i was thinking of doing a short series of posts about some of the questions we get a lot, when we explain to recent acquaintances what we do, or how we live. here is one i get rather frequently:

“what exactly does a community manager do?”

well, basically, a community manager… manages… a community! shocking, i know, but true! :)

above all, my job is to listen to people. i think that’s the most important thing you can do when you offer a service: your members are your most valuable asset, and your goal is to keep them happy. i keep people happy by reassuring them that someone cares.

our community is online, rather than offline – but you can imagine it as a neighbourhood association. the people in our community have a common interest, and plenty of concerns, worries and ideas about it, which they voice all over the internet. my job is to listen to them, and do something about it. most of the time, it involves answering a looot of questions, guiding members, mediating disputes, and welcoming the new-comers.

i also help gather community input. lots of users have ideas on how to make things work better, but more often than not, they don’t know enough about the product/service to judge whether their ideas are feasible or not. my job is to be the middleman between them and the programmer, filtering the ones that are well-intended but unfeasible, from the ones that might actually be genuinely good – and passing those on.

additionally, i help the community come together. i promote the events they organise, manage social media pages, organise contests, and generate and curate content about themes that are relevant to their interests – all to keep them happy and excited and to keep the conversation going.

that’s it, i think! i’m a sort of ambassador/helpdesk/peacekeeper/spec-gatherer/social marketeer :)

i shouldn’t let the week pass without mentioning the new postcrossing stamps. they’re the reason we detoured our vacation to the netherlands, so that p. could receive the first sheet of stamps from the hands of postnl’s marketing manager.

it’s a true honour to have your work immortalised in a stamp, and somewhat of a surreal feeling too. we’ve bought the stamp and used it on postcards, but it still feels strange to think that people out there are sending postcards with it.

stamps are reserved for remarkable things, the kind that we want to collect and remember – and having postcrossing up there in that category is pretty neat. after all, how many websites have their own stamp? :)

90% of my day revolves around postcards, and yet i speak very little of them on this blog. so today i thought i’d share some of the best postcards i’ve found in slovenia. it’s still too early to judge the ones from berlin, but slovenia has plenty to share! here are some of my favourites (click for bigger):

doesn’t it make you want to visit? you should go! :)

a cool project that tests the limits of postal workers’ patience, one strange object at a time.

check the interview with the artist on wired magazine for some more insight on the project. a small preview:

Wired.com: You have previously published books of letters, for example one where you sent letters with odd ideas to authorities, like asking a Swedish municipality if it could host a North American Indian tribe. Why are you so fascinated by letters?
Ericson: Sending things is a fun way to communicate, and I love the seriousness in letters. I mean, you would never receive a lawsuit by e-mail. There is something about letters, especially nowadays when they are getting more and more rare, and we’re communicating in other ways instead.

every now and then, we get an email from a teacher thanking us postcrossing, and telling us about their own projects that use the site. it makes me super-super happy to know that somewhere out there, some kids are excited to be receiving postcards and learning about new cultures through them.

maybe some day the world will be a better place because these kids understand a bit about other cultures, can point the countries on a map and remember one or two things about them.

more about this happy class, here.