My (Un)conference Experience

Firstly, this was my first time hearing the word "unconference", wild right? But yea, we learn every day. The thing is that I have been in such a setting before but didn't know what it was.

The event happened on the 9th of March, 2023. I had initially seen the conference on the CMX workspace and because I had a goal to intentionally attend more events for community managers this year, seeing one by CMs for CMs was delighting. I registered and even applied to be a volunteer. Yes, I enjoy volunteering but sadly couldn't do much of that on the day of the event.

Okay, you might also be wondering what unconference is, right? Well, if you didn't know about it before now, unconferences typically have a more informal and participant-driven format compared to traditional conferences. The Community Managers Unconference themed "Learning from what works now, to innovate on Community" was exactly the format of an unconference. Below is how it worked

1. You show up with your pain points and ideas

2. Chaos ensues

3. Ideas organized into incredible talks, discussions and networking breakouts

4. Everyone together co-creates a courageous space and generates ridiculous value for each other!

Pretty cool yea? Yes. This was a hybrid event and I joined virtually. There was a miro board where attendees (both physical and virtual) filled in their ideas/pain points and there were breakout sessions where we talked about these different ideas; from burnouts in community management to measuring impacts and demonstrating business value to tools and platforms to use for engagement in community management to prioritizing DEI in community building and many more but most importantly support even for community managers. We discussed intensively on each of these ideas and it was nothing short of amazing to witness the shared passion among us as community managers.

I didn't participate much in the burnout session but the little I engaged in was therapeutical. I participated more in the "Prioritizing DEI in community building" and "Support for community managers" and below are my key takeaways from both sessions.

1. To attract a diverse range of individuals, it is essential to have diversity

2. Having clear community guidelines that have the interest of everyone

3. What works for everyone is a lowest common denominator

4. When trying to find a solution to a problem or make a decision that should work for everyone, your best bet is to identify the most fundamental elements that are common to all parties involved.

5. Community managers wear many hats, and it is easy to get weary of everything. Having a small community of people on the same path as you listen to you which in turn will make you feel better is great

6. Set clear boundaries and safeguard

7. Speak up when you're not having it anymore, rant to someone, people, and

8. Most importantly, take good care of yourself. It's easy to look out for everyone else and forget to treat yourself right

While I attended to listen and learn from amazing CMs in attendance, I also had the honour to keynote! I couldn't contain my joy when I was informed. I was scared and nervous but I think I did great. A big shoutout to Omotola Omotayo, who has always been a good advisor and friend. She cheered me up from the start to the finish.

I spoke on the topic "The power of Experimentation in Community Innovation".

Experimentation is a way of discovering new things… to test a hypothesis.

It was a little hard for me to pick a topic to speak on cause I wasn't sure what keynoting was like since I hadn't done it before. But I think it ended up being the best because experimenting is something I have come to love. I even have a few things lined up I want to run experimentation on in my current community 😅

I went on to highlight that there's no innovation without experimentation. It's basically... the more you fuck around, the more you find out.

I spoke on how you should get started with experimentation in your community.

Summary of how to get started:

1. Document your results: Have a historical record of the experiments you’ve already tried, but more importantly, how they went and why they went that way so you know when to re-try and when to abandon the idea.

2. Define the purpose of your experiment: Don’t just research things to endlessly track numbers and metrics. Align your experiments with goals.

I also shared some challenges when it comes to experimenting to drive innovation in a community.

Challenges to Community:

1. Experimentation requires access. If you are low on resources you cannot reasonably experiment

2. A lack of support: will lead to aggravating red tape

3. You need to embrace the failed experiments without fear

Overall, I heard a swell time at the community managers' unconference. A big thank you to Samantha "Venia" Logan, Jill Nicholson and James Arthur C. for organising the unconference event.

What people shared after the unconference event.

I know you saw it too! But seriously, no one has in the first instance correctly said what we do as community managers lol. I saw a tweet recently where we were called "village heads" 😭

Okay, that's all from me. Make sure to follow the "Community Managers Unconference" to stay up to date on when the next event will be happening. Here https://twitter.com/cmgr_unconf

See you!