by Jake McKee
and Greg Hyland

Confessions of a Community Manager is the online community management web comic that chronicles the adventures of community managers seeking sanity as they navigate the complex world of online community members, super fans, and the only slightly terrifying daily grind of keeping communities healthy.

Created by Jake McKee and Greg Hyland, this creative duo has been working together on and off for more than 17 years.

Launch Day

Over the years, I’ve launched a lot of Web sites. At last rough count, it’s about 425+, from large scale marketing sites to smaller microsites to purpose built short term community sites to robust long term community projects and more. Launch Day is always a paper bag moment no matter […]

Before you community manage…

Every parent has their go-to phrases. You know the ones… we all have a collection of them burned into our brains forever. Today’s comic comes to you courtesy of my mother. One of her famous Mom-isms is one I have now used with my own daughter. And I’ve also used […]

Community Management and Mental Health

Last night during a panel discussion to a NYC startup group, one of the attendees posed a question: “How can we propser during the COVID pandemic”. It’s a question we’re all wrestling with right now, both personally and professionally. Each of my co-panelists had interesting takes on the question. But […]

Marketing for good

I’m a huge Jon Oliver fan. He’s a brilliant comedian and performer, yes. But he’s so much more than that. He’s managed to build a highly successful show based on critical societal issues that most people wouldn’t otherwise give the time of day to…and he spends much longer than you […]

Arguing with Trollbots

Sometimes we just need to feel heard. The strangest thing in today’s modern world is that while it’s never been easier to communicate given the access to tools and channels, the ability to actually communicate with others is getting harder and harder. Just look at a Facebook or Twitter comment […]

We all have our passions

I think we may be losing the Community Managers. I don’t know about you, but at a time when we are all facing some truly troubling times (aka the Dumpster Fire that is 2020), we need Community Managers to help guide us through the darkness of online experiences. I don’t […]

Conflict Expectant

Note: I wrote this post two weeks ago before George Floyd’s murder and before protestors took to the streets. Rather than update the post to be more inline with the current events, I wanted to leave it as-is as generally relevant content. If you live in Florida, you know that […]

Enough.

Enough. As a community professional who studies social group dynamics, I simply can’t believe I’m watching the President of the United States, no matter what his party affiliation, purposefully escalate tensions in the country. I can’t believe I’m watching so many police and National Guard escalate tensions with police brutality […]

Honest Leadership

Leadership is tough. Parenting is tough. Friendship is tough. Hell, any human connection where we have to honestly tell another person something difficult tis tough. Why? Because it requires you to overcome your basic human instincts. We humans are naturally programmed to respond to our fears with either anger or […]

New skills

In my career I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with a large range of professionals, from CPAs to lawyers to manufacturing line workers to engineers (of just about any variety you can name) to marketers to call center reps to senior executives to CEOs to designers to construction workers to […]