Acknowledgements
Books may have a single scribe but they’re nearly always a product of their community.
This book is no exception. In fact, I consider it the product of two communities.
The first community are the people who helped me bring this book to life from scratch.
A thank you to my friend and fellow author Nathalie Nahai for pushing me to dream bigger for this book. A huge thank you to Eloise Cook at Pearson for believing in this project and serving as my editor throughout a year of writing and rewriting. Her thoughts, feedback and encouragement helped me battle the curse of knowledge and make this an infinitely better book.
A special thanks to Bridget Menyeh for pulling together and summarising much of the research that was used in this book. Very few people can take complex and often ambiguous questions and summarise the results of dozens, even hundreds, of academic articles on the topic.
Another thank you to Rick Landers for his help with design and some of the graphics used in this book. I also want to thank my colleague, Clare Layton, who has been my reliable assistant for five years and my accountant, Marit Olson, who has been my accountant for ten years.
The amazing community of community leaders
The second community is the thousands of community leaders around the world giving their all to create the best possible experiences for members. The lessons they’ve learned and shared throughout the years are infused throughout this book.
The list here is too many to thank personally, but special notice to David Spinks for bringing so many of us together via CMX, Rachel Happe and Jim Storer for their analytical insights and research at the Community Roundtable, Carrie Melissa Jones for challenging all of us to be true, authentic communities. Also thanks to Patrick O’Keefe for reminding us to respect our past and Bill Johnston for peering into our future. A special credit to Jono Bacon, Anika Gupta and Priya Parker for their impressive books.
A huge debt of gratitude also to Erica Kuhl, Colleen Young, Evan Hamilton, Monique Van den Berg, Alexa Aliota, Carol Rooney, Liz Crampton, Allison Leahy, Gali-Kling Schneider, Marjorie Anderson, Sarah Hawk, Holly Firestone, Roy Munin, and many more for building and managing some of the best communities in the world today.
A special thanks to Brian Oblinger for helping review and critique the platform chapter of this book (and for doing some of the most impressive community work I’ve ever seen at Alteryx and now for his own clients).
Everyone needs peers to vent with and bounce ideas off and learn from. A special thanks here to Phoebe Venkat, Kirsten Wagenaar, Wendy Schippers, Alison Michalk, Venessa Paech, Adrian Speyer, Krista Hauser, Dani Weinstein, and others for giving frank and honest feedback on the community sector.
Finally, a special thank you to all of the hundreds of clients and thousands of course participants I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over the years. I truly feel I’ve learned more from you than you from me. Thank you.