Acknowledgments
Dad, my very first editor and coach and the original techie geek in my life! Thank you for all the red ink over the years and for the red ink you’ve contributed to this book. You’ve made tech and sports an integral part of my life and influenced my approach to learning, performance, and optimization in the pool, on the track, and in life. Thank you for teaching me about the wonders of “PRs”—the small wins all add up!
Mom, the originator of #toughlove. Thank you for being that one constant fire under my ass and for the impossibly high standards you have always held me to, for keeping our heads screwed on straight, and motivating us to accomplish more than we ever thought possible. Thank you for the values you’ve instilled in Gina and me along the way. My community instincts and sense of curation stem from your Italian “take care of your own” family principles. And it’s not just because you taught me how to make an amazing lasagna and host the ultimate dinner party.
Gina, thank you for the reminder that I am more than just my work and that people are really interested to know the whole person.
This book likely would not have come to life without the General Assembly (@GA) family and Brad Hargreaves. Thank you for asking me to whip up a community “workshop” back in the beginning of 2011. It’s hard to believe, after all that has gone into this book, that my deep dive into capturing the art and science of community started as an experiment to support our fellow startup friends building and gaining adoption for great tech products. What started as an evening experiment has grown into an international educational and entrepreneurial success! I couldn’t be more proud to have been part of the journey and to share the community curriculum from GA with a greater audience.
Brad, I wish we had saved the napkin we were drawing on at the Tipping Point cocktail event on community frameworks; it would have proven to be a great artifact. Thank you for suggesting I had a lot to share and for giving me a ton of rope to do so in the GA community over the past several years. It’s been an amazingly fulfilling journey!
Shirley, one of my very first students at General Assembly, I’m so proud of the work that you did building out the community and customer support strategy for Quirky. It’s hard to believe that the first GA experimental “course” on community resulted in such an amazing collaboration. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with you over the years. You’ve been with me since the inception of this book and every step along the way, and you’ve been an amazing partner and a crucial validating board (and sanity check) through this process. #braincrush
Whitney, you are the most operational-minded creative that I have met to date. I have tremendous respect and gratitude for what you bring to the Perks team in constantly supporting and challenging our bias toward action. Your help on the home stretch of this project, like so many others, was essential to delivering the final output. A massive thank-you for your always-on bias toward action!
Janine, a gal couldn’t ask for a better thought partner! You’ve added so much to the secret sauce at Perks, not only in developing our methodologies and frameworks but also in bringing them to life onsite both for clients and for the greater business and brand community in our teaching work and projects such as this one. Your critical eye and constant consideration to aligning all initiatives to the greater organizational goals and outcomes is clutch! Your dedication to and support of continuing to elevate the role of community and audience for the benefit of the brand and the business brings our organizational design model to life.
Chris Agnos, a massive thank-you for being on my team from Day One at Perks and for all of your support through the company’s journey in the last seven years. I don’t know if I would have made it through the early years without your operational rigor. Your critical yet curious nature is certainly what took a failed agency project with our @sustainablegal and @sustainableman hypothesis into a thriving sustainable community on Facebook. It’s been amazing to see a technical and operational lead like you dive into the customer discovery and validation work that you’ve done with Sustainable Man to make it the homegrown success it has become with your million-plus followers.
Barbara, a gal couldn’t ask for a better friend to get into the data weeds with! You always help pull the insights and the stories out of every initiative. I look forward to continuing to build out performance measurement and benchmarking frameworks, tools, and approaches to support the core disciplines delivering value to the end audience across the brand, community, marketing, and product suite.
To the entire Perks Consulting team, you’ve all poured more into this project than we ever imagined possible or necessary. Emily, you got me through more than a few bumps along the way. Evan, your research and reading evaluations made this book a better resource for new community managers. Sara, your honesty and energy is something every community needs—I’m lucky to have you as a strategic partner! Priscila, Patricia, and Evelyn, each of you have brought your talents to bear to get this project to market.
To the CMX community and its stewards, David and Carrie, the mission you’re on to elevate the role of community managers is an important one, and it couldn’t be in better hands! Thank you for inviting and involving me in this community of community pros. It is unlike any community I’ve ever belonged to and is truly one of the most supportive and genuine groups I’ve had the pleasure to be part of. I’m honored by your support and for helping share my work. I look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.