You asked for it, so you got it. The number one most popular podcast in my series of podcasts has been “How to Start a B2B Community” with Mukund Mohan, CEO of Canvas Group. So I shared this information with Mukund and asked who I should interview next. He pointed me to Sean O’Driscoll at Microsoft.

Naturally, I’ve been reading all I can about social media and communities. But honestly, I heard more new ideas from Sean than in all of the articles and blogs I’ve come across on the topic.

I conducted an interview with Sean O’ Driscoll to learn what it is like to have thousands of communities to listen to and manage. And I wanted to learn how you harness these communities for product launches as part of an integrated marketing campaign. Enjoy …

Communities at Microsoft, a podcast with Sean O’Driscoll

About Sean

Sean O’Driscoll is general manager of the Customer Service and Support Community and the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Program at Microsoft Corp. He is responsible for developing community-based support models and leading the worldwide MVP Program. The MVP Program is designed to honor and recognize amazing individuals in technical communities around the globe who share a passion for technology and the spirit of community.

For more information on Sean please visit his blog or view some of his posts we discuss on the podcast:

Post with the 5 methods for convincing the unconverted on communities

Post on HD DVD

Post on JetBlue/Turner Apology

If you love Web 2.0 tools the way I do, you probably came to the quick realization that they’re powerful tools for creating a community

But added together they don’t equal a community. You can launch all the Web 2.0 tools you can think of and still not have a community. So the question quickly becomes: How do you create a community, especially in B2B? It’s easy to see opportunities in B2C around, say, yacht racing, NASCAR and even beer drinking (yes, Budweiser just launched bud.tv).

But what does it take to get a B2B community under way?

To answer this question, I enlisted the help of expert community builder Mukund Mohan. He’s the CEO of Canvas Group and a fellow blogger who publishes BestEngagingCommunities. He will take us through the 3 reasons to start a B2B community, provide 3 examples of existing B2B communities, and dig into the what, when and how of community building. I hope you enjoy hearing this one as much as I enjoyed producing it!

How to Start a B2B Community a podcast with Mukund Mohan

About Mukund

Mukund Mohan is CEO of Canvas Group. Before Canvas Group, he founded and sold 2 successful startups. Prior to that, he was head of product marketing for Mercury Interactive with responsibility for the direction and customer success of the company’s application management solutions. Mukund also was Vice President of Operations at Consilient, a software company focused on process automation. In that role, he managed a team of sales and services personnel and was responsible for customer success. In addition, he has held product and management positions at Ariba and Asera. He began his career at Cisco Systems.