News Ways of Networking with Chris at Manufacturing Happy Hour & Amanda at HARTING (Automate 2024)

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All right, we're coming at you live from Automate 2024, where I'm joined by the Automation ladies, joined by Amanda from Harding Americas.

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My name is Chris Lucchios Manufacturing Happy Hour.

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We're going to be talking about community, not just the massive community we have here at Automate and with A3, but also the, I would say, the building of niche communities, smaller communities with very specific focuses in our industry, which is, to an extent, a new way that we're seeing engineers, or really anyone in our industry, collaborate across companies, across verticals.

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That's at least what I'm seeing so far.

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Amanda, maybe you can kick us off with some of your thoughts as to why this topic has popped in your mind recently.

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Yeah, this topic's on my mind a lot as we think about multi-generational workforces in all aspects of manufacturing and engineering these days and as I think about our future customer base, the design engineers out there.

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They're thinking about connectivity.

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How do they want to learn?

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How do they?

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Who do they turn to for trusted advice in the decisions they make?

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And you know, younger millennial generation folks just approach all of that really differently than past generations.

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So we at Harding are trying to think about look at what's out there, provide content and tools for whoever is designing in whatever way that they want to interact, and I think it's a really interesting emerging space how people are connecting in new ways.

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And I think this is a good opportunity for a bit of a roundtable discussion and, quite frankly, ali and Nick, you'll be better at leading this than I am, because you've built a really good community within Automation Ladies.

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I would love to hear kind of how that started to develop and what it's evolved into.

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Maybe tell us a bit of a story and that'll get the wheels turning on the rest of this discussion.

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Yeah, sure, yeah.

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So the background really behind Automation Ladies is I was out of the industry for a while and came back onto LinkedIn, you know, in the height of COVID, and I was alone in a geography where I didn't have a local network right.

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I used to be an outside sales engineer.

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I knew a lot of people in my local area and this I was kind of like coming in with a cold start yes, I know people, but they're not around right, where is everybody going?

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And LinkedIn at the time was starting to be a place where more people were coming to put content and have discussions and were coming to put content and have discussions and I actually was listening to a podcast called Office Ladies.

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So most people know the TV show the Office.

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Oh yes, pam and Angela are actually best friends in real life and they have a podcast called Office Ladies in which they talk about the Office.

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And you know, people have all kinds of like fan communities around certain topics and you know things like that.

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And I just really thought like I met a few women online that were just as nerdy about industrial automation as I was and we had a fun time chatting.

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We had some group chats going on on LinkedIn and stuff, and so we started the show in order to I thought, if we can have more of these conversations publicly, more people that gravitate towards these types of conversations that we want to have can find us.

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And it really started out as a way for us to try to fix what we kind of were complaining about.

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We felt like there was a lack of content by women in the industry in general.

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Instead of complaining about it, we thought, hey, let's try to do something about it, let's bring more voices, let's have these conversations, and it was ultimately our guests, like the people that we got to know through the process of having the podcast, that coalesced around making this a little bit more of a community.

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We didn't really think about it in that sense.

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Most of what we've done has been, you know, a little bit by the seat of our pants, so to speak, but we found that the people that we interacted with and the ones that stuck around wanting to interact with us more, they found a sense of community with the conversations we were having and a lot of them ended up kind of collaborating after the fact, communicating with each other in the comments of the events, and so it grew into a place where then people started asking us hey, how can we join?

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Is there something we can join?

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Yeah, is this all happening on LinkedIn?

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Yeah, mostly, or conversations that we would have over email or, you know, zoom meetings before or after the shows.

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And so we are actually starting more of a formal community with the Discord channel this year, because we've just had enough people reach out and say, hey, we want to be part of this and is there some more formal way to do that?

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And so for us it's something that I think you can't really.

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Maybe you can if you invest enough, you know time and money, you really care, you can start and sponsor a purposeful community that's built with some purpose in mind.

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But for us it really was kind of the coalescing of the people that were into what we were into.

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Yeah, I think it's so cool the organic nature of some of this, because I think that that's what people want to be part of and trust versus something that's maybe like done by a trade group as in decades past.

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Yeah, a formal top-down kind of community.

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It's like very, very bottom-up well I think for us, you know as so we're millennials, right, we're kind of a lot of us are in management roles now, um, but we work a certain way and we're definitely not the same as, like you know, I don't even know where the gen zers and the next, how they're going to want to do things.

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But for us, I think, with the information kind of the internet age, there's so much information now that we want to rely on some sort of referral to separate just the deluge of information that we get.

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We get pitched by email thousands of times a day, all over the place with advertisements, and you realize that you really trust, even if it's somebody that't like fully used and vouched for a solution, just the fact that someone has something to say about it.

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You take that with a different.

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You know there there's something there that you can latch onto, like a recommendation from a friend or someone that you in industry can respect, or that they're not just selling to you, right, and I think we've been sold that now for our entire lives in so many different channels that we kind of want that personal connection to something.

