3. “I believe that software built by women for women will inherently be different. You have all sorts of biases and opinions, like going into software subtly without even realizing it.” 4. “Make sure that you're happy and fulfilled building your community” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. What's the book that had the biggest impact on your life? What's your favorite book to gift to others? And what book are you reading right now? The Parable Books by Octavia Butler Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 2. Who in the world of community would you most like to take out for lunch or interview on your podcast? Lenny Rachitsky 3. What makes Elpha weird? It's our members that are unique and they say so many different and interesting things. 4. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Japanese sweet potatoes

Today we have a special episode, Community Manager Appreciation Day, where our guests reveal what they are grateful for and proud of about their communities: Katie Ray, Head of Customer Community at Clari, shares her accomplishments of growth and engagement from her time managing the Saleshacker community. She also discusses her current work, hyper-growth, and engagement growth in the Clari community. Next, Diane Yuen, the new Community Manager at Alation, has extensive organic community experience after building her gaming community for seven years. Diane shares her story of taking on her first full-time community role. Jennifer Serrat, Associate Director of Community Engagement at IE University and Community Moderator at CMX, shares a story about some out-of-the-box thinking that led to the revival of her community in the middle of COVID. Kaleem McGill is the Community Manager at The Better Product Community powered by Innovatemap. He shares how he and his team audited and revamped their onboarding process for new members. And finally... Neha Agarwal, Head Community at Quora India, shares the strategy she and her team used to launch Spaces in Hindi.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst and Founding Partner of Kaleido Insights. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. Jeremiah is an advisor to many different companies and web-sharing communities. He has been analyzing the community space and understands how businesses invest in communities. Jeremiah previously worked at Forester as an analyst of the community industry. He then got involved in the collaborative consumption movement and now works closely with Web 3.0 communities and platforms. The purpose of this interview was to give a clear understanding of what it means for a community to invest in web three blockchain and crypto. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, entrepreneurs, digital leaders, blockchain, and crypto enthusiasts. Three key takeaways: 1. What is Web 3.0: Web 3.0 companies are decentralized autonomous organizations that have communities at their core and work on blockchain and token-based economies. Web 3.0 comes with the premise that users will own their identities, data, and equity. It creates opportunities to gain ownership through contribution and content. 2. Web 3.0 ups and downs for communities: Web 3.0 turns communities into economies. Tokenization requires complex legal, administrative, technological, and process changes. Not all organizations or platforms are ready for this to be mainstream. It also puts the social motivations within a community at risk. In terms of advantages, the community members get digital asset rewards like tokens and NFTs. They also have access to premium community experiences and activities. 3. Launching a community token: Bringing a personalized token into a community starts by defining the goals you have with your community members. Once set up, you can create and distribute it into the community. The mass majority of the tokens should be for community members. But they have to hold them and support the community. Notable Quotes: 1. “When there's a new technology, I love to run towards it, especially if it helps organizations connect to their customers and community leaders connect to their community members” 2. “Web 3.0 comes to the promise that the Internet should be owned by the participants, by the community members“ “I'm very sure that once you tokenize, the relationship between the community members changes, and the relationship with you as the community leader changes” 3. “Reward your amazing folks who have been here with you, let people engage by earning, and three, you could sell on the open market” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. How do you define community? A group of people with a common cause. 2. What's a food that makes you think of home? Mom's spaghetti. 3. What book had an impact on your life? The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine: https://amzn.to/3twTWV0 4. What's one piece of advice you have for new community builders? It's not about you, it's about serving them. 5. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? Second Life Community. 6. If you were to find yourself on your deathbed today, and you had to condense all of your life lessons into one piece of advice for the rest of the world, what would that advice be? Find a purpose. 7. Who in the world of community would you most like to take out for lunch or interview on your podcast and your context? Mark Zuckerberg.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Andrew Warner, the founder, and CEO of Mixergy. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. Mixergy is a platform where the ambitious learn from a mix of experienced mentors through interviews and courses. Andrew invites well-known startup founders to teach others how they built their companies. He has interviewed over 2,000 of the world's best entrepreneurs, including the founders of Wikipedia, Sun, Groupon, LivingSocial, and LinkedIn. Andrew is also the author of the book “Stop Asking Questions: How to Lead High-Impact Interviews and Learn Anything from Anyone,” where he shares bits of advice on how to lead meaningful conversations with people you admire. Who is this episode for? Podcasters, interviewers, community builders, community managers, entrepreneurs, and mentors. Three key takeaways: 1. Driving meaningful conversations: Andrew started Mixergy to help ambitious people who love business learn from a mix of experienced mentors. He interviews entrepreneurs to tell their stories and share their lessons. Andrew focuses on meaningful conversations for his audience from which people can learn how to be better and more successful 2. Sharing knowledge more openly: Talking with people and opening up the conversation requires a set of techniques. Firstly, be open, honest, and vulnerable with people. Secondly, join the resistance by aligning with them. Thirdly, give people a higher purpose or share your goal upfront. Fourthly, look for shove facts, bring them up, and talk about them 3. Stop asking questions: Andrew wrote the book "Stop Asking Questions: How to Lead High-Impact Interviews and Learn Anything from Anyone," with the intent to help people effectively lead a conversation with another person. We think that discussions and interviews are great when we ask many questions. But it can become tiring and disrespectful towards the other person. Start by addressing guiding statements instead of questions. Notable Quotes: 1. “I never saw myself as a podcaster for life. It was more like I enjoyed these conversations.” 