Dianne Kibby helped develop a community for a highly technical audience, Element 14. She has excelled in managing to get the types of people that rarely interact online to become highly active in community in her role at Newark. During this presentation, she will explain how.

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A Global Community of Engineers

2. Global distributor of electronic
About Premier Farnell
components & services
We are a high service global distributor of products and
services for the electronic design and maintenance
engineers.
Access to 2 million products from over 3,000 suppliers
Global access to products with 42 local language
websites

3. The element14 community – Happy 5th
Birthday!
§ A community of and for design engineers - help
engineers, educators and electronics enthusiasts to
connect, collaborate and solve problems
§ We now have access to a group of engaged
customers – over 270K registered global members
§ Unique in our Industry with many recognized awards
§ Annually we experience 50% growth in overall
participation from our members.

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What is element14?
• Named after silicon – the 14th element of the periodic
table
• An essential element in the electronics industry
At the heart of most new technology…
we aim to be at the heart of an
engineer’s design process.

5. The Ben Heck Show
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The element14 Ben Heck Show
MakerModder Extraordinaire
Weekly video series on element14
Just launched the 150th episode
315,347 YouTube Subscribers
17,564,532 Total Views
921,000 Average Views/Month

6. The Ben Heck Show – Innovation
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7. Lesson 1: Give the community it’s own
Identity
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8. Technical Content – important to an engineer – but does it drive
engagement?
Products are extremely important to an engineer’s design – but
how does it drive engagement?
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Our challenge

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And then there was direct selling, banner ads, email signups, which
definitely didn’t drive engagement…..

10. They did want to hear the
experiences of others -
Roadtest reviews from an
engineer using the product
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And they did want to help other engineers asking
technical questions…..

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We asked our members

13. Lesson 2: Stay dedicated to your members
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The electronics industry marketplace is
massive – can’t do it all

15. The launch of Raspberry PI:
Early content development - unboxing videos, user projects,
tech specs, live webinars
Half a million visits in 3 days and 1.8 million total visits the
month of launch.
A robust area of the community with ongoing content creation

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17. Lesson 3: Own the trends in your industry
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18. Global Design Challenges
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Global Design Challenges –
Partnering with Industry’s
Technology leaders
Showcasing member talent

19. Lesson 4: Showcase talents and feed the
egos of your members
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20. Technical product videos are good
Live events with experts are better
Product specifications are important
But member projects showcase how a product is used
Engineers are experiential learners
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21. STEM Academy –
Educators sharing with
Educators
Top member webinars with
Educators
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22. Lesson 5: Teach them in a way they want
to learn
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23. Give the
community its
own identity
Stay dedicated to
your audience
Own the trends in
your industry
Showcase the
talents of your
members – Feed
the Ego
Teach them in a
way they want to
learn
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Engaging a technical audience

24. Thanks!
Dianne Kibbey
dkibbey@premierfarnell.com
www.element14.com
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