You guys will recognize the opening line from a post I made a month ago. But in the last month I’ve seen more than one example of how people aren’t born knowing this stuff, so I made it into a blog entry.

I’m enjoying the stories, posted and emailed, of those of you who’ve made use of this stuff outside gaming. We are the gaming generation, and by golly, we’re taking over.

You can read me trying to sound erudite three times a week at Metaverse Mod Squad’s blog.

The seven of you will probably not see any really new material, but hey, getting paid to blog is always ten kinds of awesome, so I thought I’d mention it here.

The Friday feature, BTW, is going to be Pro Tips From CMs. The MMS team is composed of a lot of terrific people who will no doubt have great material, but if any of you have a tip you’d like to see included, gimme a holler. I’ll post anon or with name and game link, as you choose.

The bulk of a community manager’s job, once the community is set up and running, is expectation management. When you invite people to ask questions, you create an expectation that you’ll answer them all, not cherry pick the easy ones. When you post five times a day, you create the expectation that you will continue to do so. When you moderate gently and lightly, you create the expectation that it will be always thus. When you respond to a user’s feedback with an immediate change in the game, you create an expectation that you’ll do that forever.

This is all very simple stuff. I am not sure the explosion of community-style jobs has been a good thing for the industry, because these basics don’t seem to have been learned.

But enough of my cranky old person’s ranting. I actually came in to post something interesting that I’ve noticed over my last few gigs. And then I realized I didn’t have an Examiner post up for today, and decided to experiment with posting it there. It’s obvious truth, to some extent, but the seven of you are a little more informed than the average bear.

Just how much more informed you are is the subject of another post.

There was once a repairman called in to fix a big, expensive machine. He examined it for a few minutes, whacked it with a hammer, and the machine started right up. He presented his bill for $400. “But all you did was hit it with a hammer!” complained the customer.  The repairman said “Oh, I only billed you $5 for that. The other $395 was for my knowing where to hit it.”

I am still with Quick Hit, but I’m back on the terms where I was over the summer – part time, and non-exclusive. Ain’t nobody going away mad, now. Dunno if you all have noticed, but the economy is in free fall, and venture capitalists are telling their projects to spend every dollar like it’s their last. A community manager retains customers. A community manager acquires customers. Community managers can help you prioritize your to-do list, even. What a CM can’t do is build features out of raw code. For that, you need a programmer, and headcount budgets are what they are.

I don’t have to like it in order to understand it. I love the Quick Hit team, and I really love the Quick Hit community. I’m honored to still be associated with the project, but I am, once again, consulting, writing, and raising hell.

My last column at MMORPG just went up.

Now you know why I’ve been so quiet. Closed beta! New websites! Designing tools! Forums! Slipped milestones and understandably cranky players!

God, I missed it. I feel like I’m home.

More when I’m not so crazed.