2. “I started the podcast because I'd failed with this one software company, and I didn't want to fail again. And I want to learn from the best.” 3. “I think the podcasting and conversations, in general, are more interesting when the person in the conversation has a deep need and curiosity for something that's when it goes to somewhere meaningful.” 4. “If we see people as emotional creatures with egos, needs, bruises, and successes, and they want to talk, even though logically it makes no sense to talk to clear things out, but if we understand that's still true, we have better conversations.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Pizza 2. What books had an impact on your life? How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie - https://amzn.to/3F6r5sN The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie - https://amzn.to/3f50zFV 3. What's the most memorable founder you ever interviewed? Emmett Shear, the CEO of Twitch - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmettshear 4. What's your favorite conversation starter or interview question that you'd like to use? I really look for the personal questions. So when did you lose your virginity? When I do my interviews, I ask people what their revenue is at the beginning. When I had a kid, I would ask the fathers, are you still sleeping with your wife? 5. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? The Ananda community 6. If you were to find yourself on your deathbed today, and you had to condense all of your life lessons into one piece of advice for the rest of the world, what would that advice be? Suffer for what matters. 7. Who in the world of community would you most like to take out for lunch or interview on your podcast and your context? Nick ONeal, Freelance Cryptocurrency Consultant, and Marketer/CM - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-oneal

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Wes Kao, Co-founder of Maven and Mentor at Backstage Capital. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. Before Maven, Wes co-founded altMBA alongside bestselling author Seth Godin. By founding Maven, she wanted to democratize education by improving the online experience for instructors and students. Wes is a thought leader in building cohort-based courses and frequently writes on her blog about marketing, online courses, and rigorous thinking. She unfolds the concept of cohort-based courses and ways of building and managing them effectively. Who is this episode for? Community builders, community managers, and course instructors Three key takeaways: 1. Understanding cohort based courses: Maven is the first platform for cohort-based courses, which are courses that take place during a period with a group of other people. As community organizers, make sure you find the right balance in teaching your students. Create an environment of making sure that your students contribute to the community, support each other, and learn from one another. 2. Building cohort based courses: Firstly, market the course upfront. Secondly, design your curriculum and establish the frameworks, exercises, breakouts, and discussions. Thirdly, find the right instructors. Finally, think about your sales and marketing funnel. 3. Forming communities within cohort based courses: Lean into debatable topics where your students have a chance to share their thoughts and learn from each other. Empower community members to connect without you jumping in all the time to answer. Create a culture where the students feel comfortable giving direct and genuine feedback. Notable Quotes: 1. “Cohort based courses are more engaging and active in learning versus passive content consumption” 2. “With the cohort based course, once you realize that you don't have to do it all yourself, that's where the sky parts and new opportunities open up” 3. “Course based courses allow students to connect without you as an instructor needing to be the center of that. Acknowledging that letting go of the reins results in better outcomes, more connections, deeper bonds, and relationships amongst yours.” 4. “So I think one of the most exciting things about cohort-based courses is that there's the flexibility for you to make it what you want it to be” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Zucchini 2. What's your favorite book to give as a gift or recommend to others? It's Not Personal by Alice Katz 3. What is your favorite course that you've ever been a part of? Alive OS by Suzy Batiz 4. Who in the world of community would you most like to take out? Mister Rogers 5. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? A plant shaming group on Facebook 6. If you were to find yourself on your deathbed today, and you had to condense all of your life lessons into one piece of advice for the rest of the world, what would that advice be? Worry less

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Shelly Omílàdé Bell, Founder and CEO of Black Girl Ventures, a social enterprise dedicated to creating access to capital for black and brown women entrepreneurs. Shelly is a serial entrepreneur and computer scientist with a background in performance poetry, K-12 Education, and IP strategy. She was named one of the Top 100 Powerful Women in Business by Entrepreneur Mag, Entrepreneur of the Year by Technically DC, and acknowledged as A Rising Brand Star by Adweek. Shelly is a system disruptor and business strategist who moves ideas to profit while empowering people to live more authentically. As a cultural translator, she connects entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations to diversify their talent pipeline, increase equity and grow their brands. Shelly shares tips on creating access and social capital for people, creating a real sense of community, and scaling the community. Who is this episode for? Community leaders, business women, investors, business strategists Three key takeaways: 1. Sustainably growing and engaging a community: Building the community comes from identifying a need and offering a solution. Engaging the community is about communing with people. Sustaining the community focuses on adopting a business model. 