Community Managers: Get Certified!

[#1]

 Joe Cothrel is Chief Community Officer at Lithium Technologies.  He is Lithium’s top expert on community and social best practices and has helped more than 300 companies execute successful social efforts.

He is active on Twitter @cothrel and is a regular contributor in the Lithosphere where he is JoeC. 

Judging from the email I've received, many community managers, community program managers, and social strategists have heard the news … and I’m happy to confirm it!   We are now planning to do six new Community Manager Certification sessions over the coming weeks.  

The sessions will take place in five different cities in the US and Europe. Here’s the schedule:

Palo Alto – Thursday, October 11 (next week!)

New York – Tuesday, October 16

Munich – Tuesday, November 6

London – Thursday, November 8

Paris – Tuesday, November 13

Sydney – Thursday, November 29

Our first-ever session back in May was sold out in just a few days, so I’d suggest you sign up now if you think you’d like to attend. See the Palo Alto, New York, EMEA or Sydney registration pages for more info on times and locations.   Also check out my blog posts (1 and 2) from earlier this year for more info on the genesis and content on the program. 

Here are some of the great comments we received from participants in the May session:

I could not stop raving about the certification program. I learned so much, and I have already put a lot of it to use. Thank you for a wonderful session!

The whole team did a great job on this. I can reasonably say that it is, a) worth the money, b) great to be certified, and c) a great intro into the whole Linc experience.

Despite my tenure in communities spanning back to the BBS days and connecting with baud modems, I walked away with two pages overflowing with notes focusing on ways to improve our community.  My handwriting is quite small, too, so there were a LOT of notes.

This was a valuable experience, no doubt about it.  My thanks again to the Lithium team.

Overall I enjoyed the session and learned a lot. As someone new to the community manager role and learning everything I felt it was very informative.

This certification was definitely top notch. This isn't just a course for community managers, it's also a great course for companies looking to start up community programs.  

Hope to see you at one of our upcoming sessions!!

[#2]

Joe - We need a feew more on the West Coast

[#3]

As of Friday we've had two on the West Coast and none anywhere else!  But of course Ashish you are right -- we have lots of customers out here and we need more sessions, and so it *is* on our priority list ...

[#4]

Hey Joe -

Any ideas whether this will be coming back around to the NY area next year and if so, when?

[#5]

I took part in the first sessions at LiNC 2012 and I can say the course book is a treasure trove full of great advice and best practices, culled from Joe's and the extended teams' experiences.  They also took the time to update it with more great info since then, so are not resting on their laurels.

I still refer to mine now and then, it is still useful even after passing the exam ;-)

[#6]

I'd love to see some sessions in So Cal - preferably in San Diego.  

Also, has Lithium ever considered online cert program?  My travel budget is busted for the year and having the option to do this online would be awesome!

Thanks!
Scott

[#7]

Brian, thanks so much for the good words - means a lot from someone with your knowledge and experence. 

Rebecca and Scott, please stay tuned -- both locations have sttrong local populations of community managers and are good candiates for future rounds. I'll keep everyone informed of future sessions via this blog.  Appreciate all the interest!

[#8]

I've already taken the CM cert, but would love to see the other session if it makes it down to SD as well.

Scott - I didn't know you were down here. We need to see if there are others and have a meetup!

[#9]

Joe,

Thanks for the excellent workshop in NYC on Tuesday. Your presentation was densely-packed with knowledge and best practices and I came away from it confident and excited about building a great community.

Brien Hall

[#10]

Hi Joe,

really enjoyed the session in Sydney yesterday. Thanks a million! really valuable content. I'll be reccomending it to a hole heap of people next time around.

Safe travels home.

Neil

[#11]

Woo Hoo! Enterprise Community Managment certificate just arrived. It's going to look rad on my office wall.