A Community Management Pioneer at Microsoft with Alex Blanton

Today we welcome Alex Blanton, Senior Community Program Manager at Microsoft to the Masters of Community podcast. Alex studied at the Middlebury College, and had a stint as an Editorial Assistant at the Yale University Press, and has now spent 23 years working at Microsoft. In this episode, we discuss what drew Adam to journalism and then the world of community, the different types of communities Alex has been building at Microsoft, and the business impact of his work. We wrap up by talking about the metrics that can be used to track effective community-building activities, the mistakes Alex has made that he would like you to know about and the tactics he uses to drive engagement. Listen to the full episode to level up your community-building game... Who is this episode for?: Community Managers 3 key takeaways: When connecting community members: think win: win not zero-sum Simple things to make virtual events more effective: get your speakers online 30 minutes early, be a present host and be clear about how to attend the event When tracking community metrics, don’t be to concerned with the raw number, be more concerned with its trajectory Notable Quotes: “And then I read this report that was titled something like “the emerging role of the community manager”. That was about 2010 or 2011. And it was like a light bulb went off in my mind. Cause I thought, this is what I'm doing. Someone has defined what this job is, you know, and that was, I think, where I really started to feel like community management is my calling.” “You are going to need to have someone who's driving that community. Personally in my context, I think like there's very few organic, completely organic communities where Hey, someone just has a great idea and there's a bunch of people in the organically get together and somehow things happen and it keeps happening and just goes on. It's not that those don't ever happen. It's just, they're quite rare. They're the exception. They Def I think they definitely are. You need someone who's the community lead or the community manager. They could be part-time or full-time, it could be official part of their job or an unofficial. Part of their job, but they've taken ownership of it, but you just need someone to kind of turn the crank.” Rapid fire question answers: 1. What's your go-to pump up song? We Will Rock You by Queen 2. What’s your proudest ultimate frisbee moment? Took the disappointment of being cut from a Master’s level team into re-invigorating his career 3. What's your favorite book to give as a gift to others? Watership Down by Richard Adams 4. What did being an editor teach you about community? Publishers understand what the audience wants and then creates that content, Alex is doing this now but for his community! 5. Have you ever worn socks with sandals? In my backyard, yes 6. Who in the world of community would you most like to take for lunch? Alison Michaels, ex. Microsoft 7. What's a go-to community engagement tactic, or conversation starter, that you like to use in your communities? “Tell me something I don’t know about this?” 8. What's a community product you wish existed? A true complete event management tool 9. What's the weirdest community you've ever been a part of? The Ultimate Frisby Community 10. What's a question I didn’t ask you that I should have? “What is your Twitter bio? People are the most interesting technology” 11. 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? Honour your own experiences but still see the world through other people’s eyes