Thanks all for reading. Welcome to my initial blog post. I am new to the world of online blogging (have worked in Online Community Development for 10 years), and have never taken the time (or have I been asked) to write down my thoughts. I will focus more on the moderation and management of Community content, and will do my best to share my past experiences and beliefs.

Background: I began my Community career within Customer Support for Fogdog Sports back in 1999. During the last portion of my stint there, I worked and assisted in the development and integration of Community platforms and User generated content.

The Bay area was crazy back then, and we were able to bring the company public. Shortly after we went public, we were bought out and the company was eventually relocated to Pennsylvania. Community Development and Content management was fairly “new” back in ’99 as you may know. Fortunate enough for me I was living in San Jose, CA. and ran across an Online Community position for a small auction type company that you may have heard of eBay. I was able to land there, holding many different roles within our Community Development department during my 5+ year stint. These roles included 3rd party vendor management, Community Platform and Product management, Global Consulting, and Focus group management. I lived in San Jose for about 7 years and made the decision to move back to New England, to be closer to family. After leaving eBay, I worked for Shared Insights for a little while – with Aaron, Barry and Jim, and then moved on to Prospero, as outlined in my bio. I understand both the vendor side as well as the client’s side of a Community business, because of my past roles. I fell this puts me in a unique position as I am able to communicate with our clients more productively and proactively, knowing the expectations that I had in the past with a vendor.

I would like to thank you all for reading my initial post, and hope that you enjoy the topics that I am planning to blog about. I will try to update the blog every other week to begin with, and will post more frequently as my time permits.

Mike