Guest post by Paul Cockburn, Senior Account and Business Development Manager at eModeration
What is the collective noun for a gathering of community managers? I think I heard "talk" as the spot-prize-winning answer this last weekend, but if I had managed to get my hand in the air fast enough, I was going to say "swarm".
Swarm Community Conference (#swarmconf) is an annual gathering of community management professionals in Australia, the venue alternating between Melbourne and Sydney. This year over one hundred people attended a mixture of presentations, workshops and panels in the staggeringly-beautifully-named Donkey Wheel House in Melbourne. Right from the start, even the venue was cool - it houses The Hub, which is a shared and collaborative workspace. It also sits right above an awesome coffee house (Kinfolk, if you are ever in Melbourne). By the time the Hub had been strewn with social media professionals and MacBooks, and we were properly wired on latte, we were ready to go.
Would such a gathering be possible in a major city the other side of the equator these days? Yes, there were a few of us agency types there, but the conference was dominated by intensely passionate community managers looking after forums and social media for NGOs, not-for-profits and campaigns. Craig Thomler (@craigthomler) gave a presentation about who we were. Mostly female, mostly young, variously-paid, and either new to the industry (less than two years) or around for a while. A look around showed that we can also look kick-ass in a beret.
The speakers were the highlight of the first day. Maria Ogneva (@themaria) from Yammer opened the show with a peek over the rainbow at how to take your community to the next level.
Justin Isaf, Director of Community for the Huffington Post
There was philosophy from Matthew Allen (@netcrit), a dark vision of the future from Laurel Papworth which nearly had #shitstorm trending, and a panel at the end of the day where the people at the front cracked opened the beers. Now we could be sure we were in Australia (and it was damn fine beer too).
The star turn, though, was Justin Isaf from The Huffington Post who not only provided the audience with a top-of-presentation everyone will plagiarise, but completely wowed the audience with a peek under the hood at HuffPo. 10 comments a second. I'm just sayin'.
You could see some of the comments that really struck by the tweets and retweets. One such was: "Don't measure community on social metrics." More than anything, what came out at Swarm was the intense pride Australian community managers have in the communities they are guiding and assisting. At a time when the world is rushing for the instant fix of a Facebook page and 10,000 Likes, it was refreshing to see people interested - no, more than that... people who were passionate... about forums, about articles with comments appended, about good, old-fashioned websites.
Day two was largely held in the 'Basement Lounge' at Donkey Wheel House... which, in all honestly, was some kind of medieval dungeon that sprawled for miles. You had to be careful searching for the facilities, or you were out on the street. An intense and informative legal workshop by the disarmingly honest Jenny Duxbury was a real benefit, given recent court cases about social media and advertising. It was a salutary reminder that we are all one world, but not one law. Americans raised their eyebrows at defamation and contempt of court considerations; even a Brit could see subtle changes in emphasis.
Huge congratulations are due to Alison Michalk and Venessa Paech (@alisonmichalk and @venessapaech) for putting together this event, and connecting all these little islands of communities together, sharing ideas and developing what's next. What is next, you ask? Well, if I had a Macbook Air and a beret, my money would be on the continuing growth of a healthy and unique piece of the interwebs down under. Challenges abound, but with the right people, the right inspiration, and the right coffee, nothing is going to stop the swarm.