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I thought you said something interesting earlier about how, yeah, you could put together a community, but it happened organically with Automation Ladies and I think that goes to a point that you can't force community.

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Right.

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And I think where there's a missed opportunity is there are a lot of situations that companies could find themselves in where they wouldn't have to force community.

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A community already exists, whether that's a user group, whatever it may be.

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They just haven't taken the steps to formalize that community, and what I've done in the past is I you know, give it a tangible spot.

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I did use LinkedIn groups in the past.

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I wouldn't recommend that as a spot for it, but you know, if you have that initial base, that initial ecosystem of 10 to 12 fans, as I would call them, people that love your stuff, people that comment on it, I would start there and make them the nucleus of the community, even if they don't know it.

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Yeah, and that's why we ended up with you asked earlier, why Discord, for instance?

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Because it's hard to predict.

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Where is my community going to be the most successful?

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Where do people want to hang out?

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We're all looking for that.

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Where's the place where all the engineers are?

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Well, there isn't one, right.

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Different people like different things, and so community development platforms, you know I think of.

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I have different communities I'm part of on Slack, discord, whatsapp.

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You know different places, facebook, but I kind of think of them with different purposes, and you know most people or not most, a lot of people have already experience with some of these platforms or softwares, and so they'll potentially gravitate towards joining a community that's in a platform that they already use for something else.

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Right, and you may not be able to lure everyone that uses Discord over to a Facebook group or vice versa, and so you know, different communities thrive in different places, and I think to your point, chris, you kind of can't force people to do it your way.

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They won't turn out right?

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No, and I think to your point, chris, you kind of can't force people to do it your way.

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They won't turn out right.

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No, and I do know people.

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There's a great, you know industry leader that does a lot of trainings in the PLC space.

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His name is Frank Lamb.

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Some of his customers and people kind of encouraged him to grow this community platform outside of just his training, and I joined it a while ago.

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But, like, not a lot of people are interacting there, um, and so we met up last week and you know, I was like, hey, how's it going with that community?

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And he was like, yeah, it wasn't really anything that you know what.

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I thought it might be right, but he tried it out.

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The format, the place didn't really seem to attract the conversation, um, but it's sometimes too.

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It's all about iteration.

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You got to kind of see what works and then try something different.

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It's not working out and consistency if it does work at all yeah, and you do have to sometimes.

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You know, if you're going to be the one that is trying to, you know, make a community, you really have to sometimes float things while it gains some traction.

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I mean, the network effect is real for almost any of these things that we try to do right, and sometimes it takes a little while before you get momentum and you know if there's something really there.

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You just don't give up.

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How do you avoid community overload?

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Like this is kind of on the flip side, where someone's in this community, in that community, but they can't really contribute to any of them and, as a result, they get jaded on this idea of community Because it is.

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We're at the point where community is becoming a bit ubiquitous and someone could just be like you know what I'm tired of this, like I don't need this group, and you could be losing some pretty valuable members that otherwise could be great contributors.

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I would say one of the things that I was doing was supporting my competitors and just supporting other people in the industry and showing that I am supportive of that.

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And I think if you want to make it as that community, try to see how much support is even coming to you from that, and if it's not, then maybe that's not your community.

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That that's assuming that you're actually active in that community.

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And if you don't get any support from anyone in that community, is that really your community anyway?

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Because, like, we're just huge on supporting everyone Because that's just how we, that's our MO.

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I think you have to kind of expect communities to be a fluid thing.

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Like you know, we all have stages in our lives, right In our careers as well, like, if you talk about, you know, attracting and retaining talent, what a person needs over the course of their career, what they, what matters more to them.

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It changes as your situation changes.

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And I think communities are kind of the same.

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Sometimes you join a community or you have friends that for several years you spend a lot of time with, and then your circumstances change, or theirs, and you may not spend as much time in that community.

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And I think us, as whatever we are community leaders, influencers, marketers, whatever you know you have to just be able to expect to evolve and change, and that you may not be.

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You know what every member needs at all times, um, so again, it's a little bit harder to these.

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You can't fully control these things, um, and I think that's very different from kind of the marketing of the past, which was we're going to put out things we're going past, which was we're going to put out things.

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We're going to be in charge, we're going to know exactly what happens.

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Yeah, like I'm committed to this channel for three years and this is how it's going to go.

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Um, I I kind of feel like the cream rises to the top of, like where there's a lot out there, as you said, and the the the best conversation is happening or what people are going to be drawn to continuing to contribute to, and that's where all the good stuff is going to happen.

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And we have to be, as members of these communities, kind of fluid and flexible with what people need.

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Like the idea of planning things around a core nucleus of members that are really engaged is a really cool way to think about it.

