Podcasts about vanilla forums

When private equity buys online community platforms, who wins? What about if those platforms were built on open source software? Does the company continue to be a good citizen of the open source community that helped build the product? History has shown us that it is often the community managers and pros who lose. They might not just lose a good platform though, they might lose their job. Lincoln Russell has an interesting perspective on this topic. He joined Vanilla Forums, an open source community software platform, as a senior developer in 2011, having already used it for a couple of years. He left the company in 2020, then the director of engineering. Lincoln has continued to use the software. Vanilla Forums was subsequently purchased by Higher Logic, a company lacking a meaningful history of open source contributions. As a matter of disclosure, both Higher Logic and Vanilla Forums are past sponsors of the show. Lincoln and I also discuss: How Vanilla Forums' open source ethos shifted over time The importance of data migration standards for community software Is community software best built by small businesses? Big Quotes Your community software provider must answer this (16:38): “The first question you should ask a [community software] vendor is: How easy is it to leave you? It's not a fun question to ask, but the answer is crucial to me. It's a deal-breaker question.” -Patrick O'Keefe Some community platforms try to lock their customer data into the platform (18:07): “When [a client is] onboarding [to new community software during the] initial year or two, they don't care about their data export. It's at the end. That's a long-term reputational issue about how people talk about their experiences. We saw that with [community software] competitors. We had some trouble with a couple of competitors in trying to get the data from them and spent way more hours than particular customers were worth – just on principle, honestly – getting the data out for them because we were so personally offended. At least I was.” -Lincoln Russell When you aren't selling community software to the people who will actually use it (20:37): “In the [community software] sales process, you identify stakeholders – people that are decision makers. A lot of the time they weren't a community manager. A lot of the time it was a director of technology, it was a CEO, or other positions, and that warps your roadmap. “When those are the people that [the] sales team [is] sitting in front of, day in and day out, and you're pitching an improved moderation queue, they want this button that does this thing. You're like, ‘But that's stupid.' But it doesn't matter. If those are the people you're selling to, [with] their own idea of community that doesn't actually align with community management because they have internal business goals, and all they want to do are check those boxes.” -Lincoln Russell Why community professionals should drive community platform choice (22:10): “Although I'd like to believe, ego-wise, that I could make a community out of whatever piece of garbage application you throw in front of me, I know the software can either help me or hurt me, and it's tough when you're making dinner with someone else's ingredients.” -Patrick O'Keefe Great ideas need great communicators (23:44): “The biggest issue with charting a course is you need a really clear vision, and you also need someone who can articulate that vision a lot, and over and over again, to the right people in the right circumstances. You need an external marketer. All of us in engineering at Vanilla [were] all introverts. None of us were going to conferences and giving talks about our vision for community software. It just wasn't in us to do that. I think we were poorer off in that we had some really good ideas, and could have shifted the conversation a bit, but we didn't put our energy there because that was a lot of energy.” -Lincoln Russell Protecting your culture makes you unique from the big social media platforms (33:43): “I think this idea of being more private and being very selective about what you present to the world, and having an internal culture that is protected from the internet – not promoted to the internet – is the future of these independent community spaces because that's the space those [bigger] platforms cannot touch.” -Lincoln Russell Community drives great software projects (37:04): “To build great software, like the great software projects that are going to outlive me, you need a community of people committed to working on them for long periods of time. [You need] to replace those people when they leave, but you have to have a system to keep that going, not just like, [we] got great five minds in a room and they did a thing, and then they cash out at the end. That's not sustainable.” -Lincoln Russell About Lincoln Russell Lincoln Russell is the vice president of engineering for uConnect, which builds virtual career centers for colleges and universities to help students get better jobs. Earlier in his career, he spent 8 and a half years at Vanilla Forums, starting as a senior developer in 2011 and leaving in 2020 as the director of engineering. Related Links Lincoln's website Higher Logic Vanilla, from Higher Logic uConnect, where Lincoln is vice president of engineering Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com WordPress.org, the home of the WordPress open source community Arlington-Based Higher Logic Acquires Montreal's Vanilla by Richard Foster for Virginia Business Nitro Porter, Lincoln's community platform migration tool Lincoln's blog post announcing Nitro Porter Matt Mecham of Invision Community Matt Mecham on Community Signal Transcript View on our website Your Thoughts If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment or send me an email. Thank you for listening.

