Being dada

gidsylaboratory:

After participating in The Hive Conference in Berlin last weekend, Anne Stark Ditmeyer wrote this entertaining post with quotes from some of her favorite bloggers and their thoughts on how to encourage a supportive community. Thanks for sharing, Anne!

As a community manager, I am a firm believer of ‘It’s nice to be nice’ and ‘Don’t bullshit people’ when it comes to dealing with negative comments and delicate situations. I think people will always realize when you try to tell them some vague stories about why something isn’t working the way they expected it to. Knowing how much I dislike it when I get the feeling someone is not telling my quite the whole story, I also simply don’t want the community to feel like this. Explaining calmly and clearly why something isn’t working properly or why something is done in a certain way has always helped me best in dealing with negative comments, so far. 

It’d be great to hear more thoughts on this. What’s your recipe to deal with negative comments and conflicts?

gidsylaboratory:

I just read this article on the importance of ‘Culture and Fit’ in building up a team, and I think Fred Wilson really hit the nail on the head.

…hire people who will enjoy working together, who fit well together, who will make each other better.

It’s one of the most challenging and at the same time rewarding things as an early employee in a start-up  to help building up a great team from scratch. From this perspective, my guess is that apart from what Wilson said, the team needs to have a share in creating the company culture as well. It should not solely be the founders job to do that. For early employees, growing with the company, getting a sense of ownership and feeling extremely responsible, is closely connected to also being involved in forming the team and company culture. It takes balls to go down that road together, but it’s surely a great ride.