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And we talk about platforms and online communities, right, but of course, this is also an in-person thing, and so, for me, throughout my career, something that I've really realized adds a lot of value is not just being part of these virtual things or show up to the trade show, right, but to make some personal, lasting connections that can then transcend the community space or the platform, and then, oftentimes, people introduce you to new things, right?

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Yeah, you know you're not going to keep up with everyone that you met at a trade show 10 years ago or someone that you collaborated with in a group, but again, some people are going to because you have aligned business interests or you really, you know, just connected on a personal level.

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For whatever reason, some people follow you through your career as part of your community, and that kind of circle can change as well.

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You know, being, let's say, at the mercy of one digital platform like a LinkedIn, those algorithms are heavily weighted towards getting people into something new and then making sure that they keep seeing it again and again and again, and they change, the algorithms change.

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Yeah, they do.

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And so for us, you know, I think it's also really important not to just think of it as a digital space where, oh, the number of interactions or whatever those you know marketing kind of metrics, but when people really do have those personal connections outside of the platforms, I think that really makes these relationships more elastic and helps communities also, you know, find overlap and members can kind of migrate from one to the other as their positions change or they need to learn new things, but I think that's really rewarding.

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It's like, you know, you used to ask friends for book recommendations or movies or whatever.

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Sometimes you get into different genres for a while, and this space has become so big we have so much technology in automation that like walking a show this big without having someone to direct you or give you some guidance or some tips, you know it can be completely overwhelming, and having these offline slash online connections for me to come to a show like this has changed the entire experience in a positive way.

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Yeah, it's so much more fun for me coming to a show like this, knowing who I'm going to get to reconnect with, that I am in touch with online in the rest of our day-to-day kind of work life.

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And then you can really be your best self, meeting other people.

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New people, because you're not just completely overwhelmed and drained from sensory overload.

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And new people all the time, which?

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you're still going to get anyway, because there are like thousands of people here.

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I mean, this show has gotten huge very quickly and I think I would feel pretty lost here, Like I went to Pack Expo by myself in 2016, and it was completely overwhelming and I didn't know anybody.

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So I think you started maybe hinting at some of the things I might ask in this next question and maybe a bit of a wrap-up question.

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As we get here.

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What is one characteristic of a great professional community?

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Let's say professional community, but we could make this community in general, and let's go down the line Nikki.

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Let's start with you.

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We'll go Nikki, allie, amanda, and then I'll try to add some insights at the end too.

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Personally for me, I want them to feel welcoming.

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You know not that there's some sort of high bar that I have to jump to get into this.

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And then really, the members.

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You kind of feel when people are welcoming and they're willing to give.

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And there's some places where you kind of come in and you feel like you have to be qualified and you know that's not a place where I really feel welcome.

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So that's, I think one of the big things for me is you want people that are knowledgeable and are willing to add value and help each other.

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But if you're not genuinely welcoming to new people to feel like they can join this community, then that's not my cup of tea personally.

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So welcoming.

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That was number one, Allie.

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So for me, the huge thing is teach me something for nothing in return, and that's how I've, you know, even developed my own following.

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So people want to know, people want to trust you first, and they're not going to do that if you're asking for their email and asking for all their information up front.

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And I'm an engineer, so I'm one of those people that never wanted to get on the phone, never wanted to talk to salespeople, and so I know that there's a lot of people out here that are feeling that same way.

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And, yeah, teach me something, teach me something.

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But also, if you want to come up, teach people something and it's a lot easier than you think, because people don't know everything that you know and some of the stuff that we know, you know really well, we take for granted because that's all we've ever known, and people that's gold for other people.

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Just to share a little bit of what you already know is gold for others.

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So, teach me something, teach me something.

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That's good.

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So I feel like my build on that is help me with something, yeah, Slightly different, but I totally agree with what you both said.

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I think if the community is not adding the content that you are encountering is not adding value in your work life of I'm going to.

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My next presentation with my boss is going to be better.

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My next design iteration is going to be better because of something that I've been able to gather and capture and leverage from this.

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It's going to be better.

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My next design iteration is going to be better because of something that I've been able to gather and capture and leverage from this.

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It's going to kind of end up in that graveyard of communities that I don't turn to anymore.

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I think genuine, helpful, practical stuff has got to be what's encountered.

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Last thing I would add is parties.

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No one said anything about parties yet, and I feel like that.

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But no, it's the in-person element, right the opportunity to, because I think a lot of these characteristics can be of virtual communities, which is, you know, now that we're all connected the way we are through social media.

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It's a good thing that virtual communities exist, but it never replaces in-person interactions.

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No well, never.

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Face-to-face will always be bigger.

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Even a millennial knows that.

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Yes, we crave both, we need both.

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So I commend what all of you are doing in the communities you're building.

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I'm just so excited, just happy to be part of it.

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Yeah, likewise, and I guess we'll see you at a party tonight.

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Yeah, manufacturing happy hour, that's right, we will Always a party at manufacturing happy hour, all right.