How to understand the motivations of your visitors to create incentives for them to join. That's not it, though — don't forget to onboard them properly. Community Industry News: Rachel Hartley joined Siemens as Community Strategist  Shana Sumers was promoted to Senior Manager, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Communities at HubSpot Jacob Gross joined Slack as Community Marketing Manager Gabi Laing was promoted to Senior Marketing Specialist at Zendesk Kerri Williams was promoted to Senior Manager, Community Strategy and Engagement at Workday Jessica Long joined Alteryx as Online Community Manager Sara Ott joined hound as Director of Content and Community Sam Houston joined Honeycomb as Director of Community Success Sofia Losada joined Firneo as Community Manager Conversion: Community Launch Guide: Conversion Acquisition episode Engagement episode Sponsored by: Vanilla Forums' Customer Advocacy Maturity Model eBook is great for companies who want to elevate and grow their customer advocacy programs. It's an easy way to measure what your advocacy experience is currently like in comparison to others, so you can determine the next steps to make it bigger and more effective. Meetsy enables you to Connect your community, one introduction at a time. Create serendipity and unlock the power of networks in your community by enabling your members to easily connect with each other.

Are forums dead? Adrian Speyer from Vanilla Forums thinks not. He joined us to discuss developer communities: where developers discuss about (praise or criticise) your product. What are the benefits of building your community? Do you need to be a developer to work in developer marketing?  All discussed in this episode. Plus, a touch of old internet nostalgia.   Links to Adrian's Blog posts: Are you building your community with the most valuable people in mind? (https://blog.vanillaforums.com/are-you-building-your-community-with-the-most-valuable-people-in-mind) Our book " Developer Marketing: The Essential Guide (https://www.developer-marketing.com/) "

Episode 51 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) This week we're talking about the tools we use to support customers and the pros and cons of each. Links mentioned: * Huel: * Ribena ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IHF3yvSpM0 * NZ commercial with modesty leaves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqZZOb1aJEk * The origin of the Dashboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard * Help Scout/Docs/Beacon: https://www.helpscout.net * Intercom/Educate: https://www.intercom.com * Vanilla Forums: https://vanillaforums.com/en/software/ * Front: https://frontapp.com * Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com * Freshdesk: https://freshdesk.com * Reply: https://buffer.com/reply/ * Statuspage.io * Uservoice: https://www.uservoice.com * Wistia: https://wistia.com * JTBD: https://jtbd.info * Chase: https://m.signalvnoise.com/a-new-approach-to-feature-requests-21bea562c083 * Ask Nicely: https://www.asknicely.com * Looker: https://looker.com * Write The Docs (Prague): http://www.writethedocs.org/conf/prague/2018/ hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com @supportbrekkie @davechapman @conorp @sarahleyh @gentlethorns

Hootsuite has mobilized their product advocates around the world through their Ambassador community resulting in strong relationships with product advocates and significantly expanding Hootsuite's reach. Mel Attia, V.P. of Marketing at Vanilla Forums, joins me again as co-host on this episode as we uncover the impact the online community of advocates is having on Hootsuite's business. Justine Velcich, Manager of Global Community Programs at Hootsuite reveals the strategy behind their three-year-old Ambassador Community and how it has evolved. Visit our show notes to download the Social Business Journal: The Community Playbook at our show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/the-rise-of-the-hootsuite-ambassador-community/

I'm joined by Mel Attia, V.P. of Marketing at Vanilla Forums. Together, we talk with Mark Schaefer about his new book, The Content Code. Mark Schaefer is a college educator, author, speaker, and social media strategy consultant. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the CBS News; he is also the author of five popular marketing books that are used as text books in over 50 universities. We review some of the key points in Mark's book and really dig into why content marketers have to overcome information density to stand out. Specifically, we review how content can get "ignited" through the process of "Building Shareability into Your Content." Tune in to hear this vibrant conversation with Mark about how the modern marketer can cut through the wall of noise through shareability. View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/content-marketers-overcoming-information-density-shareability-mark-schaefer

Episode 58 of the Social Business Engine podcast features my interview with Luc Vezina, CEO of Vanilla Forums. Luc and I dove into detail on the ins and outs of a forum-based, branded online community. Tune in to hear our full conversation on the benefits a branded online community can have for your business and your customers. You'll hear about a B2C example at Big Green Egg and a B2B example that uses gamification at ShipStation. Visit the show notes page for links to the B2C and B2B branded communities we discussed: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/the-benefits-of-a-branded-forum-based-online-community