Experience Strategy Podcast: Creating Time Well Spent in Communities with Feverbee Founder and Enterprise Community Strategist, Richard Millington
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In this episode of the Experience Strategy Podcast, podcast hosts, Dave Norton and Aransas Savas explore the rapidly evolving landscape of enterprise community building with Rich Millington, founder of FeverBee and a leading expert in community strategy. With nearly two decades of experience helping organizations build thriving communities for members, customers, and employees, Richard brings a wealth of knowledge from working with industry giants like Google, Facebook, Oracle, and Wikipedia. His insights challenge traditional notions of community management, advocating for supporting existing ecosystems rather than controlled forums, and offering practical strategies for mapping community landscapes and measuring real outcomes. Tune in to this episode for a fresh perspective on creating meaningful, collaborative experiences that drive genuine value for businesses and their stakeholders.
Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the experience strategy podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent. And now here are your hosts experience nerds, Dave [00:00:15] Norton and Aransas Savas.
Aransas: Welcome to the experience strategy podcast. I'm Aransas Savas
Dave: and I'm Dave Norton.
Aransas: And today we are joined by Rich Millington, the founder of Fever Bee. And, uh, I've given him the title Enterprise [00:00:30] Community Strategist, but he'll tell us in a minute what he likes to call himself, because what he's doing is he's helping enterprises. strategize communities. So it seemed like an apt fit.
Rich, thank you for joining us today.
Richard: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me on. [00:00:45] I'm excited for the next half an hour we have together.
Aransas: Yeah. So tell us what you're doing over at FeverBeat just to start.
Richard: Sure. So FeeVB is essentially a consultancy I founded in 2009, 2010. [00:01:00] Um, whenever the financial crisis was at its worst, I think that's when I began.
Um, and so we essentially help organizations develop successful communities of customers, fans, employees, specifically what I think we're very. Good at, if you don't mind me tooting my [00:01:15] own horn for a bit. So I think we're very good at, we're pro horn tooting here. Excellent. Excellent. Um, I think we're very good at combining the psychology with technology.
Like I think there's a common trait where organizations, as you know, will launch a thing and [00:01:30] then they'll expect people to use the thing. And then they get very disappointed when these people don't use the thing. We always look at it from, What is the need? What is the desire? Where do people go to satisfy those desires today?
And what is the role that a community can play? [00:01:45] Cause also communities are changing, you know, the way we used to engage 10 years ago, 15 years ago was a forum. We go to a central place and this would be our community. But now I don't know about you, but. I engage with my peers on LinkedIn. I have private WhatsApp groups.
There [00:02:00] are influencers that I follow in this space. And so the nature of community is changing as well. So I think more and more of our work is helping organizations navigate that change as much as like developing strategies, measuring the results, training the staff. Um, so it's a [00:02:15] good collection of things, but it's quite.
Exciting. And it's always been an exciting time to work in this field.
Aransas: Yeah, absolutely. And I was looking at your trend report today for 2024 and one of the trends that really stood out to me was the pervasiveness [00:02:30] of community, uh, saying community is everywhere. And I couldn't agree more. I, uh, in addition to this wonderful podcast, also host another podcast where I talk to inspiring women who've overcome big obstacles and every single woman.
At some point when you say, [00:02:45] how'd you do this? They say, well, there was this community. I found these other people who thought like me, or there was no community. So I built this other community of people who thought like me. So for enterprises who are trying to stand out in [00:03:00] what is now entirely pervasive, what's important for them to think about?
Richard: I think the reality today is community isn't, Something that you can control in one central place, like the playbook for 10 years or [00:03:15] more for any organizations building a community was decide your goals, select a platform, seed some activity, drive people to the platform, and then grow by search. That was the playbook that organizations have been running for a long time.
I think now we've [00:03:30] got to think about. What exists already in the ecosystem that's out there? Who are the influencers, the groups, the leaders that are already doing interesting things, and instead of trying and trying to control it, we have to think about how can we support it? Cause if there are [00:03:45] already existing subreddits and meetups, why would you compete with that?
