photo credit: 0uT$!d£r

Back in May, I wrote about a highly unfortunate experience that I had at a Diddy/Dirty Money concert at The NorVa, a concert hall in Norfolk, Virginia. A member of the tour’s security team was verbally and physically threatening toward me and a member of the venue’s security only made it worse.

But, the fact that it was an official with the tour underscored, for me, the importance of carefully choosing the people who stand on the front line, dealing directly with your customers. It is no longer acceptable to just be the “muscle” or a button pusher – everyone who interacts with your fans and your customers is an ambassador that can make or break a relationship.

photo credit: Mrs Logic

Today’s inspiration comes from Hannah Keys (this makes two posts in a row mentioning her), who wrote Stop Looking at Other Girls on her Stop Being Crap personal site.

The premise of the post, aimed at women, is that you should appreciate what you have physically, rather than looking at other women, deciding that they are more attractive than you in one way or another, and beating yourself up. Instead, Hannah says, you should appreciate what you do have and understand that each person has their own unique situation that helps dictate how they look or what they weigh. She explains this in her own funny way, so check it out.

I think that most (all?) people do this. Hannah did (totally unnecessarily!), I did and, heck, do. It’s a very human thing to do. I’m my own worst critic. If not physical appearance, it’s some decision, or my writing, or my business or when I speak at conferences (I pretty much tear myself apart every time I get off stage).

I’ve spent a good portion of the last few days on Turntable, the new social DJ service that allows anyone to be a virtual DJ, pulling from a licensed catalog of over 11 million songs. Right now, access is limited to those who have Facebook friends who are already on the service and access is known to open and close at random intervals.

Turntable itself is pretty simple. You can join any number of rooms (or create your own) and listen to music selected by the DJs playing in that room. You can vote each track played as “Awesome” or “Lame,” but you don’t have to vote. Marking it as “Awesome” will give a “DJ point” to the DJ who played it, while “Lame” does not take away a point. There is a meter at the bottom of the room which shows you what the overall sentiment of the room is toward the song. You can also “fan” your favorite DJs and be notified when they start DJing again in the future.

Speaking of listening to feedback from your customers online, storied video game developer and publisher Capcom has done more than just listen – they created an online community, the Devroom, where fans and aspiring game developers can help them develop “Mega Man Legends 3,” the upcoming Nintendo 3DS game, the latest entry in one of the company’s most important franchises.

Not only can community members participate in polls to help decide game features, character designs and more, but they can offer ideas and submit design and visual elements that will actually end up in the game. Not only are they running a community for North America, but they are also running a similar one in Japan.

Capcom’s efforts were spotlighted in the June issue of Nintendo Power by Chris Hoffman, who discussed some of the submissions that were accepted and featured an interview with “Mega Man 3 Legends” producer Tatsuya Kitabayashi, Capcom community manager Joveth Gonzalez (who has since moved over to Zynga) and Devroom community liaison Greg Moore.

photo credit: lisahumes

There are some who believe that the feedback that is offered on online communities, about their product, isn’t worth their attention because it’s only a small percentage of their customer base that may or may not be reflective of a larger majority.

The continuation of this belief is that business decisions shouldn’t be made based upon what is said in an online community or on the feedback being offered because these people are talking to themselves and simply participating an en echo chamber. (This ignores that online communities, and the people within them, can have a lot of influence beyond just their own community, but I’m going to skip past that as it’s not the point of this post).

Today, I would like to take some inspiration from Dr. Dre’s “I Need a Doctor” featuring Eminem and Skylar Grey. It’s a personal record for Dr. Dre and Eminem and a motivational one, as well. I love it.

I’m going to discuss some community management related takeaways from the song, which you can listen to at the bottom of this post by playing the music video. I should warn you, it is explicit and I quote some explicit lyrics in this article.

Give People Opportunities and Mentor Them

The biggest underlying theme in “I Need a Doctor” is the relationship that Eminem and Dr. Dre share. Dre is his mentor, someone who gave him a chance when others wouldn’t, who believed in him and helped him to reach the level of success that he has achieved.

photo credit: LifeSupercharger

I’ve come to a realization. I don’t ban people because they deserve it. I ban people because of my own flaws, personality issues or just because I like to toy with people. In other words, they have done nothing wrong.

At least, that’s the impression I get from the messages I receive from banned users or the ones I read where they complain about being banned.

It’s amazing to me how terrible I am at banning people. I really have no clue what I am doing. Even 11 years in, I have no idea.

photo credit: Chrissy Olson

Among the many traits that I value in a moderator, one of the most important is a strong attention to detail.

Details matter. A lot. Details are the difference between a post that violates your guidelines and one that doesn’t. Details are what ensures consistency in the application of those guidelines and in the handling of questionable content.

As administrator, I like to think of myself as moderation quality assurance. My staff removes the content that they feel is in violation of our guidelines, in line with our system of training, previous actions and our staff guidelines and manuals.

photo credit: andyarthur

If you run an online community, some people will refer to you as Hitler. Or some derivative. It’s a part of the job and is often a sign that you are doing your job well.

But, you know, not everyone thinks that you’re Hitler, some people do appreciate what you are trying to do. Some people appreciate that you make them aware of the guidelines and what they can and cannot do, some people appreciate the effort that you put in, when it comes to moderation, because they’ve been at communities that didn’t.

photo credit: Justin Sternberg

I have grown to become very careful about my usage of the word “friend,” when I am talking about other people. A lot of people have really diluted this term to the point where, for some, it means “person that I once had a pleasant conversation with” or “someone I paid to do something for me” or “person who helped me that time.”

Though I do slip up once in a while, when I call someone my friend, believe me when I say that. There are differing levels of friendship and I have friends who I am closer to than others and who I trust with more than others, but if I call someone my friend, I’ve established some form of a meaningful relationship with them, in public and/or in private.