The fourth Monday in January is known online as Community Manager Appreciation Day! For those that don't know, CMAD started back in 2010 when Jeremiah Owyang launched a campaign to encourage communities to thank those that bridge the gap between the audience/fandom and company. Since its launch it has since gained international recognition.
Today there are two people who I want to thank for their awesomeness and kindness. At the moment Remedy doesn't have a specific "Community Manager" role, although they're in the process of hiring an Associate Community Manager, but they do have people who take on that role.
The first is the wonderful Lauri Haavisto whose recent promotion saw him move from Remedy's Senior Media Producer to Senior Manager, Investor & Talent Relations. Congratulations Lauri! He's a seriously cool guy who also helped a great deal during the Monarch Gala Charity Auction and the Spring Charity Auction which together raised over £1400 for Cancer Research UK. Plus he dealt with me and my emails for the past few years without setting me on fire even once, which is definitely a plus when it comes to community managering. He is often found on the Remedy forums and Steam discussion boards helping fans.
The second name I want to mention is Thomas Puha, Remedy's Head of Communications. Over the past year, he has started a number of community-targeted projects including the developer interviews on the official site, monthly Spotify playlists, fan art spotlights on the Remedy channels to celebrate the first anniversary of Quantum Break and more. My fondest conversation with him was a few months ago when we were emailing after I received some news which... wasn't terrible but wasn't the easiest news. We had spoken a few times before that but I really appreciated the conversation we had then. It's something that meant a lot to me.
22nd January 2018
Community Management Appreciation Day 2018
Thank you to both of you for all your hard work!
