Airtable Top Contributors | August 2023

[MaddieJ]

Greetings, Airtable Community! My name is Maddie, and I’m your new Airtable Community Engagement Manager.

Welcome to the August edition of Airtable Top Contributors, where we give a standing ovation to members who have gone above and beyond for the Airtable Community in a positive way! Lets dive into the numbers: 

Last month, our Top Contributors authored 51 solutions, received 35 kudos for their ideas, wrote 154 replies, and received 85 kudos! 

Top Solution Authors 🧠

1. @Sho -  27 Solutions Authored
   Check out @Sho's helpful solution to a ROUNDUP() question here.
2. @TheTimeSavingCo - 14 Solutions Authored
   A screenshot, clear explanation, and most importantly, encouragement, this solution has it all! 
3. @Ron_Williams - 10 Solutions Authored
   Check out this simple and quick formula that saved the day! 

Most Kudoed Ideas 💡

1. Show an interface without airtable account by @Sara received 22 Kudos in August for a total of 91 kudos.
2. Ability to create calculated metrics in Interfaces by @Joel_Lee received 7 kudos for a total of 24 kudos.
3. Interfaces need Public Sharing Option by @raechyl received 6 kudos for a total of 13 kudos.
   
   

Be sure to check out and provide kudos to other community member’s ideas on our Product Ideas board. In our upcoming Product Ideas board update, kudos will be very important, so be sure to kudo the ideas you would like to see implemented!

*Total kudos are as of August 31, 2023.

Top Replies 📨

1. @TheTimeSavingCo - 60 Replies Authored
   Check out this thorough and clear response to a multiple question post here.
2. @Sho - 58 Replies Authored
   Check out this conversation about optimizing a formula. I love how @Sho and @David_Skinner collaborated here and learned from each other!
3. @pressGO_design - 36 Replies Authored
   *chef’s kiss* to this post, where @Sara_Ophoff shared their goal, context, and a screenshot of where they were getting stuck. Then, @pressGO_design walked them through a solution, the methodology behind the solution, and most importantly, was kind and encouraging along the way!

Top Kudoed Authors 👍

1. @kuovonne  - 37 Kudos Received
   From product feedback to helpful solutions, @kuovonne's insights were well liked this month!
2. @Sho - 28 Kudos Received
   Check out @Sho's thoughts on this formula question with bonus tip on filtering.
3. @TheTimeSavingCo - 20 Kudos Received
   Here’s a great example of their help with automated emails - great job!

To each and every Airtable Community member, thank you! We can’t wait to see how you help each other learn and solve in September.

How do we select top contributors?

We define a Top Contributor as someone who is passionate, helpful, friendly, and active in the Airtable Community. These members continue to share their knowledge and build positive relationships by answering questions, starting new threads, and going out of their way to share their Airtable expertise and advice with their extended networks. 

As we continue to evaluate each month's Top Contributors we will be reviewing both qualitative and quantitative data, as well as how each member upholds our Communities Code of Conduct and Guidelines as they interact with other members of the Airtable Community.  

[Bill_French]

Good to know.

How many solutions were needed? What was the overall demand of the community as it relates to the solution supply?

Also, why isn't there a healthy participation of Airtable support and engineers helping to solve the many unanswered queries?

[kuovonne]

Hi @MaddieJ !

Welcome to the Airtable community! Looks like you've had a month to poke around the community. This community has a long and varied history.

Would you care to tells us a little more about yourself, your position, and your plans for the community?

Are you at liberty to say whether other community managers (Laura McCarthy, Chris Shernaman, etc.) are still involved in the community?

Many months ago, this list tended to be based mostly on statistics of kudos, likes, posts, etc. I mentioned that those posts felt a bit dry and didn't demonstrate evidence of having read the community content. The community manager at that time then started adding the bits of text you now have that mentioned specific posts. However, now in the age of AI, it is easy to generate even that text without actually doing a deep dive into knowing the community. (I am not saying that you are doing this, just saying that it is possible.) It is evident that you do some hand-crafting of your list, as your list is different from the Top Solution Authors Leaderboard.

However, I am still curious about how you review "qualitative data"? How are you judging the quality of responses? Are you using AI or is a human reading the community posts? Who are the judges and what is their level of technical knowledge about Airtable?

[Jan_Segier1]

First of all: welcome @MaddieJ. I hope you'll last longer than your predecessors and somehow are able to fix some of this broken community ever since we had to switch to this "platform" 😬

I would like to suggest keeping this kind of posts out of the "announcement" section. These things aren't announcements. Let's keep that for product release, etc 👍

[Sho]

Hi @MaddieJ、
I didn't know I could get a gift. Thank you. But I was afraid of the 5 minute time limit.
Will it be delivered to Japan?

I'm not good at English, so I can only read simple questions and give simple answers!