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever when you can support it. And also you don't then have to do the work yourself. So it makes a lot more sense to think, what do we as an, as an Organization [00:04:00] today, what the assets that we have in terms of the resources, the expertise, the access, the audience, and how can we use them to support people in the ecosystem already?
And that's when we find strategies such as finding out what groups are out there and helping [00:04:15] those groups grow. Grow bigger by promoting them and providing them access to our organization, having our experts on that can be on podcasts and speak at events and promote these events and activities. So for us, we think of it as a network map, you [00:04:30] know, those network maps with the nodes.
And we think of each of those leaders or groups that exist already as a node. And we think of the connections between each node and the brand. And our goal really is to increase the sentiment that each leader has towards us [00:04:45] as, as the brand, increase the connections that we have with them. Ideally with more formal partnerships that we can work with or at least unofficial partnerships as well.
And then really make sure we're helping them be as successful as they can be because people are so [00:05:00] motivated and there's so many stories out there that blow my mind. One of my favorite, if you don't mind the segue here, everyone listening to this, you look up Miss Excel. I don't know if you have like notes to this, but Miss Excel is an amazing human being who a couple of years ago during the pandemic, [00:05:15] she decided she is going to share Microsoft Excel advice.
While dancing in Tik Tok videos. And if you take that, if you take that to any brand manager whatsoever, they're going to be like, this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Who's going to [00:05:30] want to listen to that? And it turns out everyone wants to watch it. And she's a superstar. And she's launched whole courses on how to use Excel and this is how she promotes herself.
And you can fight against that. You know, and try and get her to share a video just in [00:05:45] your place that you control or whatever, or you can promote it and promoting it is the better option. And she's building a whole community there. She's teaching people how to use Excel better. That's a win. And there are all these wins that are out there.
Once you start looking at who's in the ecosystem, what do they need? And [00:06:00] how do we help them get the best results we can? Because the brand, what? I mean, I I'm pragmatic about brands and communities. Ideally brands would really support a community to build a sense of belonging and, and kumbaya and all those great things, but [00:06:15] brands want real results and communities can deliver that.
They can reduce the number of people that contact your cost, your customer support. They can make people more loyal to your brand. They can teach people how to use your products and services a lot better. They can nurture advocates for your brand. So they're very [00:06:30] real outcomes here. And if you support the ecosystem, that's what you get.
And it's harder to measure than what we used to have before, but it's so much better than what we had before.
Dave: Richard, one of the things that you've done there is you've, you've almost made the term [00:06:45] ecosystem synonymous with community. What are the differences between a community versus an ecosystem? Or are we evolving from kind of that forum based format that Was owned by the [00:07:00] brand to something that is completely different.
What are your thoughts on that?
Richard: Yeah, I think everyone might have a different definition of it, but we see a community, one part of an ecosystem to take, um, Microsoft is one of our clients and we're being helping there with the [00:07:15] Microsoft answers community for a long time, and it's a huge community. It's where millions of people every year go to get answers to any Microsoft question that's out there today.
But they're not the only game in town, like people also get, getting answers by [00:07:30] going to subreddits, which have hundreds of thousands of people that are sharing and answering questions there. There's also these influencers as we're talking about that are helping each other learn how to use the products and get the most out products by proactively sharing tips and advice, there's [00:07:45] partners and consultants that have their own groups.
There's a whole Azure thing where they have that whole separate Places and events where they go to for that. And so we think of a community as one part of an ecosystem and there might be multiple communities in that [00:08:00] ecosystem, but it's everyone that is relevant. Every stakeholder that is relevant to that space.
So I don't. Get too deep into the semantics of it. Cause I feel on the internet, people love to have furious arguments about the precise definition of things. So I don't [00:08:15] get too deep into that, but I think of a community as one part of an ecosystem. Alongside events, alongside the key influences in that space, alongside learning courses, everywhere that people can go to satisfy their needs for learning, support and [00:08:30] influence and connection, that's what I consider part of the ecosystem.
