Ideation is one of the best tools that your community can have simply because some of the best ideas for your products come from your biggest fans.

Managing the ideation process, however, can be a challenge since there are likely hundreds, if not, thousands of ideas for product improvements and future product developments. The challenge then becomes how to actually find the best ideas - it can be similar to trying to find a needle in a haystack if you don't have a process in place.

For many organizations looking to navigate the uncharted waters of building a community as part of their digital strategy, a Community Manager, and their responsibilities, is often a foreign concept. As a result, the role of Community Manager can be ambiguous and have responsibilities that are, at best, loosely defined by the organization.

Hi, I’m Todd Burry, co-founder and Chief Product Officer here at Vanilla.  Welcome to my monthly blog! 

We’ve been at this for about ten years now and have worked hard to create software that’s simple and straightforward to use, with a lot of functionality under the hood. But as you probably know, getting to simple is complex. I’m writing to give users a peek behind the curtain, so you can understand the decisions that we make and why we make them.

Have you ever wondered why people are motivated to join an online community — I mean, what really motivates people to join? What's appealing about being part of an online community as opposed to an offline community? Different people will have different reasons for joining; everyone's got a story. But ultimately, I've found that there are 3 underlying human reasons why online communities are appealing to so many people.