2. Driving value for your community: There are direct and indirect revenue drivers because revenue comes from relationships. The indirect way of driving revenue is building trust, affinity, and belonging, and they will bring valuable revenue to your community. 3. Building social capital: Social capital is the strength of your network, which can be people with helpful resources, knowledge, and access to capital. Building positive social capital relationships requires a community leader to take on the role of a gatekeeper to share and protect the people's interests. Notable Quotes: 1. “Safe space means safe people. And the more safe people that are surrounding in a community, the safer it can be that comes from core values.” 2. “A community can be a great gathering of people unless you have all agreed that there's a problem that needs to be solved, or you are showcasing it as a problem that needs to be solved that this community coming together can solve.” 3. “The money is the water for the seed. It's just a tool. So you have to wrap your head around the difference between humility that takes you out of driving the necessary sustainability measures.” 4. “You may be building a community of people that you serve. But you also need to understand how to build a community of people who can serve you.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Mexican corn 2. What is your favorite book to give as a gift to others? The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz 3. What's a company in your community that you're really excited about right now? Agua Bonita 4. What is a go-to community engagement tactic, or conversation starter, that you like to use in your communities? What do you care about? 5. Who in the world of the community would you most like to take for lunch? Seth Godin 6. What is a community product you wish existed? I wish there were a product that was an easy way to create a video, like a Wiki video library of learning 7. What is the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? The poetry community 8. What's one thing you learned from the leading community and the world of poetry that you still apply to your community-building today? How to move and motivate people, and put the systems in place simply. 9. If you were to find yourself on your deathbed, and you had to condense all of your life lessons into one tweet-sized piece of advice for the rest of the world for how to live, what would that advice be? Be all that you are as soon as possible.

In this episode, David Spinks, the VP of Community at Bevy and the Co-Founder of CMX, joins the Seed Club DAO Podcast. They discuss consumer empowerment and how the role of a community has evolved as consumers have grown in power. Later, they dive into the specifics of community building, the infrastructure required to deliver a sense of belonging over the long-term, and how to effectively onboard new members into a community. Who is this episode for? Community managers and business executives Three key takeaways: 1. Interconnecting business and community: The community becomes the core of a company. David points to this idea by revealing the historical context of how business has been evolving. Recently, with the advent of the internet and our ability to review products and talk about them, companies have started to care about customer service more and more. Besides, it's efficient and practical to let the community own and build a business. 2. Building better and more resilient communities: Building a community requires constant work and engagement. First, you need to think about how you'll attract people in a thoughtful and meaningful way. Secondly, continue working to build that engagement and facilitate and bring that energy into the community. 3. The core roles and responsibilities for building a community: If you want to put a community team together, you need a higher specialization of roles. There are community moderators that engage and respond to people. But it's also crucial to have a strategic leader who has a seat at the table at the highest level of the company. The team itself will usually be a combination of community engagement managers. They will focus on facilitating engagement, driving growth, and experimenting with different formats. There also must be community operations, which measure the data and analytics. Eventually, more roles will appear, and people within the community will specialize in them. Notable Quotes: 1. “And now in web three, what I see now is the ultimate culmination of this trend towards community-driven business, which is like the community is owning, creating, and building the business” 2. “Web three can bring to the concept of community-driven business, create a more equitable ecosystem, and give the people creating value and the opportunity to capture that value as well” 3. “I think that community-building work is one of the most important jobs in the world”

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Joy Dettorre, Global Leader for Diversity and Inclusion, and Stephanie Galera, Global Diversity and Inclusion Leader, at IBM. Our host, David Spinks, the VP of Community at Bevy and the Co-Founder of CMX, moderates the conversation. The business resource group program plays a central part in successfully managing IBM's 250+ employee groups across fifty countries that touch approximately 50,000 employees. Joy and Stephanie will reveal how BRGs create a space for diverse, inclusive, equitable purpose-driven workplaces, like IBM's eight communities, and why businesses need to invest in ERGs and BRGs. Who is this episode for? HR specialists, company leaders, and executive managers. Three key takeaways: 1. Unfolding the business resource group program at IBM: IBM focuses on delivering employee-centric programs and initiatives by creating communities of like-minded people and offering a space for diverse, inclusive, equitable purpose-driven workplaces. HR at IBM manages the BRG program, which focuses on intersectionality and allyship. BRG serves as a platform for employees who want to launch a program or campaign for these different communities. From a strategy standpoint, HR provides the structure or template that BRGs can be successful. IBM has three global communities: the LGBT+ community, The Women's community, and the People With Diverse Abilities community. In the United States, there are five other communities: the Black community, the Hispanic community, the Indigenous community, the Pan-Asian Community, and the Veterans community. 