Aransas: I love that. And. Like you, we're using Substack to build community around our work. Uh, so I'm curious how you are [00:08:45] using that to build a community of community builders.
Richard: You know, I'm actually not. Um, so I have two separate things. I have my Feverbee site where I've been blogging since 2008, and that's [00:09:00] where people come and they learn and they get information that hopefully that they can use.
And on top of that, I also try to help support the internet. Ecosystem ourselves by doing podcasts, by speaking at events. And that bent that benefits me, of course, I'm not [00:09:15] going to pretend it's an altruistic endeavor, but like I try to support the ecosystem because then it supports me as well. Um, and then there's private WhatsApp groups.
I'm a part of with key influencers in our space where we share, uh, what's going on. There's private events as platform [00:09:30] vendors. I engage with just one part of what I do. The way we got connected was through the sub stack because. A couple of years ago, and this might be on a tangent here is that I realized a lot of the advice about consulting was really out of date.[00:09:45]
And I remember reading a book or blog and the author who I won't name was talking about what kind of suit to wear to a client meeting. And I'm like, if I go into Facebook. Well, even Microsoft today wearing a suit, I'm going to look so [00:10:00] out of place, you know, and so what I wanted to do, because there's also a time where the tech layoffs were happening and lots of people were becoming consultants as well.
So I wanted to create a place where people could get advice from someone that is doing it today. Um, [00:10:15] not just someone that's, you know, that's been giving consulting advice, but someone that's actually hands on doing it. Um, that's not to disrespect the other sources of information. Everyone has their own experience that works for them, but I started a subsect for that where I've been sharing [00:10:30] advice and tips, but what's been really interesting is I was getting one or two new followers a day and that was fine, you know, I was happy with that.
It was more of a side. project for me. And then a couple of months ago, I began connecting with all the other authors that are [00:10:45] out there, like Dave and a bunch of others. And then we just began connecting with each other formally and informally. And those recommendations began to come in for like, Each other sites, and then it's just grown so, so fast.
And I think that's the lesson I would take away from this, which is [00:11:00] you can't just put content out there today and expect it to catch on. You need to build that distribution community for it. You need to build people that want to help you because you've helped them. You know, one of the projects we're working with.
Intel on at the moment is the [00:11:15] employee advocacy program. And it's easy because a lot of people think, Oh, you just share advice on, on LinkedIn and it catches on. But a lot of what we talk about is you've got to be connecting with others. You've got to have people that want to help you that are going to like your stuff and share and [00:11:30] connect with your stuff when the biggest, um, Game changing moments for me was a sitting on a plane a couple of years ago.
And as next to some Instagram influencer, and I think he worked in like, I don't know what the term is, but the paranormal space. [00:11:45] Um, so they went to haunted houses and found ghosts. I don't exactly know how it works. I didn't get too deep into that part, but asking them like, What do you, you know, about Instagram and sharing content that most people don't?
[00:12:00] And they said, well, the key thing is you've got to be in, in a pod, a group of people that help promote each other's stuff, like it, share it, and retweet it. And that's how it works. And some people think it's gaming the [00:12:15] algorithms and. That's certainly a valid concern, but if you've been a community that want to help you, I think that's nice.
Um, so I went way off track there, but hopefully, no,
Dave: no,
Richard: no, it's,
Dave: it's not completely off track because I think that's one of the [00:12:30] things that we really wanted to talk to you about is the work that you're doing on sub stack and this idea of a pod that you have a pod, you know, a Rancis, you've talked about this to me personally, um, about having [00:12:45] a group.
That works together, um, is a really fascinating idea, even in the area where we're focused, which is around experience strategy, because I personally tend to think [00:13:00] of myself as a lone wolf. type of person who thinks up things, makes things happen, but I have to say that it's my colleagues. We work so well together, Rancis and I, Joe [00:13:15] Pine and I, um, Mary and, and the whole team.
Uh, working together. I don't know how I would do it without, without them. They're obviously within the organization. I think what you're talking about is a group of people, [00:13:30] like minded people that are outside of the organization as well. But it's such an important thing to pay attention to.
