---
# System prepended metadata

title: Brainstorming RAMs / Community Managers / etc

---

# Brainstorming RAMs / Community Managers / etc

## 2022-07-13

### Action items

- **Chris**: Write up a blog post about the three major questions we identified.
  - Draft here: https://github.com/2i2c-org/2i2c-org.github.io/pull/104
- **Malvika**: Write up the "rubric for community engagement levels" we discussed.

### Overview

- Running themes
	- Separation/integration of communities - what is a 2i2c space, what is a community space,  
	- Accountability from community - what do you ask of them in return for your offering? 
	- Can we structure things so that it's easy for people to find the resources built by other communities to support their work? 
	- Bridging communities, domains, social engineering 
	- Distinctions between RAMs/CMs/PMs - entry points, domain expertise

Questions we'd like to answer

- Spectrum of community engagement
  - "Everyone should take responsibility for community management".
- How should 2i2c provide community support and structure? 
- Sustainability models 

### Rough Notes

- How do people enter into the CM track?
  - Often begin doing that work after their PhD, with some relevant experience during that time.
  - Often "from the community" and looking to move into a more community-focused role.
- One sentence description of each one
  - Project Manager -> Operationalization and Delivery for program goals. Oversee strategy -> plan -> action
  - Community Manager -> convening communities to achieve common goals.
  - RAMs -> Support research re-use to 
- What's the system each one cares about?
  - PM -> Operational and management system. How is progress being made? How are we measuring it?
  - CM -> Social systems within a community. Interaction points between people in a community. Make it easier for people to connect, have shared understanding, and collaborate.
  - RAM -> Intersection points between a community and key stakeholders outside of it. Make it easier for others to use and re-use, understand, etc.

### 2i2c discussion: Alejandro

- Core operation on research and education 
- Finding sustainability model for folks who don't have funding
- Non profit orgs: driven by the mission, serving public, accountability to social profit, transparent reporting
- Non profit can serve for profit org for generating money - but they can't fully become consulting company as that doesn't serve the community
- Interested in finding way to serve low resource community than private sector
- Using tech from private sector: such as google cloud, vehicle to get more people to use the infrastructure
- Value based vs pragmatic arguments

## 2022-06-23

### Rough Agenda

* What is the difference between a RAM and a Community Manager? (and how do they complement one another)
* What is the difference between a RAM and a Project Manager? (and how do they complement one another)
* How to build communities of practice for RAMs themselves?
* Adapting RAMs to services and infrastructure and / or RAM case studies to describe specific examples of RAMs and what they do

### References

- Miro Board about RAM vs. PM vs. CM: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_l6CBylw=/?share_link_id=789759952029
- Slides from Malvika about this stuff: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Tp3g4CikWkcE2dIBmaO666Qj7_XL8PGI/edit#slide=id.ge5e8626626_0_49


**Diagrams from above**:

![](https://i.imgur.com/xriT50H.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/RmGNIKK.png)

### Notes

#### High-level differences

- Skills are heavily overlapping between these roles.
- Differences are more like focus / who you represent / etc
  - Community Manager: Represents a community's interest, and thinks about its structure.
  - RAM: Represents the tool/service/etc of the research output, and thinks about how it could be more impactful.
- The relationship with the RAM / CM also depends on the research group.

#### Community Management overview

- Tends to be internal focused, not as concerned about stakeholders outside of the community
- Don't worry about bringing in external partners and funding 
- Are hired within the project that is hosting them
- Must identify with the community they are supporting
- Generally a one-CM-to-community mapping
- Building trust and understanding community processes is really important
- Example action: What technology can we provide you to make it easier to talk to each other.


#### How to grow CM within a community

- Ambassador programs
  - Can you centralize expertise and structure, but in a way that taps individuals within the community to be leaders
  - CSCCE looking into community champion / ambassador mechanism
- Community Consultant + Community Champions?
  - Hire somebody with community skills that can help grow leadership within communities that we work with
  - Community champions could be paid stipends to cover the time of growing and learning, then serving in this role

#### Job levels and experience expected

| Level |   Project Manager   |    Community Manager     | Research Application Manager |
| ----- |:-------------------:|:------------------------:| ---------------------------- |
| 1     |    Administrator    |                          |                              |
| 2     | Project Coordinator |                          |                              |
| 3     |   Project Manager   |    Community Manager     |  [Junior Research App Manager/ Research Application Associate]                            |
| 4     |   Program Manager   | Senior Community Manager | Research Application Manager |


#### Challenges with community management
- Value prop isn't always obvious
- Communities often want to go fast, community building is slow
- Speed is a tension point
- People don't think about what it takes to build relationships between people
- Metrics often are mis-matched
  - "Number of events" etc assuming the important things are the actions taken
  - Assume linear impact based on the number of actions taken
  - Community growth in reality is highly non-linear

#### Sometimes RAMs act like CMs

- RAMs generally don't worry about nurturing communities etc
- BUT, if the community doesn't have a CM, then the RAM tends to act as the CM
- Similarly for Project Manager - if there's no PM, the RAM tends to do that work.
- Seems to be related to the fluid/dynamic nature of a RAM and the overlapping skillset with the community.

#### Time split for RAM

- Time is "bought out" by different projects
- Funding sources guide people's priorities
- Whose interests are you representing?
- Isn't as much of an issue for Turing because people are within the same institution
- PIs characterize people into research staff vs. non research staff
  - If you're non-research staff they assume you'll just do whatever