2. Why does IBM invest in ERGs and BRGs?: The business resource groups enable values like compassion, kindness, justice, dignity, and unity. They also create a sense of belonging and inclusion for the employees. The second part of that equation is about organization trust, companionship, and offering employees the opportunity to do something good. 3. Measuring the success of the employee resource groups: There are two ways IBM measures the success of an employee resource group. One is the annual employee engagement survey. IBM also experiments with something called "mini-pulse surveys," which are topical and spontaneous. They are anonymous and include a small number of questions. When measuring the employee engagement data, HR looks at two metrics: engagement and inclusion. They also break down these metrics by community. HR identifies challenges, sentiments, and the needs of the community. Furthermore, they look at the societal impact. All of the measurements influence bigger goals, like attention, retention, engagement, and representation. Notable Quotes: 1. “By nature and by blood, you're probably part of a community. But if I want to do something more, a BRG becomes the vehicle that I would use to create more impact, recognized and funded by the corporation.” - Stephanie Galera 2. “We all have one client that we serve. That's the IBM employee. That's why we exist. We need to create environments where these employees can feel safe, included, valued, appreciated, and an environment where they can thrive.” - Joy Dettorre 3. “These business resource groups create a sense of belonging and community, organizing employees around a common cause of driving passion.” - Joy Dettorre Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Joy: Pasta and meatballs. Stephanie: Mushroom omelet. 2. What's your go-to community engagement tactic or conversation starter? Joy: If someone comes to me for help, I ask, "how can I help you?" But if I need help from somebody else, I tend to say, "will you help me?" Stephanie: The trip that my spouse and I had in the US, which talks about the benefits of actually joining a BRG meeting 3. If you could distill all of your experience as community builders and as community professionals into one bite-sized piece of advice for other community professionals, what would that advice be? Joy: Can we all commit to leaving every conversation and every interaction a little bit better than we found it, just based on how we behave. Stephanie: When you're in doubt about anything that you'd like to do, ask yourself, what's the worst that can happen. And most of the time, you'll find that things can be manageable. 4. What does the organizational structure of the groups look like? Are there any leads, and are they compensated for their work? There is absolutely a governance around our business resource groups. They constantly evolve and get better. But one thing in that governance model is an executive sponsor. There are also co-chairs, which are volunteer positions. They receive blue points, with which they can go into IBM's internal shopping store and purchase something. There are also some financial gifts and digital thank you cards. The company writes blogs to recognize their effort, and leaders make personal calls to them and offer specialty digital badges they can post on LinkedIn. 5. Do people need to fill out some form to specify how they contributed, or do you have it automated somehow? In terms of recognition, we do have a 360 feedback that's called a checkpoint where people can put in their goal, and it's visible to their managers so that if they achieve that goal, that becomes part of their appraisal for the year. Volunteers at IBM can also convert spent hours into grants. 6. Do BRG leaders have weekly or monthly hours carved out for the work honored within management rather than a volunteer expectation on top of their job? We know that some managers carve out a portion of some person's time to do this, especially if it's for a business unit or geographic location. Sometimes we ask managers to carve out time for this person as a leadership development activity. And other times, they balance it as a work of passion. 7. Is there a step-by-step playbook to help us launch an ERG? We have a playbook that we're writing, but I don't know if it will be available outside IBM. 8. When an organization is committed to DEI, there will be several instances where you have to engage in uncomfortable conversations around discrimination and unconscious biases. How do you start and manage those conversations successfully? It's about creating a culture across the entire ecosystem where allyship, diversity, equity, and inclusion are a part of all of those processes.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Wesley Faulkner, Head of Community at SingleStore, and PJ Hagerty, Head of Developer Relations at Mattermost, and Founder/Chief Community Officer of DevRelate.io. Wesley and PJ are also Co-hosts of Community Pulse. Our host, David Spinks, VP of Community at Bevy and the Co-Founder of CMX, moderated the conversation. David talks with Wesley and PJ about developer relations, developer evangelism, developer engagement, developer community, and the developer relations role of connecting, serving, and supporting developer ecosystems. They also uncover the differences between those terms and how the role of developer relations has evolved. Who is this episode for? Developers, heads of developer relations, software community managers, and developer evangelists. Three key takeaways: 1. Defining developer relations: Developer relations is a term that describes the specialists or teams whose responsibilities include building and developing both online and offline communities. There are many names for developer relations, like developer advocacy, developer community, developer marketing, or developer evangelist. 2. Building developer communities: Companies need to have developer relation teams to provide support and growth to their members. There should be a few dev advocates who can go out and speak to different communities. It's crucial to balance everything and have efficient communication within the community to meet people's needs. The team members need to focus on various aspects of the community. But, the end goal is to incorporate all of those people together as one team. The mission of a Dev Rel is building, understanding, and engaging, and bringing that back into the business to guide the roadmap to get more buy-in and trust. 3. Engaging developers within communities: There is much demand for developers' attention. Many companies offer attention-seeking content for developers, trying to bring them into their communities. Meanwhile, developers are looking for ways to engage with like-minded people and become a part of a supportive community. Dev rels working in the industry know how to communicate, engage, and understand what developers want. Thus, they can satisfy their needs and adapt their form of communication, either by writing blog posts, creating podcasts, workshops, or whatever developers like. Notable Quotes: 1. “Every company now should have a dev rel team. They should have advocates or evangelists helping to talk to people who work in technology.”

