Jared Chung
CareerVillage.org TeamHow much control do you have over what you do daily in a community management job? Is it a reactive or proactive job?
[This is part of a question series for CMX Summit to highlight exciting careers in community management. If you are interested in a career in community management, now would be a good time to ask a question of your own!]
Some of us like to have control over what we do — others like the excitement that comes from unpredictability. To what extent do you (as a community manager) control what you are working on. Is it more like fire fighting (reacting to crisis) or more like civil engineering (planned out months in advance)? #community-management
1 answer
Philippe Beaudette
Philippe’s Answer
Great question, Jared -
As with so many things, this one gets an "it depends" for an answer. Community managers work in a variety of ways - the sole practitioner who is the only community manager for a game, for instance, operates very differently from my team of 10 at reddit.
But in all cases, you'll find that community managers are risk managers and triagers. We are presented with tasks to do, or we create them on our own, and we triage and manage the risk, handling them from the most-likely-to-explode-in-our-face to the least-likely.
These issues are often driven by others - the product team, the game devs, customer success, etc... but ultimately, someone on the community team (either the Director, as on my team, or the sole practitioner) needs to do that triage. That's the person who controls your day. :)
Thank you so much for your answer! It sounds like it's definitely a situation where you can't normally predict what you're going to be dealing with or define what you work on. A follow up question I have is to what extent that makes the job difficult emotionally or mentally. How do give up that control and you stay "up for whatever" every day?
Jared Chung, Admin