Aransas: It's so in our DNA, right?
Our core program as an organization is a program called the Collaboratives, [00:13:45] where we bring. Thought leaders and experience strategy together to solve big hairy problems for their organization. We provide the research, they take it home and have big impact with it. And they're learning from one [00:14:00] another across categories the entire time.
And so for us, it's just a very natural brand fit to build community. And yet I think even if you have the idea. Let's create community, actually doing [00:14:15] it as you probably know better than anyone, Rich is tough. And so I thought it might be interesting for us to sort of workshop this a little bit, both for us selfishly to get your ideas, but also because I think it's easier to [00:14:30] learn this stuff through application.
And so hearing these very real examples will hopefully really serve the listeners too.
Dave: So I love this idea of workshopping and we get some free advice from Richard on this. Um, so [00:14:45] we've, we have literally had a forum kind of format. Now I started building collaboratives back in 2005. Uh, for other companies and not for our [00:15:00] company, but for other companies.
And at first I didn't know what I was doing. I was kind of invited into somebody else had already started a collaborative and literally it's, you know, it's companies coming together, working on a major initiative [00:15:15] together while at the same time solving for specific challenges that they're trying to solve.
Solve for, they have these quarterly meetings that occur. We want to obviously grow this program. The program kind of [00:15:30] grows when the economy's doing well. And then when, when travel budgets get cut, you know, it kind of slows down a little bit and then it grows again and stuff like that. So there's a, there's an ebb and a flow [00:15:45] to the program itself.
We, we put it on every year, regardless. But, um, and there's lots and lots of people who have been through the program at different times, so it's, it's, we're, we're proud of it, but. [00:16:00] There's certainly room for growth.
Aransas: Well, and I think if we were to say, if we were to put this, you know, within all the work that Stone Mantle does put some guardrails around it and, uh, as we workshop, think about how might we create community [00:16:15] for the participants in the collaborative that both adds value to the experience of the collaborative itself.
And attracts new participants in the collaborative through building a true community of [00:16:30] experienced strategists. Um, how would you approach that challenge, Richard?
Richard: Yeah. So I, I, um, did an internship. Years ago in New York with Seth Godin, who you might know.
Aransas: [00:16:45] Starstruck.
Richard: And like the questions he used to drill into me then are the same questions that I approach a lot of my client projects today, only with a little more consultancy language in it, I guess, which is when you tell me that we want to grow, [00:17:00] I'm trying to translate it into a problem.
And the problem is why aren't you growing? That's how I think about it. And then we get to questions like, do people know you exist? Do they care that you exist? Um, and if they do care, [00:17:15] are they getting that same value somewhere else? And we begin with a framework like that and try and figure out which of those, because as a, as a consultancy, we always like, Just map out what the is issues are and try to get very specific into what is the problem we need to solve.[00:17:30]
Mm-Hmm, . And so the first thing would be awareness. So typically I would look at your audience, speak to your audience, your target audience, and try to just ask them if they're aware of the program, if it exists, you know, the people that you want to reach. And try and figure out what percentage [00:17:45] know you exist.
Typically, and I'm not saying this for you, but most organizations massively overestimate the awareness that they have. They think because they sent a message to someone once that's that person [00:18:00] remembered it for life. But most of us can't remember any messages that we received yesterday. Um, and so, you know, if you think about the recall rates on Twitter, Advertisements or commercials is the same thing.
So we look at the awareness and try and [00:18:15] figure out what percentage of the audience is aware that you exist. If they're not aware, then it becomes a promotional problem that you need to solve, and we can think about campaigns and marketing efforts to do that. And we can talk more about that in a second.
If they're aware that you exist and they're not joining, the [00:18:30] harsh way of saying it is that they don't care that you exist. But the, maybe the nice way is like the value proposition isn't aligned with what they need. Um, and this is where we try and do a lot of research and understand what do they need?
