Celebrating an Uncommon 2021

As we sat down to reflect on the year that was 2021, we realized all of our highlights were made possible through the Uncommon community, both in what they've shared with each other and with us at Common Room. And if we owe our success to them, it’s only right we take this time to celebrate their success. So we put together a quick survey to learn more about their favorite moments this year — with a bonus question to get a feel for 2022 — and the replies did not disappoint.

With unending gratitude to our Uncommon members, we present a quick list of their 2021 wins in an effort to inspire your 2022 goals.

We started by asking what they added to their community experience that worked well.

"A mini conference with a theme."

– Scott Baldwin, Community Lead and Product Evangelist at Productboard

"Learned how to even build online community because of Common Room."

– Ty Hagler, Principal at Trig

“'Town Hall' event for our super fans and power users where we explained lots of new features, a roadmap and mission!"

– Mike Ma, founder at ResearchRabbit

"Micro-communities, deeper niches, peer groups!"

– Kourosh Ghaffari, co-founder, Community & Product at Waves

Our favorite thing about this list? It runs the gamut of community leadership responsibilities. From the basics of asking more questions to understand others (shoutout empathy!) to building the community itself and holding events catered to those members — the Uncommon community accomplished so much since we started out as a humble newsletter just 8 months ago. But what were their favorite accomplishments?

We took the survey one step further and asked about their biggest wins. (Like choosing a favorite child, we know.)

"Hiring another person on our community team and getting a marketing leader."

– Scott

"During the Town Hall Event, we were doing Steve Jobs-ian feature reveals. The chat was super pumped about some of the integrations, and one of our users said it was like BlizzCon 🥲"

– Mike

"So far... joining the Uncommon community and Orbiit, and diving into the community realm!"

– Samantha Shobe, Account Executive and Community Manager at Orbiit

"We were able to release our very first case study and share what we do with the world! We were so worried that our work couldn't be replicated in other communities, but it worked!"

– Kourosh

Again with the diversity! Growing teams, continuing education, being compared to a massive convention? There's also this stellar custom Discourse from Coda Community Manager Steph Nakano, shared via the #celebrations channel in our Uncommon Slack. Steph applied Coda's community engagement-first design elements to go beyond typical UX/UI processes — all to ensure that everyone in the Coda Maker Community can find the answers, insights, and inspiration they're looking for.

We’re thrilled for these Uncommon community leaders, and even more excited for the members they’re serving. When you ask a person for their biggest wins and they focus on what’s been done for and by others, that’s a leader. Sending huge congrats to everyone above and elsewhere — we hope you take the time to truly celebrate before diving into whatever’s next. Speaking of which…

We used the last question to ask what they’d like to replicate or implement in 2022.

"Creating 1:1 connections (virtually or in-person)"

– Scott

"Continue to add processes and community improvements, like events."

– Marie Antons, Community Engineer at Harness

"Ambassadors program, and finding a home for our users (perhaps Discord?). We're also going to launch some exciting features that will allow our community members to share stuff with the broader world!"

– Mike

"Build a community of community managers in Africa."

– Jephtah Abu, Community Consultant

The good news is we put a strong “+1” next to every single one of these. The bad news? It can seem like a lot when you consider it all at once — but it’s not an “all at once” thing. Building community is a long-term commitment that doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process packed with individual wins like those highlighted here, and as community leaders, we’re constantly learning as we go, especially from each other. Honestly, that’s why we created the survey in the first place — to learn more about our members and what they’ve learned, what they consider a priority heading into the new year, and how Uncommon can help.

All that to say, we can’t wait to continue working together in 2022 🍾