People Come First in Online Community Management
(original article at http://technorati.com/blogging/article/people-come-first-in-online-community/ )
The web is one big community. People create content, comment on other people’s content and create more content, which ends up creating a “conversation.” 
Sometimes, these conversations are categorized and based solely on one topic with sub-conversations. Eventually, the conversation gets so loud and happens so quickly that those involved in the conversation need a little help in making sense of the noise.
This is where the role of an online community manager comes into play. These passionate, educated and dedicated professionals have a tough job in trying to make sense of the content mess and meet the needs of the members of their community.
However, with a slew of tools available at the fingertips, sometimes community management can get automated — stripping the community of exactly that — the community. It, in essence, becomes a big Wikipedia page filled with opinions, links and clutter. Tools can help clean the clutter, but to get the members of the community excited and engaged, the human element can’t be ignored.
You see, people drive the success and, at times, the failure of the community. It’s the community manager’s job to sense when there needs to be life pumped into the conversation or when to deviate in order to continue to spin wheels.
Managers shouldn’t take for granted that a community will understand their motivation either — especially if, for some reason, they don’t like them. The key here is absolute transparency and honesty, regardless of the situation.
At the end of the day, good online community management comes down to being able to listen, react in a timely fashion and provide top notch customer service. What does that really mean, you might ask? Well, think about the people you’re serving. At the end of the day, it’s all about them.
Read more: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/people-come-first-in-online-community/#ixzz15nM7d3Wg