What are their desires? [00:18:45] Is the language matching up? Is the format the right way? Is there other examples that we can learn from in your industry and other, in industries as well that we can bring into this? And then if they know you exist and the value is aligned, it's why aren't they [00:19:00] joining? Usually because they're getting that value from somewhere else.
And then the challenge is how do you prove you're better than the competition? Or, or, or to be more specific, how'd you become better than, than the competition? Cause obviously worse could only get you so far and that's being cheaper, [00:19:15] being better or more targeted. Do you think of it as like an issue tree?
We try and go get on the branch and think about what specific issues do we need to solve? And this is usually, obviously, you know, you're not a client and we're doing this in five minutes, but based on those [00:19:30] questions, what would you.
Dave: I would argue that one of our biggest challenges, honestly, is awareness.
Um, it is very easy to generate content, very easy to create podcasts and [00:19:45] things of that nature. But the easiness of it makes it so that there's so many other people out there that are doing the exact same thing. Right? There was a time years ago where we could send out [00:20:00] an email and people would see it.
But that
Richard: doesn't those days,
Dave: but in today's marketplace, there's so much content that is [00:20:15] buying for people's attention. And it's overwhelming to them. So awareness is always an issue.
Richard: So we can break awareness down into a couple of areas too, which is one, do you [00:20:30] know who your target audience is and can you reach them?
And if you reach them, can you get a message that lands? So we can break it down further. Like, do you know how to reach that target audience? What's the A to B? Where does your. Audience come from because you need a sustainable fountain of [00:20:45] people that you can reach out to, you know, and so you've got to pick what is the acquisition.
And I know that, you know, a lot of this already, but for the benefits of the audience.
Dave: Sure.
Richard: And so then we think, okay, where does the audience hang out at the moment? What are their sources of influence? And this kind of goes back to that [00:21:00] map that we were talking about before. What is the existing ecosystem?
Where do people go for advice and expertise? And then we start thinking about how we can engage on those channels. So we need an A to B. Honestly, it used to be search, you know, it used to [00:21:15] be search, good content, would attract search. That doesn't happen as well today. So it's more like we have to go through people that are building their audiences elsewhere and see if we can reach them somehow, build up a mailing list, then get our audience to spread our messages typically.
Then we look [00:21:30] at the message itself. When I'm advising other cons, consortium space, which is stop self promoting and run a marketing campaign. And that should highlight where is your audience today? [00:21:45] Where do they need to be? And what is the gap behind that? Cause then you can highlight. So in my sector, for example, like I did a big push last year on community everywhere, which was a term that.
I don't think I came up for it. I think I borrowed it from someone else, but I don't know exactly where, [00:22:00] but I think we helped popularize that, which is community isn't just a hosted place anymore. So you need to advance to this different stage, which is community everywhere, engaging in multiple channels and all those things.
And we put, um, case studies behind that. We put [00:22:15] resources to promote that. We had events and activities behind that. So all linked up to that central message. And because we knew the message was going to upset people, it was controversial. And it's spread, there's a lot of like how to [00:22:30] guides, you know, how to do this, how to do this.
And, but you need a message that other people are going to amplify on your behalf. And to do that, you need something that's either controversial, something that, you know, they're going to agree with that reinforces that point of view, you know, those emotional [00:22:45] triggers. And you have to think about what is the messaging behind that.
And the more you think about content from that perspective. That's how it usually works. And the final thing we'd look at is what is the format for that content? Like, a lot of people think of content as [00:23:00] blog posts, but that's just one way of distributing a message. There's webinars, there's videos. I mean, I think video is probably a very interesting place right now, because there's The barrier to good is a lot higher and there's far less, I mean, it's still [00:23:15] a very competitive place.
I think hosting events, which I think you're doing already is another option. Um, webinars are an option, but I think people can explore the different kinds of, I think of content like books. You know, we've gotten so many clients from [00:23:30] the books that I've published and there's a higher barrier to good.
There as well. So I try and break it down into exactly what it is. Is it you can't reach them? Is it that you can't get the message to land or is it the format isn't quite right and it's too competitive in that space [00:23:45] and then you have some idea of where specifically to target and what to say to get people to come to you.
