Well, fist of all EVERYONE let me tell you that same as @PirateJC I keep being amazed by all of you (and all of us TOGETHER) acting and engaging the way we do. Frankly, I hesitated quite a bit before making this post. Most companies don’t like ‘outsiders’ even from the community, even with a strong community to look into the com. It’s often a ‘red line’ you should not cross. Even when working as a consultant for the company, I found you have to be very careful with how far you push it. That’s even more true when working on very sensitive things such as CX (which deeply impacts not just the com, but also the management and the entire ecosystem). Reading answers from the higher management such as the ones above are both a ‘relief’ and a strong encouragement for me to try continue create some ‘emulation’ around this, beyond what we already do (or try to do) here every day.
@phaselock I can hear you and I also overal agree with most of what you said. From what I can read from you, it’s clear to me that you have worked your skills in softwares, both as dev/artist but also on the side of com/marketing excellence.
Yes, you are right, there’s not necessarly a need for the grand messe/annual convention. I guess this is also a com (and mostly managers) dream. Something like the ultimate demonstration of success/power. Who from the higher management and com team wouldn’t want to see their product come down from the skies on stage with an incredible lightshow and exhilarating music and broadcast worldwide the event where the speaker talks about the next ®evolution to come, saying something like ‘this is not an evolution, but a revolution for years to come…’
However, speaking about ‘maximizing’ the returns of any event or com-op, I can’t help myself from noticing a few things from your experience on this single day MS dev-tour event your mentionned (btw thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and feedback on this).
When I read you, in particular (extracts):
I can’t help but question myself, why just make it a ‘single day’ session? Why not just offer two nights at a hotel to some key participants and have them assist a workshop for one of their speciality/key feature?
I feel this is kind of waste of resources and efforts. Of course, my opinion only.
And then for All and @thomlucc and @PirateJC
Last but not least, there is this point I do not totally agree with. It’s about the ‘free for all’ kind’of message where everyone could start his event and com, without further guidelines and eventually without an official part/message.
Like I would tend to disagree with you @phaselock when you say
I think this is a tech approach to it that does not fully consider the way our human brain receives and stores information.
In fact, whether you believe you are influenced or not by the repetition of keywords and the form of the message, you are! That’s what branding is all about and, it works. Whether you like it or not. And then beyond that, there’s also a need for ‘consistency’ (and here I’m talking CX) to be able to rally people under your banner and generate trust. One of the very first reason why we commit here (all of us, with our different skills and coming from different horizons) is because we feel ‘safe’ and ‘at home’.
What would you say if by reading only the messages spread by the community, you would start to hear or read things that make you think (or fear) that BJS is switching approach, philosophy or ideology? I bet you would start becoming ‘suspicious’ and would start have a different look at your interactions and the responses you get. You wouldn’t feel ‘safe’ anymore, you would start loosing trust and loyalty. I know this may sound a bit extreme, but social media, on-line interactions and community (particularly when ‘community’ is a pilar of CX) is something very powerful and should be watched (and guided/orientated) very closely.
And it is! Anyone ever noticed the incredible amount of time the entire BJS team spents in this forum.
It’s both a philosophy and a choice for CX, but also an absolute necessity. Despite - or better said, precisely BECAUSE of - its openess, we cannot have things go ‘haywire’ and ‘free for all’. Again, my opinion only.
And this is all why (I’d slightly disagree with)
Yes, it’s great and encouraging to hear that BUT… I believe there should still be (in every major event or com op) a voice from the official. It’s ok that the community ‘plays’ with the rules of the BJS logo and uses its own words to communicate BUT, to make a ‘balance’, sustain the BJS philosophy and CX and ensure ‘Consistency’, there should always be an ‘official part’ to it. What form should this ‘official part’ take? In my opinion, it should take the form of ‘support’. Simply delivering ‘official content’ that will become key to whatever action of com is taken by the community. I know this is all kind of ‘high level’ stuff and may not speak to all of you. So, let me give you an example. Let’s speak Havok. Case: One/group in region wants to create a workshop/tech session or whatever on the subject of ‘Havok and BJS’. How will it present the relation between Havok and BJS? I did read somewhere, Havok is a ‘sister-company’ of BJS (I think it was from a manager, may be even you @Deltakosh). But you know what? Even managers sometimes use the wrong words when posting in forum. So, what is it? What can we really expect from this relation? The answer should come from ‘the official content’ delivered to the team or individual organizing the event as part of ‘the official support’ given by BJS to support the event. And in fine, this ‘support’ should also help ‘reassure’ the organisator for the legitimacy of the event and ease his efforts a little by providing ready to use content.
Again, my two cents only and again, I’m so glad to be able to discuss all this with ALL OF YOU freely. We are very lucky people being able to do this. We need to make sure it stays this way.
Have a great day EVERYONE 
. And this person feels we should try make the most out of the milestones and unique advantages when moving to a next step.
Clearly, these Guys didn’t wait on us or the Team or the management 
and you should be an example 
for all of us in the other regions 