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Jacques Martiquet, International Party Scientist and Social Bonding Specialist, who designs custom well-being and belonging experiences for workplaces. He aims to create a high-performance culture founded on authentic human connection, psychological safety, and conscious celebration. Jacques focuses on creating social experiences that connect people, are highly memorable, and create “peak moments”. In this interview, Jacques and I geek out over social science and social design for over an hour. He walks us through his process of what it takes to create really compelling events and experiences. This interview is full of practical, actionable tips that you'll be able to apply to your community, whether you're hosting events or just trying to improve the onboarding process for your forums. Who is this episode for? Community managers who want to take inspiration from social bonding science and try new exercises to add joy to their community events. Three key takeaways: 1. Why should your community dance, sing, and laugh?: Communities often lack playful connection because they are focused on professional behavior. Dancing, singing, and laughter are hardwired into us to promote social ties. When we truly get creative, we ignite social bonding behaviors that help us build ties in our community. Intrinsic motivation within the community comes from how enjoyable the task is. 2. How to promote deep connections in your community?: Start by helping your members transition from the state of their previous event into the state of your event. To compensate for the loss of natural signals of human connection, shut off the camera or have a regular group phone call so that members can focus on the tonality of the speaker's voice. This will lead to members being more present and building deeper connections. Humans are also wired to build connections through touch, but it may be difficult to engage in touching behaviors that are appropriate in professional settings. 3. Framework for Creating Events That Foster Deep Connection: The experience begins before the experience. The invitation, the context, the intention, and the shared purpose are incredibly important when designing a gathering. Jacques shares a checklist with participants and facilitators before the event begins, so they don't enter the actual event with uncertainty. He also uses a few other simple-yet-powerful trust-building and mood-boosting exercises to help participants relax. Notable Quotes: 1. “The distance between two humans is a laugh or a dance move or a sing-along what I've found in leading hundreds of experiences” 2. “Formality and professionalism are oftentimes the opposite of authenticity. When we're taking ourselves less seriously, that's when we truly get creative and that's when we build social ties.” 3. “We need to see joy as a productivity hack and something that is so important for our performance within organizations” 4. “Everyone is an infinite source of positive joy and energy. We see ourselves as limitless sources of joy and positive energy.” 5. “Liminal spaces prepare people. They enable people to let go of their responsibilities, their thoughts, their stresses so that they can be fully present in the experience.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Mackerel Fish. 2. What's the best party you've ever been to? The roaming citywide decentralized dance party, which also introduced Jacques to Bitcoin back in 2016. 3. What's the most impactful book you've ever read or a book that you love to give as a gift to others? “Conflict = Energy” by Jason Digges, an introductory book on authentic relating to overhaul how you view human connection and how you connect with others. 4. What's your morning routine? Jacques wakes up and imagines that he has been revived from the grave. Then he goes outside and looks at the sun, does some stretches, and some inversion. His last step is a loving-kindness meditation where he will bless someone or wish someone well in his life. 5. What's a go-to engagement tactic or conversation starter you like to use in your communities? Get people moving and categorizing it as movement and not dancing 6. What's the best way to end the party? Jacques encourages his participants to come forth with recognitions for others, something they're grateful for, or something that is inspiring them. 7. What's the community or event, product, or piece of technology that you wish existed? A device, basically a plugin to Spotify that enables you to choose songs that are just like universally applicable for different moods and different contexts. 8. What is the weirdest community you've ever been to? The silent meditation retreat community called Vipassana. It's interesting because the community forms in silence with no eye contact, it's purely shared suffering. 9. Tweet-sized deathbed advice? Your quality of life is predicted by the quality of your human connections. So train your human connection skills.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with two people at the forefront of Web 3.0 communities. Tiffany Zhong, Founder of Islands and the upcoming GM Academy community that will introduce you to all things Web 3.0. Cooper Turley, Advisor at Audius and Founder of the “Friends With Benefits” community. This episode is full of beginner information that will help you conceptually transition from Web 2.0 communities to Web 3.0 communities. Guests Tiffany and Cooper talk about the unique characteristics of Web 3.0 communities, examples of well-managed Web 3.0 communities, and how to navigate some of the biggest challenges while building Web 3.0 communities. Who is this episode for? Community managers interested in building Web 3.0 communities of their own. Three key takeaways: 1. Web 2.0 Communities vs Web 3.0 Communities: In Web 3.0, you're trying to share value with those who create it in the form of tokens and ownership. In Web 2.0, shared purpose and ownership were never thought of because the decision-making structure was fully centralized. Communities around each of NFT, DAOs, and DeFi have different expectations. Their requirements may also change depending on their growth stage. In Web 3.0, the creator community is incomplete without a community economy. Web 3.0 is taking that promise of web 2.0 building something together, and actually putting an infrastructure behind it. 2. Exemplary Web 3.0 Communities: Cooper's “Friends with Benefits” community is a token-gated community where you need to hold tokens to join a social club that talks about the intersection of culture and technology. For example, Bored Ape Yacht club is focused on real-life activations of digital NFTs, airdrops, etc. The goal of Web 3.0 communities like these is to find ways to give their income back to the community through different projects serving the collective purpose of the community. 