CSCCE’s blog is a wealth of information on scientific community management. But, we realized, for many folks new to CSCCE, that information is somewhat buried in the archives. So, this week we decided to take a look back* at some of the blog posts we’ve** shared over the years, curating them so that you can easily find certain topics or collections, and invite you to add your thoughts as a guest blogger.
About the CSCCE blog
Our blog was conceived as a place to share ideas, research, and opportunities for connection at the intersection of STEM and community building. Today, we also use it as a place to share news from CSCCE, and publicize or recap some of our community events. The types of articles we host include:
- Community call announcements
- Community call and tools trials recaps
- News and updates from our SIGs and working groups
- Announcements about opportunities such as professional development trainings and job openings
- Community manager interviews
- New resources and how they were created
- What we’re reading
- Conference and workshop report outs
- Guest blog posts (see below for more examples of these)
Most of our posts are currently written by CSCCE staff (Katie and Lou, generally!), but over the years we’ve shared guest posts from members of our community of practice, fellows from our two CEFP years, and from former AAAS staff members. We would love to see more guest posts over the next 12 months, so if you have something you’d like to share, let us know (info@cscce.org). We’re also happy to cross-post articles that are appearing on other sites if they are relevant to our mission.
Guest blog posts share observations, activities, and connections
We love featuring the voices of our community members on our blog. Over the years, we’ve published dozens of guest posts on a range of topics. We’ve picked out some of our favorites here, and curated them by topic to help you find something you’re interested in.
Being a community manager
- Strategies for survival (and maybe even some success) in a newly created community manager position – by Josh Knackert
- Laying your happiness foundation when starting a new role – by Ann Meyer
- Online co-working partnerships are community of practice in action – by Naomi Penfold and Stefanie Butland
- Community organizing lessons for science community managers – by Melissa Varga
Events and networking
- Prioritizing accessibility in organizing online events – by Serah Njambi Rono and Emily Lescak
- From the rehearsal to the annual meeting: What can scientific community managers learn from collective organizing in other situations? – by Arielle Bennett-Lovell
- Leveraging anniversary programming & content to nurture community – by Camille Santistevan
- Breaking the ice well – a two-part series by Allen Pope, Amber Budden, Stefanie Butland, and Aidan Budd
- The value of #welcome – by Stefanie Butland
Community management tips and tricks
- Managing co-located scholarly communities: act local, think global – by Jennifer Davison
- Building trust in online communities – by Julianna Mullen
- Crafting effective community surveys – by Toby Hodges
- What is the role of an online community during a crisis? – by Elisha Wood-Charlson
Personal reflection
- Impostor syndrome and community management – lessons on building a community while building myself – by Shane M. Hanlon
- Kickstarting your creativity in the time of COVID-19 – by Stephanie E. Vasko
- The big monster named stress – Working with stress as a community manager – by Heidi Laješić (née Olds)
- The moment you realize you have become a “Community Engagement Manager” – by Elisha Wood-Charlson
Recap posts are packed full of resources and reflections
A cornerstone of CSCCE community programming is our monthly community call. We know that many of our members find it challenging to carve out the time to attend these calls in real time, and for some, time zones make it impossible! So, our recap posts are an attempt to share the essence of a call for anyone who couldn’t make it. Even if we don’t include a recording of the call (e.g., if the topic is sensitive or the majority of the call is spent in breakout activities), you can expect a synthesis of ideas as well as links to any resources that were shared by presenters or participants. Check out these recap blog posts for more on:
- The common challenges faced by STEM community managers
- How to create “scaffolding” to support your community and its members
- Different models of community governance structures
- How different members of our CoP are running community champions programs
- How to run a successful virtual or hybrid event – what we’ve learned one year into the pandemic
Resource posts offer a window into our (co-)creation process
When we release a new resource, we almost always post a blog post that describes how it came to be, why we decided to make it, and who was involved in the creation process. While many of our resources are created by CSCCE staff, we also work with members of our community of practice and other collaborators on certain products. Check out these posts to learn more about how we work:
- Co-creating nine tip sheets on champions programs with the members of a CSCCE working group
- On scaffolding – a guidebook and several CC BY templates for you to use
- Inclusive language in community building – a glossary co-created after a session at the 2021 Inclusive SciComm symposium
- CSCCE Community Profiles highlight 33 different STEM communities
- A four-part virtual events guidebook that includes 12 recipes for event formats contributed by CoP members
- CSCCE’s Community Participation Guidelines – blog post by the CSCCE Code of Conduct Working Group
Some other gems from the vault
Last but not least, we wanted to highlight a few other posts or series that have stood the test of time.
- In 2017/2018, CEFP 2017 fellows Josh Knackert, Jennifer Davison, Marsha Lucas, and Rosanna Volchok curated (and in some cases, wrote) a series of posts focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM communities.
- Fostering diversity as a community manager: Series introduction
- Defining diversity, inclusion, and equity to build better STEM communities
- Community guidelines: A key component of your diversity, equity, & inclusion Toolbox
- Including underrepresented community-members in planning for diversity, equity and inclusion
- Co-intentional Co-mmunications: Strategies for creating true inclusive communities
- Resource rabbit hole
- Curating diverse content that represents your community
- “Use books, not people” & other advice from a community building research librarian
- Address your bias, call BS, and broaden your networks: Interview with Monica Feliu-Mojer
- Our “first birthday series” took a look back at the first year of our community of practice, the resources we created, and how the community had grown.
- It’s our first birthday! The CSCCE community of practice in numbers
- First Birthday Series: Behind the scenes of community programming
- First Birthday Series: The importance of co-creating resources in a community of practice
- First Birthday Series: CSCCE working groups and special interest groups
- First Birthday Series: The future of CSCCE’s community of practice
- Our meet a community manager series from 2016 included interviews with 10 community managers about their work and the communities they work for. These interviews were the template for our 2022 Community Manager Case Studies.
- Also in 2016, we conducted a survey of 100 community managers in STEM, and shared our findings (which shaped much of our initial programming, training, and resource creation) in a series of blog posts:
- Scientific community managers – often self-taught with a PhD
- A closer look at the funding landscape for scientific community managers
- Exploring scientific community managers’ skill sets
- Online platforms are still making inroads in scientific communities
- How community managers shape activity planning
- Scientific community managers’ top challenges and training needs
- These four posts by CSCCE’s director Lou Woodley take a look at different aspects of community and the community building literature:
- And have you ever wondered about CSCCE’s flower logo? This post has the story behind the artwork!
Work with us on a guest post!
As we noted above, we’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in writing a post for the CSCCE blog. It could be a book review, an essay inspired by a podcast you heard, or a reflection on a piece of programming you put on for your community. Or, it could be something completely different. Reach out to info@cscce.org and let us know what you’d like to write about!!
*Since 2019, the CSCCE blog has lived here at CSCCE.org. But, it began life as the Trellis blog at AAAS. We’ve done our best to make sure there are no broken links as a result of this transition, but if you find any, please let us know!
** “We” refers to the many different people who have written for this blog, not just the current staff of CSCCE.