Lauren Gundrum

company September 26, 2012

Apptivate.ms: A Windows 8 App Development Contest

Windows 8 officially launches on October 26th, and it’s already generating quite a few questions on Stack Overflow.  So when Microsoft approached us about sponsoring an app development contest, we thought it was a great idea. Today we’re announcing Apptivate.ms, a Windows 8 App Development Contest sponsored by Microsoft. The contest has two parts: A…
Avatar for Lauren Gundrum
Community and Growth (Former)
community June 26, 2012

Welcome to the Arqade: Rebranding a Successful Site

Question: What do Stack Overflow, Super User, and Server Fault have in common that most of the sites on our network don’t? Answer: A unique brand. It’s no coincidence that our three largest sites happen to have their own brands. Unique domain names are more memorable than the subdomains that cover most of our network, which…
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Community and Growth (Former)
company April 20, 2012

More Notes on Contest Format

A few months ago, I outlined a contest formula called “Hot Topics,” which has become a staple in CHAOS’s site-promotion efforts. For those who missed that post, Hot Topics initially worked like this:**** Pick a topic of the week, and enter everyone who asks a question related to that topic into a random drawing to…
Avatar for Lauren Gundrum
Community and Growth (Former)
contests January 5, 2012

Hot Topics: A Contest Formula that Works

CHAOS has been searching for the perfect way to promote activity on our sites for a while now. After all, before you can try to recruit new users, you need to engage your existing community. Since we’re a network of Q&A websites, a natural place to start is having question-asking contests. Some of our contests…
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Community and Growth (Former)
company December 25, 2011

Intro to CHAOS Promotion Seminar

CHAOS is a fast-paced, high-energy team that concentrates on finding new ways to promote Stack Exchange sites. So when the Stack Exchange moderators asked for some help with their grass-roots promotions, we decided to publish a series of posts outlining our most successful efforts. These posts should be helpful to any users who want to…
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Community and Growth (Former)
cooking November 23, 2011

It’s almost Thanksgiving! (Tell your friends about Cooking.SE)

You’re probably really stressed out about making dinner, huh? Have a ton of questions about cooking for large groups, vegetarian substitutes, and that deep frying experiment that went completely wrong? What a perfect time for us to remind you that we have a site for that… it’s called Seasoned Advice. Reminding people to turn to…
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Community and Growth (Former)
uncategorized November 11, 2011

Gotta have a hook

(Alright, not a fishing hook or a Captain hook, but a “hook.” You’ll see what I mean.) One of our biggest outreach strategies has been to sponsor bloggers in the hopes of attracting some of their readers to Stack Exchange. The problem with that tactic is that most people will care way more about the…
Avatar for Lauren Gundrum
Community and Growth (Former)
fitness October 24, 2011

Lessons from Event Sponsorships

After sponsoring the Rock ‘n’ Roll 10k on Saturday, there are a few lessons we learned that can probably be extended to most event sponsorships. First of all, it’s always good to get out and interact face to face with potential users. There is only so much you can do online, and it’s much easier to explain a site…
Avatar for Lauren Gundrum
Community and Growth (Former)
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