CSCCE Blog Editor, Author at CSCCE

Community manager journal club recap: Fostering a sense of belonging

Posted by Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Community Manager at Trellis We’ve recently started a monthly community management journal club at AAAS. In our first two meetings, we’ve focused on two questions at the heart … Continue reading “Community manager journal club recap: Fostering a sense of belonging”

Posted by Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Community Manager at Trellis

"Passt 2" by Willi Heidelbach, licensed under CC BY 2.0 — “Passt 2” by Willi Heidelbach, licensed under CC BY 2.0

We’ve recently started a monthly community management journal club at AAAS. In our first two meetings, we’ve focused on two questions at the heart of community building: “What makes a group of people a community?” and “How do these communities vary?” The readings for these meetings included an excerpt from Jono Bacon’s The Art of Community and a blog post by Lou Woodley, Considering Community: What types of community are there?

One theme that emerged from our discussions was the importance of belonging. Read on for different interpretations of this value and how to foster it in your community.

Continue reading “Community manager journal club recap: Fostering a sense of belonging”

Exploring scientific community managers’ skill sets

So far, our analysis of the State of Scientific Community Management survey has addressed scientific community managers’ education and training, the types of organizations that hire them, and the funding … Continue reading “Exploring scientific community managers’ skill sets”

In this post we explore the skillsets that scientific community managers rely on in their current roles. We asked our survey respondents to rate the importance of 5 key skill sets, originally delineated by The Community Roundtable for the broader field of community management outside science. Read on to learn about which skill set ranks highest, and how the rankings change depending on seniority.

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Why we’re running monthly community manager journal clubs at AAAS – and how you can join in on the blog!

Posted by Lou Woodley, Trellis’ Community Engagement Director. It’ll come as no surprise that I spend a lot of my time thinking about community management. But in recent years that’s … Continue reading “Why we’re running monthly community manager journal clubs at AAAS – and how you can join in on the blog!”

Posted by Lou Woodley, Trellis’ Community Engagement Director.

Adapted from “Prepping for book club” by Britt Reints, licensed under CC BY 2.0

It’ll come as no surprise that I spend a lot of my time thinking about community management. But in recent years that’s expanded from focusing on the strategy and mechanics of community-building, to thinking in more detail about the people that actually support group work: the community managers.

Continue reading “Why we’re running monthly community manager journal clubs at AAAS – and how you can join in on the blog!”

A closer look at the funding landscape for scientific community managers

Through the State of Scientific Community Management survey we’ve collected data on all facets of the field. So far we’ve looked at scientific community managers’ education and training and identified … Continue reading “A closer look at the funding landscape for scientific community managers”

Through the State of Scientific Community Management survey we’ve collected data on all facets of the field. So far we’ve looked at scientific community managers’ education and training and identified which types of organizations are hiring them. We’ve also learned that insufficient funding is the number one reason why organizations lack community managers.

Today, we’re following up on this finding by digging a little deeper into the picture of funding for community managers. Read on for 3 key findings.

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Building interdisciplinary communities – what hurdles do we need to overcome?

Posted by Lou Woodley, Trellis’ Community Engagement Director. Last week I took part in a session at the ESOF16 conference on building interdisciplinary communities. ESOF – the EuroScience Open Forum … Continue reading “Building interdisciplinary communities – what hurdles do we need to overcome?”

Posted by Lou Woodley, Trellis’ Community Engagement Director.

Runners jumping over hurdles — “Determination Wallpaper” by Alisa Cooper is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Last week I took part in a session at the ESOF16 conference on building interdisciplinary communities. ESOF – the EuroScience Open Forum – is a biennial conference focusing on various European science and science communication activities, with a mixture of different session formats.

In our session, one of the other presenters, Ismael Rafols, gave a good overview of some of the different barriers to successfully building community, which I’ve listed out below (taken directly from his slides).

Continue reading “Building interdisciplinary communities – what hurdles do we need to overcome?”

Many organizations have communities. Why don’t they all have community managers?

Posted by Dan Richman, Program Assistant for the Community Engagement Fellows Program In our first post about results from the State of Scientific Community Management Survey, we reported that while … Continue reading “Many organizations have communities. Why don’t they all have community managers?”

