The train starts to roll // Sascha A. Carlin
Since Friday night when I sent out the IOCMA - Call For Participants a lot of people reached out to me to request details. Thank you guys! I do take that as an indication of a need to connect to other professional Community Managers.
Right now I received a number of very positive responses from the United States and Germany. This of course is because I sent the CfP to people in those countries. If any of you speaks a foreign language whatsoever, please contact me.
In my answer to your mails, I pointed out the next steps we should take. I guess the top priority right now is to get the news out to as many of our peers as possible. Here each and every one of you can help with little effort. Spread the word by linking to the IOCMA - Call For Participants or sending it to your peers. Get them involved.
We then will start IOCMA by setting a means of communication for all of us. I’d prefer a mailing list, but of course I am open to what ever suggestions you come up with. If you have an idea, let us know.
Currently I am preparing a mindmap of topics related to Community Management. The purpose of this mind map is to gather a list of all the different activities and topics Community Managers are involved in. This list should become quite extensive, regarding the many aspects of our work.
I am going to publish the initial version of the map on mindmeister.com. This will allow you to add missing things and to get a chance to work together or the first time. So if you like, jot down some buzzwords you’d like to see there and get ready to add them in case they are missing.
The mindmap is also going to serve another purpose. I plan to use it on our - yet to be created 
- website as a starting point for people who want to find out more about Community Management. It could also be used to bring people to IOCMA who are unsure whether they actually are Community Managers. And I think some of you come up with totally different ways we could use it.
I am very much forward to seeing how Community professionals create their very own community — are you, too?
