Webmaster and Manager = Community Organizer
Could Online Community Organizer be the #1 job of the future? I agree that there could exist a job like this someday.
Read More about the online community organizers job here
Seth Godin says:
It would help if that person understood technology, at least well enough to know what it could do. They would need to be able to write. But they also have to be able to seduce stragglers into joining the group in the first place, so they have to be able to understand a marketplace, do outbound selling and non-electronic communications. They have to be able to balance huge amounts of inbound correspondence without making people feel left out, and they have to be able to walk the fine line between rejecting trolls and alienating the good guys.
Honestly, that job exist today but primarily to those who have built or are responsible for managing large communities. For example, there are online forum moderators, Google and Yahoo Group Moderators, those who moderate the content on MySpace, eBay’s policy violating auction monitors, etc. I could go on.
Will this become the #1 job of the future. I don’t know about that, but I do think this type of job will become more main stream than it is today. If you were looking for a job like that today, I dont think the classifieds would say or describe the job the way its described in this post. I think you would see a ton of requirements for technical experience, programming and scripting languages, probably a BS degree. The usual non descriptive job postings were you don’t really find out what your job really is until your in the job and realize its not what you thought it was.
I think the Online Community Organizer must be a smart person, is someone who understands basic functionality of the web and HOW it works. They should understand things like broadband, OS, HTML, JavaScript, FTP, SSL but they dont need to be an expert as they will likely be working with a CMS (content management system) of some type and reporting the technical problems to a network guy or team. They should have a series of soft skills (web surfer, iPod user, Text message user, social networking site user) that you only find listed in someones profile as a hobby or as a requirement for a job at Google or other .coms who have been successful.
They should know how to write but don’t need to be a journalist. One of the most important things they should have is the ability to assist, explain and work with non technical people or would be community members. The number of people in this industry (IT, Web) that have this skill or are willing to use this skill is very small. Probably because it can be a lot of work with very little payoff but thats another story.