3. Preventing Web 3.0 communities from becoming “early-adopter cliques”: Rather than only offering all-in access to everything in that community, you can start to fragment different sections of it and lower the barriers. NFTs will start to become membership tokens, and people will be able to buy in for small time intervals to see if it's a good fit for them and upgrade to a higher tier if required. Access can also be given by granting tokens in exchange for volunteer work instead of direct investment. Notable Quotes: 1. “What Web two brands would say, cool, this is now our revenue or creators would say, cool, this is now my profit. I'm going to go buy a Lambo. Is that right? It's not, how do I share the Lambo with the entire company? That's the shift” “Start using discord. Discord is where most of these communities live. And I think it's a very foreign platform to most people. But if you're looking to get involved with Web 3.0, you need to learn how to navigate.” 2. “Start spending even just ten minutes a day in this space. You don't need to start dedicating your whole workday or week to going forward if you don't have the time, but just doing incremental” 3. “Just go in with an open mindset, but also with no ego and just ask questions. There are no dumb questions. The interesting thing. And the cool thing is that everyone's learning” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. How do you see consulting work to help create and build community at the start of a DeFi or similar project? If you are a consultant, I think the best that you can do is provide context on what's already happened. 2. What are the absolute critical priorities to think about when setting up a new community management function? Take charge of project management and keep track of what does what and how they are contributing to the community. 3. What role do you think offline will have in Web 3.0? Offline is where you celebrate community and where you strengthen relationships but online is where it really lives and where the function of it happens on a day. 4. Can't you build a community that is open, transparent, governed, and owned by the community with a stewardship and ownership model like the co-op model in Web 2.0? The notion of holding an asset that's able to increase or decrease in value relative to the growth of that community is really magical. It also gives people the option to either play long-term games or have instant liquidity based on where they are in life. 5. A lot of web three projects have a few different owner groups. How do you keep all these different groups engaged? Everyone is aligned to make the value of community treasury grow. And outside of that, each of the stakeholder groups is doing different things to grow the value of that treasury in very unique ways. 6. Tweet-sized vision for if everything goes perfectly, where do you want to see the world of web 3.0 five years from now? Tiffany: A world where creators are able to get paid what they're worth. A world where all the current web two creators and fans will now become web three community builders and collectors. Cooper: We are in the MySpace era of crypto right now. In five years, the Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter of this world will be created.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Nicole Crentsil, CEO at Black Girl Fest. She wanted to solve her problem of not seeing enough people like her in the world of tech, culture, and art by creating her own event called Black Girl Fest. They expected 300 people but 3000 people showed up! Today, Nicole is an Angel investor and was named in the Forbes 30 under 30 list. She was also named as a LinkedIn Changemaker in 2021. In this episode, Nicole talks about how diverse communities can be kept buzzing through intersectional programming, how to launch your community through a highly successful first event, and how to grow your community beyond its core identity and location. She also sheds light on why organizations indulge in tokenism, how they can avoid it, and how they can truly embrace inclusion and diversity. Who is this episode for? Community managers who are interested in building and engaging highly diverse and truly inclusive communities. Three key takeaways: 1. Intersectional programming in diverse communities: Communities often exist in spaces where there are so many different stories and channels in which people's stories interconnect and expand. There's no single path human stories will take. Accessible, inclusive, and authentic programming that taps into stories emanating from intersectional commonalities is the key to connecting to different subgroups in diverse communities. 2. Keys to a successful community launch event: Expect your launch event to be successful if it's a one-of-a-kind event in your sufficiently-large community. People in under-tapped communities will invest their time and money to find opportunities and form connections among people of their own kind. Start small and engage people in your immediate networks who believe in your cause and who are smart and competent in their jobs. Operate with an ethos of passing the torch back to your community. 3. Growing your community beyond its core identity and location: If the issues dominating your community are also reflected in similar communities in various parts of the world, expanding the community should not be a big challenge. Talk to regional champions and seek their help in expanding the values of your community; you can borrow from the CMX Connect architecture. Tap into common events such as International Women's Day (the full month of March) for Black Girl Fest. Notable Quotes: 1. “It's so obvious when a brand or an organization who's trying to be more diverse or trying to speak to a specific community hasn't put that community to the table to make the decisions, to decide, to plan, to produce...it's sometimes offensive, it's disingenuous and it's fake” 2. “I think organizations start with diversity and that's why we end up seeing more tick box scenarios where it's just like, fill the room with people that have different religions and backgrounds and skin tones. Then great. We've solved the problem... And it's like, no, you haven't solved anything. You've just got a bunch of people in the room.” 3. “If you don't embed it as not the thought and you just embed it like every day, you wouldn't have to worry about this DEI thing that you think is a problem” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. What's the most impactful book you've ever read or a book that you love to give as a gift to others? “Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge. 2. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Pesto pasta and cheese. 3. What's a community moment you'll never forget? A group of older Black women held Nicole's hand and told her how amazing her work is and told her to not stop. It was a very emotional moment for her. 4. Have you ever worn socks with sandals? Yes. 5. If you could sit down for coffee for an hour with one community builder, dead or alive, who would it be? Michelle Obama. 6. Which is your most exciting angel investment? Nicole's first investment in a company that essentially created hair extensions that match black women's hair texture because their product-market fit was genius. 7. What advice do you have for someone who wants to become an investor, but doesn't feel they have the identity of an investor? Find your community first and learn to utilize that because the network effect is quite powerful. 8. What's the weirdest community that you have been a part of? A Tumblr community where they loved playing the Sims game. 9. Tweet-sized deathbed advice? Believe in yourself first, before you need anyone else to believe in you.

