For our very first episode, we were lucky enough to sit down with our very own Porter Palmer, Director of Joy at Leoni Consulting Group (LCG) — and yes, that is her official job title. We don’t use the term “expert” lightly, but Porter is an expert in community building, and more broadly, connecting with people in an authentic way. In this forty-three-minute episode, Porter and LCG’s CEO, Elana Leoni, dive deep into Porter’s early career, community, and seeking and sharing joy. We invite you to listen to the entire episode but we’ve highlighted the best nuggets of wisdom, inspiration, and advice that Porter shared with us.
Defining Community and The Community Mindset
As a community scientist, Porter revealed the nuances between building an audience, a network, and a community:
Audience is a group of people who consume your content with or without a relationship with one another. It can be informally defined as the number of people who see your stuff on the Internet. They might be, as Porter calls them “extreme lurkers,” where they don’t participate but they do observe and may gain value and sometimes even engage.
Network is a way of connecting people to each other. Relationships may remain more surface level. The brand contributes value, but that is the real only connection between the audience.
Community gives you a chance to build customer loyalty and unify people around your brand. Communities successfully create relationships within their audience that the audience may credit to the brand. The members care for each other and the space that they have curated. Read more about the definition of a community from David Spinks.
Porter has also written about the difference between audience and community in depth. Since Porter is a full-time RVer, Porter compared a community to sitting next to a campfire. “If you are on a community team at a brand, your job is to create the atmosphere for that campfire, the thing that brings people together,” Porter said. “They have conversations that benefit them and their lives, and they give you the credit because you created the space.” In a community, there is a give and take, but in a network, there can just be a lot of take.
Many brands that start communities underestimate the work and strategy it takes to make it valuable to its members. Porter believes that community takes commitment and a specific mindset; things that take time and expertise to develop. Porter said simply, “some people think community building it’s easy. It is not.”
That’s why Porter believes that for brands considering growing a community, all owners and employees need to understand the power of community (what it is, what it takes to create it, and how it will fundamentally transform your brand). “One thing I know is that without buy-in across an organization, you will fail. From top to bottom, everyone needs to know that you are a community-focused organization.”
Porter admits that while you won’t walk out of any training with expertise in community, you might start to understand the “bare-minimum,” which, according to Porter, is “understanding how community impacts all of your organization.” But these trainings have a ripple effect that can help you think more strategically about community-building. You learn “how to find the magic in the middle, which is that overlap of what you’re capable of doing as an organization and what the people who are in your community actually need. And then your business objectives on top of that. And I love helping companies find that magic in the middle, and use it to do good for teachers, parents, which leads us to doing good for kids.”
The Secret Ingredient in Community Building
To Porter, caring is a fundamental part of any kind of community. “Only once you care for each other does it become a community,” she said.
Porter discusses how powerful that care has been in some of the communities she has developed, through relationships formed (maybe four marriages!) to helping community members survive some of the toughest times in their lives. “This can be life-saving work.”
Within the education space, it provides educators the confidence to elevate their own voices. Many educators can feel isolated from their colleagues. Connection in communities can help educators understand if what they do is different and unique. It goes without saying that communities in education also become a space for educators to share ideas and tools amongst themselves.
For EdTech brands trying to develop a community, Porter reminds EdTech leaders to return to their passion (AKA “their why” and tell their stories. “I’ve rarely met an EdTech founder who wasn’t passionate about the thing that they created. They believe at their core that their product solves a critical problem,” Porter said. “I would beg you to keep that at the heart of what you’re doing. Make sure your audience feels that love that you have for them that made you start your brand or join that company.”
The Unexpected Path in Education
Porter spent her early career as a special education teacher for nearly a decade. When reflecting upon her path to education, Porter explained what she felt were limited options, due to societal pressures limiting the option of what a woman could be. “My parents told me I could be anything, but society really told me that I only had a few choices as a female: a nurse or a teacher,” said Porter. “And I didn’t want to be a nurse, and I was really good with kids, and I love kids.”
Like all good teachers, Porter experienced a deep love of “seeing the light come on” in her students. When discussing her students, Porter reflected “I really care about what kids think of me because kids tell it like it is.”
Porter eventually made a transition in her career based on some things that she says didn’t see coming. After moving from her small town to New Hampshire, Porter learned more about curriculum and began providing professional development to teachers. That’s when Porter realized how much teachers needed to connect with each other, and developed her passion for creating communities for teachers to share their passion and ideas.
When reflecting on the end of her career, Porter discusses some of the things she hoped to be remembered for. Overall, she wants to be remembered for seeing the good in other people and delighting in it with them. Here at LCG, we get to experience Porter’s love and joy firsthand and because of that, we have absolutely no doubt that that’s exactly how she will be remembered.
Take a look at the full transcript of Porter’s podcast episode.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Steve Dembo, @teach42 (former, Discovery Education Director who introduced Elana and Porter)
So You Think You're Building A Community... But Are You Really? (a blog post written by Porter Palmer)
Pernille Ripp (an educator who found her already impactful voice by connecting with a community of educators)
“Work is Love Made Visible,” a quote from On Work by Khalil Gibran (one of Porter’s guiding quotes)
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Porter Palmer, Guest
Porter Palmer serves as the Director of Joy at Leoni Consulting Group and leads all community strategy and building initiatives. Prior to this role, she spent a decade developing engagement strategies and overseeing the general operations of the DEN, Discovery Communication's award-winning community of practice for technology-loving educators.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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