It’s almost been a year since I started working with insights communities and I have learnt that they are filled with constant surprises. If you had asked me last September, what I expected from a role of an insights community moderator, I would have summed up, “To facilitate focus groups…online”. So a year later, what do I have to add?

Today I would say that a community moderator is more than just a facilitator. We spend months with participants in a community – I’ve even had a member describe the community as his “second family”. This is not unexpected; given that everyday we are invited into the lives of members. We travel their paths through pregnancies, holidays, graduations, and even funerals. The role of moderator is stretched to confidante, advisor, watchdog, IT tech, storyteller, leader, pupil, events organiser, cheerleader, and friend.

So, walking the thin line between the professional and personal, how does this tie in with our research? How do we remain objective, whilst we are subjective to the trials and tribulations of our members? I believe we don’t. Through the lens of familiarity, we grasp a deeper understanding of where members are coming from. Communities provide an environment to harness relationships, and this is a unique opportunity for qualitative research.

In the last year I have learnt how to be a better moderator by getting to know members. I have learnt how to be a better researcher by analysing data within a broader context. I look forward to the next 365 days of communities, and welcome whatever twists and turns they may bring…

One of those funny emails came around the other day about ‘you know you’re living in 2010 when…’ and one of the answers was ‘when you email the person sitting at the desk next to you’.

I laughed, having definitely done that. And without wanting to kill the joke too much by overanalysing it, I think the reason it’s funny is because on the face of it, it seems like such a strange, disconnected thing to do. The joke suggests that instead of talking or relating ‘face to face’ the use of technology is so entrenched now that we do everything electronically – even when someone is sitting a metre away.

You hear comments that people don’t talk anymore, that family and personal relationships are suffering because people spend all their time in front of the TV or the computer. But I don’t think heavy use of technology is to blame.

And, upon reflection, I also don’t think that emailing the person at the desk next to you is necessarily an antisocial choice.

I think my argument is best served by a couple of real life examples.

My husband is in IT, I work with online communities, my parents are in IT, so you can probably guess that we have a lot of gadgetry in our house. At last count it was three laptops and one desktop computer.

At various times of the day, evening, weekend, etc. it is not uncommon for my husband and I to both be using our laptops.

One fine Saturday I was using mine at the dining room table and my husband Skyped me while surfing the internet in the back garden: ‘come outside, it’s lovely!’ To which I replied ‘I’m on my way!’

Last Tuesday evening we were both using our laptops sitting together on the couch. I started an online chat with a friend in another city, arranging the details of her visit to our place. Part way through this chat I realise that my husband had been looking over my shoulder and had then started his own online chat with the same person to play a joke on me. Bantering messages went back and forth between the three of us for about 10 minutes, and we all had a great laugh.

If I were just to say ‘my husband Skyped me from the backyard’ or ‘we had an online chat while sitting next to each other on the couch’, at first you might think that was weird and evidence of a possible reluctance to talk face to face.

But in actuality it was as connected and intimate as a face to face interaction.

So what’s my point? Technology does not mean disconnection and using it is not being antisocial. It just means the ability to connect, socialize, play and interact with people in other ways. Building and maintaining relationships is about the content of communication, not the delivery medium.

Part of what I love about working with the team at Latitude is the opportunity to laugh each and every day.

Throughout the week, our community moderators post blogs to their members to touch base, say hello, give them an update and (hopefully) make them smile.

With our unique approach to community engagement, moderators are encouraged to inject a healthy dose of their own personality into communications with their members, with often humorous results. Throwing in a few tidbits of novelty information, or a joke or two allows us all to reveal a little about what interests us, makes us tick, or cracks us up, which in turn encourages members to do the same.

Here’s a couple of snippets from some recent moderator blogs…

One moderator shares her weekend of indulgence with her community…

To celebrate International Talk Like A Pirate Day…

While this sort of dialogue may not be a source for powerful insights for our clients, what it does facilitate is a fun, friendly atmosphere in which our members can express themselves openly, engage with us as moderators and bond with each other as members.

Because after all, who doesn’t love to laugh every now and again!

“Can you pass me my iPhone?” a friend recently asked me when we were out together.
What is noteworthy about this sentence is that she referred to her mobile by brand – have you ever heard anyone say ‘can you pass me my Samsung?’

Apple doesn’t produce phones. It produces iPhones. You don’t own a phone, you own an iPhone.

Substituting a brand name for a product is not uncommon – think Coke or Glad. However, the difference here lies in the fact that Coke can refer to any type of cola drink, and Glad to any type of cling wrap. Only phones produced by Apple are iPhones. The iPhone exists within a category of its own.

Now, it’s no news that Apple has been able to achieve massive brand presence and a strong loyalty base. So, what can we learn from Apple’s marketing victory? And can it be replicated?

Most Apple loyalists will tell you that Apple offer functionally superior products, and are thus a more successful company. However, when consumers pay double for white Apple headphones, something other than functionality is at work. In marketing terms, reducing the success of a brand to the products it creates is a simplistic view. Products can be imitated. It is the brand that holds the unique relationship with their consumers – whether they acknowledge it or not.

It is about building something bigger than your product. Something people can use to connect to each other. Red Bull connects its customers through a common interest of extreme sports. Blackmore’s is currently building an online community dedicated to health and well being. Like Apple these brands are creating tribes – where emphasis is on people, not product.

What do you think of this tribe mentality? Can it work across all categories?

Work life balance. I’m sure we’ve all heard the term. But how many of us are actually achieving it? And importantly, are employers helping?

I work in market research and have done for a long time. I had my first child 6 years ago, well into my career. After a year off I was keen to come back to work, but still wanted to be heavily involved in parenting. A classic dilemma. How do you do both?

And how many talented people have been lost because they weren’t able to do both?

In an industry with an arguably larger than average proportion of women, I had to fight tooth and nail with my then employer to be able to even TRY coming back to work part time. Interestingly, said employer was also a mother of two. Since then I have worked successfully on a part time basis, but it was always up to me to make that work. I had to fit my life around work, with little or no give the other way.

Until now! I have played, shopped and socialized in an online space for years. But now I also work in an online space. I have discovered that this not only offers consumers the flexibility to participate when it suits them and slots in easily with their online lives, but it does the same for me.

I can do my work during the day, at night, on the weekends, at home if my child is sick, etc. At first glance this may look like work is taking over my life and that I’m working 24 hours a day. Not at all. Instead, work and life are happily co-existing.

About time too.