Dave: Wonderful, great, great advice on the, on the spur of the moment there for us and and
Richard: if it [00:24:00] doesn't, there's no refund. So, um, you can just tell us you get what you hit,
Aransas: you get what you pay for. It's interesting too. I did a tick tock. course recently, uh, just [00:24:15] to see what some of these viral creators were talking about.
And it's very similar formatting to what you're talking about, right? It all comes back to the same thing, which is have a really strong hook, uh, come up with repeatable formats and [00:24:30] create provocation.
Richard: Gimmicks. There's a lot of like, where it goes too, too far to be engaging and that works if you're Mr. Beast, you know, the top YouTube person who's giving away jumbo jets or whatever, you [00:24:45] know, that's going to go viral no matter what it does. I think for a business audience, there's a line, right? We want to stay on the right side of that line.
And so it always has to be adding a lot of value. But if you exist, it has to be something, you know, is true that your clients don't, or your audience doesn't. [00:25:00] Doesn't and that's where it's really interesting to find case studies and stories and facts and survey results and all those things to support that.
Cause that's the kind of thing that spreads. And I don't want to be controversial just for the sake of it, but I do want to highlight truths [00:25:15] that most people don't know. And I think that's a really good place. That's such
Aransas: a good distinction right there.
Richard: Cause tick tock. If you find yourself recording videos where you're dancing, I mean, there's nothing wrong with dancing.
It can work for Excel, but like, it wouldn't work for [00:25:30] me. It probably would have worked for you. Um, but yeah, there's a line. I'd make sure we stay on. Oh, there's no video.
Aransas: What is that? We made The Apple Dance, uh, Charlie XCX. It was like the hit of the summer.
Richard: [00:25:45] Oh, I was not included in that. I
Aransas: have teenagers, so I know things.
You
Richard: clearly
Aransas: do. You learn a lot raising teenagers, I'm discovering.
Richard: I'll bet.
Aransas: Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's [00:26:00] about authenticity, both in terms of the format and the delivery, but also in terms of the value. But, you know.
Richard: One other thing I'd add to that is it has to be something that you feel comfortable with as well.
Not every format is right for every person. Some people [00:26:15] love to write. I love to write. I'm passionate about it. Some people like to do video, but if you're not excited about that format, it doesn't work. Like, you just, you just I have
Aransas: a theory on [00:26:30] this, Richard, that everyone has a native tongue and I, I tell this to clients a lot.
Like once we unlock the communication method that you feel most natural and authentic using content creation becomes. It's [00:26:45] exciting and enticing and not a have to do or an obligation. There are so many platforms now and Substack's an amazing example of that because it's built for growth, growth of list, [00:27:00] growth of connections, but it's also a really authentic platform for people who are audio, video, or recording.
Writing or all three, right. But it's like, if you try to force yourself into content that, I mean, heart is [00:27:15] good, it's great. You know, like there's a value in stretching yourself, but if you're going to do something like content, it's got, it takes a lot of repetition. And so you might as well just go to the place where it's easy for you.
And that's why Dave likes to write.
Dave: Yeah. So I was going to say, our [00:27:30] answers tell everyone what your native tongue is and what my native tongue is.
Aransas: Dave's is definitely writing and mine is definitely talking.
Dave: Right.
Aransas: Um, I do write a lot and I do a lot of [00:27:45] video, but it's really, it's spoken word is my most natural communication method and Dave's is, is mostly written.
And yours is written Richard? Right.
Richard: Yeah, I like public speaking as well, but written is probably the primary one, but [00:28:00] I would say even within that medium or channel, whatever you choose to use, there's so much opportunity for creativity. You know, there's so many, if dancing Excel tips can work, there's so much opportunity.
There's different ways that you don't have to just copy what [00:28:15] everyone's doing. And often it's better not to. And if you've got a really wacky idea, like having a live debate and vibe, this is one of the things we did years ago. I had like, a big debate with my biggest, um, competitor in this space. And it was amazing.