Posted by Dan Richman, Program Assistant for the Community Engagement Fellows Program

In our first post about results from the State of Scientific Community Management Survey, we reported that while over half of community managers in science organizations have PhDs, their community management skills are usually self-taught or garnered through reading, networking, or mentorship.

In this post we report an overview of the types of organizations that were sampled by our survey, and why some organizations don’t have community managers. This is important for the Community Engagement Fellows Program because we intend to support scientific community managers in two broad variations of the role – either within professional societies and organizations or within research collaborations. We want to understand more about what those workplaces look like and how they differ.

Continue reading “Many organizations have communities. Why don’t they all have community managers?”

Scientific community managers: often self-taught with a science PhD

Having received over 100 responses, we’ve begun analyzing the State of Scientific Community Management Survey. Read on for more details of some of the trends we’ve seen so far. If … Continue reading “Scientific community managers: often self-taught with a science PhD”

Having received over 100 responses, we’ve begun analyzing the State of Scientific Community Management Survey. Read on for more details of some of the trends we’ve seen so far.

If you’re working to build communities within science and haven’t yet taken the survey, we’re leaving it open a little longer, so please do add your data points to the overall picture.

Continue reading “Scientific community managers: often self-taught with a science PhD”

Best Practices in Community Building: 3 Takeaways from CMX Summit East 2016

Posted by Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Community Manager at Trellis In May I attended CMX Summit East, a community management conference focused on the future of the community industry. I met community managers … Continue reading “Best Practices in Community Building: 3 Takeaways from CMX Summit East 2016”

Posted by Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Community Manager at Trellis

Gabrielle Rabinowitz Badge CMX Summit 2016 — The CMX Summit badge decoration station, including my artistic rendition of a lego & pipe cleaner “trellis”.

In May I attended CMX Summit East, a community management conference focused on the future of the community industry. I met community managers from new startups and industry giants, across a wide variety of fields. We got to know each other over coffee at the badge decorating station and then got to work learning about modern community management in a series of workshops and lectures stretching over two days.

In this post I’ll share three questions for community managers followed by strategies discussed at the Summit.
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Working effectively with international teams: Key points from the ACS webinar on multicultural collaboration

Posted by Dan Richman, Program Assistant for the Community Engagement Fellows Program. The American Chemical Society’s International Center recently hosted a webinar called Partnering Globally: Maximizing Effectiveness with Multicultural Teams. … Continue reading “Working effectively with international teams: Key points from the ACS webinar on multicultural collaboration”

Posted by Dan Richman, Program Assistant for the Community Engagement Fellows Program.

Multicultural team — “Managing Multicultural Teams” by NASA APPEL is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The American Chemical Society’s International Center recently hosted a webinar called Partnering Globally: Maximizing Effectiveness with Multicultural Teams. It was led by Katherine Glasgow, Vice President of Global Product R&D of Nomacorc, who talked about managing and being part of a multicultural and multinational team.

Here, we summarize key points from the webinar and share strategies for international collaboration.

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Update on the AAAS State of Scientific Community Management Survey: Your response needed!

Thanks to all the scientific community builders who have taken our State of Scientific Community Management survey so far! We hope you’ve been inspired by our recent Q&A series to … Continue reading “Update on the AAAS State of Scientific Community Management Survey: Your response needed!”

Thanks to all the scientific community builders who have taken our State of Scientific Community Management survey so far! We hope you’ve been inspired by our recent Q&A series to think creatively about what a scientific community manager can be. Our intention with this survey is to gain a better understanding of the field and lay the foundation for the upcoming AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program.

So far we have received survey responses from a variety of scientific community engagement professionals around the world, including the UK, Germany, and the US. Wherever you’re located, you can participate in the survey – so please help us include scientific community management practices from your region in our overall picture of the field.

We’re particularly interested in hearing from community professionals working with large research collaborations, either within one institution or around the globe! We know that some of the language used in the survey may not be familiar to community builders in academic science, but we hope you’ll give it a try anyway. Research communities are key to the future of scientific community management and we want our data to reflect that.

The survey takes less than 12 minutes to complete – that’s less than the time it takes your coffee to cool! So please fill it out and then share the link with your networks (https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2642025/AAAS-State-of-Scientific-Community-Management-Survey). If you have any questions about the survey, you can get in touch by emailing us at info@trelliscience.com.

Thank you for joining our effort to understand the current state of scientific community management! We look forward to reporting back with our findings.