There are so many unknowns when a person starts a new job. In addition to those, my question was, how will my role play out? because the Community Manager position is a bit nebulous. I knew that one of the goals of my first visit was to understand the company’s vision & philosophy so that I can echo it.

I am working remotely from home, so I wanted to maximize my time there. After having completed my week there I feel well grounded & ready to work. Here is an overview of my orientation & why I think it was helpful. I had the opportunity to meet with all levels of the company. The question I asked myself was:

What can I do to best connect & encourage communication?

  • Met with each group/department. My Marketing Manager provided me with names & I made the appointments in advance of my arrival. This definitely allowed me to be efficient with everyone’s time.
  • Meeting with each department allowed me insight into their role in the company. It gave me an opportunity to listen.
  • I expressed how my role fit with their department & ways that we could work together. I talked about the ACDSee blog & product forums (tools that I am using).
  • I talked about methods of communication because I will be working remotely.

During these meetings I took notes on action steps. And I noted items that were going to be done by others. From these notes I created a spreadsheet that will provide me with direction now that I’m back in my home office.

These meetings were incredibly productive! I initiated them, led them & was impressed with the level of feedback. They were held in a casual meeting area & I’m not sure if that had any affect on the outcome, but they were invaluable to me. It sounds like a lot of meetings, but it was a worthwhile exercise & I hope set the tone for my new role.

In addition to these orientation meetings, I also had 4 strategy planning sessions. These helped me to gather information on how the organization worked (type of document required for them to communicate internally). And I realized quickly that I will be needing to learn their language of acronyms in the software industry.

One specific point that came out of the strategy planning sessions was that the word ‘localization’ was mentioned often. ACDSee software is offered in a number of languages & so I need to be cognizant of the ramifications of that.

My meetings with my supervisor & at the executive level affirmed that we’re all committed to building community for the customers as well as internally. One of the last things that the president asked me was, "What can I do to help you?". Isn’t that just true Chris Brogan style? I love it! And I think that it’s quite reflective of my attitude & ACDSee’s. So this new position is a great fit. I’ll be posting photos of some of the staff on the ACDSee blog.

What do you see as challenges for a person starting out working remotely from home? Does the Community Manager position require other orientation than what I’ve mentioned?