We had [00:28:30] more signups for that than anything else. It grew my audience massively. It grew his audience in a big way. And so there's so many options to be creative and you can look around any media platform and see what's interesting. You know, some people just do, you know, The reviews of platform [00:28:45] vendors, that's an interesting way of doing it.
That's useful information. And so I try to avoid copying what the top people in your space do and try and think of what would be creative and interesting and fun and enjoyable for you to actually do, you know, there's a lot of [00:29:00] like now and then contrast that have worked really, really well. You know, of like, there's so much opportunity for creativity.
And I feel very often we resort to how to do this, how to do that. And that's. It's competitive and it's kind of boring. Um, yeah. [00:29:15]
Aransas: That's such a good reminder. Um, because if you're bored with it, the audience is going to feel it too, right? Like, how can you expect them to be energized by what doesn't energize you?
Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. Well, we're [00:29:30] really grateful for this time with you and, uh, I'm sure we could talk to you for hours longer. Um, for folks who want to get started with enterprise community, what do you recommend as the first steps?
Richard: If I [00:29:45] can self promote, then I think that. My website feverbee.
com has a beginner's guide that everyone can go to, and it's got a whole getting started. Also my book, Build Your Community, um, I think can help as well. But otherwise, [00:30:00] just Do it, you know, like start a WhatsApp group, invite people to it and find out what works and doesn't work. Find out your style, get comfortable, like welcoming people to the group, introducing them to others, understanding [00:30:15] how do you motivate people about any power to do things that you know are going to help the community?
What are the emotional triggers that you can use and the tools that you can use to make that happen? So like most things, just do it. Don't get so [00:30:30] caught up in the. The dogma around it, I think in the community space, there's a lot of like, this is the right way to do it. I would say just do it. Everyone has a different way of, of making it work for them and there's so many options for it.
So just do it. I think that's a slogan for Nike, for Nike as well. [00:30:45]
Aransas: Going where the people are, as you said before, I tried for a long time to build community in a community platform and it was so, I mean, it was amazing. It was built to make community easy and yet it was so hard to get people to [00:31:00] go somewhere they hadn't been.
Richard: Yeah. And then they have to remember to go every day. They
Aransas: have to show up a thousand times.
Richard: And that doesn't happen that often.
Aransas: No. But if you have, you know, I'm, that's the brilliance of meta, right? Like the, the, I think [00:31:15] Facebook groups are an extraordinary innovation for them. And I, I feel like I wish they had more strategic vision around that product because it's such an inviting place to find your people, uh, where they already [00:31:30] are.
Even if Facebook is a little passe for some communities, uh, that element is so differentiated. It'll be really interesting to see how that evolves over the next few years.
Richard: You know, one last thing I'd add to that on the technology [00:31:45] side is that we had a client that is a community for self employment.
CFOs, CEOs, and C level execs. They're using a mailing list. In 2024, they're using a mailing list and it works [00:32:00] because generally speaking, it comes to your inbox. You, you can respond. It wouldn't work if there were 10, 000 people on it, but when you're just getting started, having your community come to people.
Instead of them having to go to it is a big [00:32:15] deal. And so sometimes just simple technology just works and you don't need to overthink it. You just need to do it.
Aransas: That's a really good point. That's a really good point and make it easy on people to get the value. This was terrific. [00:32:30] And, uh, I think we know where to find you.
We'll put those links in the show notes along with some of these, uh, creators that now we know you're dying to go, uh, learn from this Excel. So we'll make it easy for you to find her. Uh, [00:32:45] For those of you listening, let's continue the conversation over on Substack. We'd love to hear from you. Uh, we'll post this episode there and there's a chat section.
And our dream for that chat section is that it's a [00:33:00] place for you to engage with Rich, to engage with us, and most importantly, to engage with other members of the Substack community who are passionate about experience strategy. And so, let's keep talking to each other. [00:33:15] We really believe that we all rise higher together.
And so, the smarter we all are about this stuff, the better off we all are in terms of our impact. Dave, Rich, thank you. Thanks a lot.
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