Matthew Kobach is the Director of Content Marketing at Fast, a PhD dropout, and former social media manager at NYSE. Matthew joins us in this episode to share how he used community building lessons to create gripping content, grow social media channels, and communicate more effectively. Matthew shares his three steps to building a social media brand, which consist of being unbelievably niche, being consistent, and compounding tweets. He teaches how to become a lighthouse on social media and his routine for planning and ideating social posts. We wrap up talking about the necessity for passion in what you do and letting what you're good at become a passion. Check out this episode to improve your social media presence and become an effective communicator. Who is this episode for?: B2B & B2C, Online, Revitalizing 3 key takeaways: - Three ways to build your social media brand: Be Unbelievably Niche, Be Consistent, Compound Tweets. - Be the lighthouse for topics you're interested in. 90% of people don't post, they just read. Get this 90% to look at your content. - Need to be passionate about and enjoy what you're doing. Being good at something makes you passionate about it. No matter what you do, there will be aspects you don't love - but make sure it's something you're curious about. Notable Quotes: “You need to be passionate about it. You need to actually enjoy it. So being good at something makes you passionate about it. You know, so if you're, if you're able to, uh, tap into something, you've got this really active community and, and you're, you know, you're the one kind of heading it, you're going to be passionate about it. So it's probably going to work out, but for you to go through that kind of the muck and mire of it when it's not really going that well, that's when it should be something that you're actually interested in.” “90% of people don't really post on social media, 9% post, a medium amount, and 1% of post most of it. So those 90% of people, they have interests, they want to participate. Maybe they'll reply once in a while, but for the most part, they just want to read interesting thoughts. So that's the lighthouse - you're trying to get those 90% of the people, and they're looking for topics that interest them. The only way for them to find you is if you turn your light on and you start talking about the things that interest you, and you've just got to hope that they're actually attracted to what you have to say.” Rapid fire question answers: 1. What's your favorite book to recommend to others? How to win friends and influence people 2. What's your most memorable story? When at the stock exchange, Snapchat had just started and he needed to enlist Snapchat in the stock exchange. His goal was to make his snapchat really good. Recognized in NYC as the “New York Stock Exchange Snapchat Guy”. 3. What's a Community tool or platform that you love to use? None, doesn't like using them. 4. If you could only follow 3 people on Twitter, who would they be? Danye Taylor, David Parrell, OrangeBook 5. What's your ultimate tip for someone who wants to improve their reputation online? Get better at communicating exactly what it is you mean. 6. Weirdest community you've been a part of? Traded and burned CD's with others from the band ‘Fish'. 7. If you're on your death bed and you could only leave one piece of life advice behind for all the future generations, what would that advice be? Say what you mean to say, say what you want to say. So much in life is about not communicating what we feel because we can't or are scared to articulate it.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Max Rothery, VP of Community at Finimize, a platform that provides investment education for casual investors in small, digestible bites. Max has a truly wide range of work experiences, from working in a bank to working in the film industry. He even ran a record label. Learning anything new is more effective if, alongside self-learning, you learn from others. This is where having a community of learners plays a big role. The Finimize Community helps casual investors capitalize on tech tools to connect and learn from other people like them. This episode is packed full of insights about community from a person who had no experience in the field when they first started. Listen to the full episode for specific insights on how to use your community for research. Who is this episode for? For community managers who have started in the community field from other fields and casual investors. Three key takeaways: 1. When a community makes sense for service-oriented businesses: Learning content includes several questionable sources online. Creating high-quality content that people love to consume and then creating a paid community around it helps to profitably solve this problem. Talking to your community (free or paid) helps you understand the different types and subtypes of people your content will help and their favorite topics. 2. Researching Community Members: As a first step to your community strategy, start by talking to the most engaged fans and understand their intrinsic motivations in life. Expand this circle in steps until you get credible data on a solid ideal customer profile (ICP). After this, create, grow, and optimize your community to improve the experience of this ICP so that any new members will find something they have in common with existing members. Have a clear business goal (what your company gets out of the community) and a clear community goal (what members get out of being in the community). Be ready to leave out a particular segment that is not well-represented in your data set to focus on your most profitable ICP. 3. Making the best use of community spaces: Create a community space that allows connections and public discussions to flourish. Let your content team find new ideas from these discussions. Your sales team can also use these spaces for competitive research. Make sure you collect data to prove the efficacy of any insights you use from the community. Notable Quotes: 1. “The best thing to do when you lose money is to speak to someone else. That's [how you realize] that's kind of the point of investing. It's like, sometimes you do well, sometimes you don't. I think that that's a really natural way for a natural reason that a community should exist. ” 2. “We're just creating spaces and watching and observing, and then trying to feed that back and give context to the rest of the business” 3. “Our core audience is probably like twenty-seven to forty-year-olds that have got surplus income [and are] working in well-paid jobs and investing on the side… We're saving them time that they can't get anywhere else. If we try to focus on students or even beginner investors, it distracts us from delivering to that core audience.