[Tobias_LGKR]

@kuovonne 

Laura and Chris, so I have been told by AT, left the "community" some months back.

[MaddieJ]

Hey @kuovonne and @Bill_French, thanks for the welcome! A bit more about me - I'm based out of Colorado and love all the outdoor activities that the mountains have to offer. I also enjoy yoga, running and reading! I have over 5 years of community experience and am looking forward to diving in here.

I'm excited to be at Airtable as the Community Engagement Manager as I think there are some great opportunities for this space. One of my big priorities is to bring the Product Ideas board up to date, and help implement a plan to keep that feedback loop more active moving forward. More details coming soon!

You both asked about solutions, and while there isn't a minimum number of solutions to be considered for recognition in these posts, we do take a holistic view of a user's activity for the month into account when selecting our Top Contributors. Users who provide solutions, earn kudos, etc. and are engaging with users in an overall positive and encouraging way were considered for these top slots. I did not use AI in the writing of this post, nor in evaluating a user's profile - hopefully my voice came through so you can get to know me better ‌😊‌. While I'm still learning about Airtable, folks who ask questions and then mark solutions as “accepted” help make it clear to me that their inquiries were solved. Plus, I’ve observed many instances where users celebrate the help they receive once their question is answered, adding to the qualitative data that helps evaluate activity. I also made sure to assess solutions authored for the date range in question (8/1-8/31) which differs from today's Top Solutions Leaderboard.

One thing I've noticed about the users in this community is how passionate y'all are about Airtable. That's so great! One piece of advice I have for anyone who is hoping to earn a spot on this list is to make sure they're being positive, collaborating, assuming positive intent from Airtable and other community members, and are following our Community Guidelines. 

@Bill_French, I can take your feedback back with me about wanting more community activity from engineering and support.

@Jan_Segier1, thanks for the welcome! I think having posts like this in the Announcements blog is an awesome way to celebrate our community. We’re going to keep posting here but you’re welcome to adjust your subscription settings to fit your preferences at any time.

@Sho, that’s correct! This month we decided to share some swag with our Top Contributors listed here. I’ll email you directly to answer any shipping questions.

We also know some of you have questions about Airtable’s announcement last week, which unfortunately resulted in us saying goodbye to colleagues who have been active members of this community. We wish them all the best. We’ll continue supporting this forum along with all our self-serve plans. 

Thanks everyone, looking forward to September's results.

[Zach_Conrad]

"assuming positive intent from Airtable"

This will go over reallllyyyyy well.

[Jan_Segier1]

LOL! I'm an Airtable user since early 2017-ish (if not sooner) and now we're the bad guys for not be happy shiny community people?! We've been screwed to many times as a customer/consultant for that 💩 Trust Arrives on Foot and Leaves on Horseback...

[Bill_French]

Maddie,

Your exuberance is delightful. I hope it is contagious in your company.

As you may have heard, community engagement seems almost nonexistent post-Dec 2022 when the Khoros platform was introduced. It is [now] almost impossible to locate any of the knowledge many of us created from 2017 to 2022. I watch the community using a set of tools to gauge engagement, and the numbers are pretty bad. Pre-Khoros, almost every question had a response within 12 hours. There was a lot of excitement and active engagement by the "brain trust" of Airtable experts - the collective of practitioners who knew your product well, perhaps better than your own support team.

Today, it's not uncommon to see pages of unanswered questions well into three or four days after posting. And no sign of your support team or engineering. I believe without the engagement of your own brain trust, the community feels abandoned. I can't speak for others, but the lack of Airtable engagement causes me to be less interested because it suggests no one who matters at the product level actually cares much about what is being said here.

It's not sufficient to say, "They are watching the community and taking note." because, without conversation, your team is unlikely to understand the nature of these issues fully. This lack of awareness is evident given the many updates that have triggered 100+ complaint threads and sent many customers into tailspins.

>>>  implement a plan to keep that feedback loop more active moving forward

Does your plan include replacing Khoros with a platform designed for community engagement and technical support?

In my view, support is almost non-existent now at Airtable. Response times are very high (if at all), and the new policies have created a new level of disconnect from the support resources. In many cases, customers complain that when they can get a support conversation going, the support team doesn't really connect well with how the product is being used. These customer anecdotes I see often are compounded by the lack of a community platform ideal for publishing marketing content but less than ideal as a conversational support vehicle.

You've probably read my opinion piece on this topic, but I suspect you have some thoughts about the future of support and what role [exactly] this community will serve.

[MaddieJ]

Hey @Bill_French,

I know there's been a lot feedback and feelings about the changes that the Community has gone through but hopefully there's some comfort in knowing that we're working on it 😊

While I know that's not the most satisfactory answer, I encourage you to stay tuned. Thanks!