By Lauren Modeen, Manager of Online Strategy, GovLoop

A Community Manager has to be many things at once (hence the brain image). Here is my list of top 11 ingredients that make up the best community managers.

1. Listener: this person should be above all, a good listener. Hiring someone who only likes to hear him/herself speak won’t get you very far.

2. Reliable Gardener: often, the best community managers are outgoing, a little quirky, edgy, nerdy, or all of the above. These are good traits, but make sure they are also extremely reliable and conscientious. A community is a living, breathing entity, and needs a steady gardener and caretaker.

3. Passionate: find someone who gets fired up (in a positive way). When you interview or talk to a potential Community Manager, look for a twinkle in their eye when talking about the subject, increased pace of speaking, hands moving, etc. Community Management is hard, and often energy-draining (often you feel like you are constantly giving, policing without getting many direct positive affirmations in return), so you need someone who has a full tank of gas and can generate their own enthusiasms.

4. Serving: the community is for the community, not the Community Manager. He/she will facilitate conversations, be a concierge, gardener, knowledge-sharer, shepherd, and leader.

5. Curious: since a growing community must cater to more and more people, with more and more needs/desires/interests, it is important the Community Manager has a wide variety of interests/tastes so he/she can be highly curious about new topics, absorb knowledge, propose new ideas, and drive new relationships within the community.

6. Connector: every connection and interaction that happens within the community, no matter how big or small, drives to fuel the growth and overall health of the community. The Community Manager should be a natural connector, suggesting a particular member reaches out to another for XYZ reason, etc. This person should be part master-networker, part match-maker.

7. Policer: spam, negative and attacking content is bad news for a community. The Community Manager has to play the role of Policeman/woman and be a spam killing Daniel-san.

8. Round-the-Clock: community management is not a 9-5 job. People engage all day, every day of the week, and expect feedback when they are there. Try to find someone who loves community management enough that they do a fair amount of it in their spare time as well.

9. Relatable: if the Community Manager is unapproachable or patronizing, people will be reluctant to contribute. Find someone who is down-to-earth and makes people feel comfortable and want to take a seat at the table.

10. Experimenter: there is no 100% success road-map for any starting community. The Community Manager should be a fearless experimenter, idea-generator, and spaghetti thrower.

11. Instigator: find someone with a “just do it” attitude. He/she should instigate little conversation-fires everywhere, respond to as many member posts/questions as possible, and generally be “everywhere.”

(Image source = Get Satisfaction)

By Steve Ressler, Founder, GovLoop

Before I launched GovLoop, I co-founded an organization called Young Government Leaders (younggovernmentleaders.org), which is the leading professional group for young federal employees.  It's a great group that has grown to chapters from L.A. to Boston, professional development events, and a great national conference that we co-host (July 28/29th – Next Generation of Government Summit)

As such, I am often approached by senior managers for a little insight on the next generation.  It usually goes something like this: "What is up with these new employees?  How do I recruit and retain them? I'm so lost."

It's a fair question and it's super important.  Over half of senior executives eligible to retire in the next 5 years at most federal/state/local agencies.  And at the same time, governments are losing their traditional recruitment and retention advantages as they are going through pay cuts and freezes, stripping bonuses and benefits.

Here are 4 tips:

1) Reach Out and Play Up the Mission - Newer generations don't want just a job, they want to give back and do good.  Governments need to play up the card and do outreach

Andrew Rushton, a Communication/Outreach Specialist with the US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, shared this insight:

As a member of Generation Y (mid 80s baby) I can attest that government employment is attracting great interest among pockets of the younger population. I am working towards a graduate degree now in interactive media with the intention of applying these skills towards the government arena where much work remains in utilizing better communication methods to connect government entities to constituents.

Considering all of the talk about the pending retirement boom of government workers, there needs to be more concerted efforts by government agencies to reach out towards the Generation Y crowd. Government jobs have great perks but I don't believe many young people realize this!

2) Provide the Tools - As digital natives, the next generation expects modern technology.  The 50 Mb email limit just doesn't make sense.  They are used to cloud technology as their pictures are stored on Facebook, their life is stuck in their Gmail, and they are used to collaborating real-time with peers so why don't they have the tools to do the same with colleagues.

Kevin Dubs is another Gen Y, who is finishing up an internship with the General Services Administration and is the Director of Career Services for Young Government Leaders. Here’s what he had to say:

I think it's hard to peg an entire generation to hold the exact same values but some of these ring true for me, other's don't. I think technology is the element that is most universal to our generation.

3) Allow Flexibility - It is important for agencies to allow flexibility and rotations as we can not expect Gen X/Y to stay in same job for decades.

Alicia Mazzara, one of our GovLoop Fellows, and a member of Gen Y said:

I've read that members of Gen Y are more likely to job hop than other generations. In my own experience, I have seen a lot of my friends switch jobs with a fair bit of frequency; I don't think there is necessarily an expectation of staying in one place and working one’s way up. This seems like a management challenge if you are investing a lot of resources and training into someone who leaves after a year or two.

4) Use the Fresh Perspective – New employees come in with tons of ideas and often they are told "that's not the way we do it here."  Managers should use the  fresh perspective to get new ideas on service delivery and communication.  It engages the employee and everyone wants their opinion to be heard. Further, it's a great conduit to understand how government should be innovating for their citizens – for example, maybe your new employees are confused why the city doesn't have a text messaging program for alerts.  Sounds like a small problem to you but a Gen Yer will tell you that texting is by far the #1 medium for their generation.

5) We aren't that different - In the end, there are as much similarities as differences between generation.  

So back to you? What will you want? Will you be retired or nearing that milestone….but still seeking opportunities to work part-time from a remote location? Will you want to be tethered to a desk at some office 30 minutes away from your home? 

Or do you want to keep working 50 hours or more per week, not counting the commute time? Do you want to get stuck in a position that has no growth potential, just biding your time until something better opens up at another organization?

Doubtful.  That's why we need the generations to come together to create the next generation of government.

Note: If you're interested in this topic, please consider attending our Next Generation of Government Summit on July 28-29 in Washington, DC, where emerging leaders and thinkers will convene to chart the future course of government.  Use code "GovDClient" to save $50 off registration.