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would that be? Burgers. 2. What's your favorite book to give as a gift to others or to recommend to others? “Rules for Revolutionaries” by Becky Bond and Zack Exley. 3. A go-to community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter? Reserve time with people to talk more with them about a particular topic. 4. Have you ever worn socks with sandals? Yes, wearing them while recording this interview 5. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? A natural wine community that was associated with a startup but members ended up creating a parallel, more helpful wine community of their own. 6. Tweet-size deathbed advice? Life is always the most rewarding in the deep end.

In this episode of Masters of Community, we speak with Marius Ciortea, Chief Community Officer at IBM. Marius leads the community strategy of forming an engaging brand presence to interact with their community of existing customers. He will be discussing how to share best practices and use common terminology to expand the experience beyond the company brand and fuel the fireside chat. Who is this episode for? B2B, Successful Brands, Mature Organizations, Scaling, Revitalizing Three key takeaways: 1. IBM's Community Strategy: Companies should value customers above everything else. IBM's community shift aims to keep the customers satisfied, engaged, and loyal to the brand 2. Developing a Cohesive Community Experience: 1. Companies need to focus more on the end-users that influence the buying decision. 2. Create various points of communication to bring the community closer and to interact directly with individuals. 3. Focus on clearly defining the purpose and the strategy of the organization 3. Showing the Scale and Investing in a Community Brand: Community managers should feel good about the tools available to drive scale and take a more nurturing stance in their role. Companies from the same community influence each other. If different organizations create positive experiences for the users, they will become engaged and active within the community. Notable Quotes: 1. “I never fully understood why communities were relegated to a community manager role in the world of social media. I don't want to knock social media, but you are talking to everyone, and you don't know the impact that you're having. When you're talking in a community, especially a community of customers, you're talking to your customers. I believe smart companies should value the customers above everything else. Therefore, you should not let that conversation live with a junior intern.” 2. “I feel like the real influencers are the guys that actually use your software in and day out. If you get those internal users to be your advocates, signing the check will be a no-brainer for the decision-makers. The true influencers are inside the company that is already using the product. So that is why I think companies need to focus on the users more because they are ultimately making the buying decision.” 3. “The purpose that I have is to create a place where customers can share their thoughts and learn from each other. Ultimately, if they share their experiences and learn from each other, they will do more with the products. And that is right, regardless of technology, language, product, or whatever it is that unifies all together.” Answers to rapid-fire questions: 1. If you could only have one kind of food for the rest of your life, what would that food be? Spaghetti Carbonara. 2. What's your favorite book to give or to recommend to people? Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. 3. What's a go-to community engagement, tactic, or conversation starter that you like to use in your communities? T-shirts and beer. Anytime people get together, get them a t-shirt, and if you can give them a beer, they will love you forever. 4. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? My kid, who is 15, told me that he is sort of a community manager on a Minecraft community on this court. 5. What advice do you have for community professionals who want to become chief community officers one day? Be clear in what you're trying to achieve for your company. 6. How to break the silos? Interview your customers, ask them questions on how they feel being siloed. 7. How do you evaluate a platform to choose for your community? Be clear on your purpose and then match your or your community's capabilities to that purpose.

Community has the power to change lives. It also has the power to change businesses. In this interview with David Spinks, a seasoned community manager, co-founder of CMX, and author of The Business of Belonging, you'll hear why more and more companies are investing in community. David shares the seven Ps of community building and how to find community-market fit. By the end of the episode, you'll know more about how to make community your business's competitive advantage, no matter your industry. For more details on this and other episodes, visit http://www.meetup.com/blog/category/keep-connected-podcast/We hope you'll keep connected with us. Drop us a line at podcast@meetup.com. If you like the podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating!