Paola

#general - December 17, 2025 at 04:08 PM

Love this <@U09E7QN7R27>, so very timely to what we're thinking re: signals!

Question for you: When you think of successful onboarding, does your org have it set up as a field in Salesforce or is it in a CSM /PS sort of platform?

I think its a great signal to include, but I need to think where in our org it could be

#jobs - December 15, 2025 at 03:53 PM

This isn’t a Customer Marketing or Advocacy role, but it offers a great opportunity to collaborate closely (our team partners extensively with the Voice of the Customer (VoC) organization, which sits under R&D/Product).

Grafana Labs is hiring a Voice of Customer, Product Program Manager. The role is 100% remote, with eligibility limited to the following locations: 🇺🇸 US, Canada, 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇪🇸 Spain, Sweden, and 🇬🇧 UK

In this position, you’ll play a key role in scaling and operationalizing our VoC program, serving as the critical link between customer feedback and product decision-making.

#7-case-studies-stories - December 04, 2025 at 04:38 PM

I usually start by looking at the age of the case study. Anything over two years old is a good candidate for review, or at least worth checking to see whether it could be refreshed.

I also consider whether the person featured in the case study is still with the organization, if they’ve moved on, it can be a good opportunity to revisit and update the use case with a new contact.

Another key factor is product accuracy. If the features highlighted in the case study have evolved significantly or been sunset, that’s a strong signal that the content may no longer reflect the current experience and could be a good candidate to refresh.

In the past when I have followed those buckets, it helped me build a solid list of case studies that need attention. From there, you can line it up with your current priorities and content gaps to figure out what to prioritize.

#dallas - December 04, 2025 at 04:27 PM

Looks like 01/13 works best for everyone! Just sent the calendar invite and picked one of my favorite restaurants in the Shops of Legacy...Samui Thai!

If someone has another option you want to recommend, I'm down to change it, not wedded to it 🙂

#reviews - December 04, 2025 at 04:02 PM

Maybe you could target reviews that are 1 year and older and cross-check it with:

1. Are they still a customer?
2. Are they still relatively happy? Just to ensure that you are going to receive positive reviews back. But maybe an incentive to get another gift card/incentive in exchange for a refreshed review

#open-share - December 03, 2025 at 03:45 PM

What a solid team! 🚀🎉

#general - December 02, 2025 at 09:08 PM

+1 to <@U09D5SANXUN> recommendation of mandating a # of nominations. We used to have something also on # of case studies per year or # of quotes approved. You can bucket it under "content contributions"

#jobs - December 01, 2025 at 06:01 PM

@Jane Menyo might know some more info!

#general - December 01, 2025 at 04:27 PM

EKKKK congrats Daniel! So well deserved and this write up is everything ✨

Daniel’s fundamentally rethinking what success looks like.

Bet you’re dying to know his secret, aren’t you? Okay, here it is: Daniel’s #1 focus is accelerating customer outcomes instead of chasing vanity metrics. His work has shifted industry standards, amplified customer voices on a global scale, and proven that when you empower your team to do exceptional work, the results speak for themselves.
☝️💯 so true! Love learning and brainstorming with you and our team. Excited for 2026 and all the exciting stuff we're working on

#dallas - November 22, 2025 at 01:05 AM

Missed you! We'll for sure catch up in January! I'll send the invite soon

#dallas - November 21, 2025 at 07:20 PM

Daughters asleep for nap time and I forgot my husband has a haircut appointment at 2:30. Hoping he gets back home in time for me to make this meetup today 🤞

Best case, I'm just a bit late. So feel free to get started without me!

#dallas - November 21, 2025 at 04:42 PM

Location preferences?

Shops of Legacy
🍣 Addison
🏙️ Dallas
Other suggestions?

#dallas - November 21, 2025 at 04:41 PM

What dates in January work for a post-holiday meetup?

1️⃣ Tuesday, Jan 7
2️⃣ Friday, Jan 9
3️⃣ Tuesday, Jan 13
4️⃣ Friday, Jan 23

#dallas - November 21, 2025 at 04:38 PM

Enjoy 💅 let me throw another poll for more dates

#dallas - November 20, 2025 at 10:09 PM

Oops, updated!

#dallas - November 20, 2025 at 10:07 PM

Correct, @Maria Colusi and @Christine Chen wanted to do it before traffic

#dallas - November 20, 2025 at 08:40 PM

I hope you feel better ❤️‍🩹

#dallas - November 20, 2025 at 08:37 PM

That works for me! Let's move this to tomorrow in Frisco and we can do another dinner for those who can't make it for after the holidays 🥳

#dallas - November 20, 2025 at 08:06 PM

Ooo i do LOVE sushi and drinks, I'd be done if we move it to tomorrow and don't want to get together tonight

#dallas - November 20, 2025 at 07:58 PM

Aww Maria! That's totally understandable. I felt the same way when I went to drop off my daughter in the AM and was angry this rain decided of all days to be today 😭

I'm hoping the same, @Heather Quitos! 🤞 but def want to keep everyone safe (especially I hate driving in the dark, and even more in the rain)

<@U08U4PV81KP> @Bria Jones - how are y'all feeling about it? Should we look to reschedule?

#general - November 20, 2025 at 05:27 PM

So cool Kevin + team! Congrats 🎉 I love the timer effect. It draws anticipation to get your nominations in

#general - November 20, 2025 at 05:26 PM

+1 to @Emily Gover. We use the NotebookLM approach and have been getting some good traction from our sales team with it.

#10-community - November 14, 2025 at 08:25 PM

Hey @Taylor Page, we have a very similar set up here at Grafana and would love to be apart of the brainstorming 🙂

#dallas - November 13, 2025 at 10:00 PM

Hi everyone, friendly reminder that next Thursday is our CMA Meetup Dinner at Fortune House! Looking forward to seeing y'all there 📆

#reviews - November 12, 2025 at 05:33 PM

Sorry all, was off for a long weekend. We're actually exploring this concept at the moment here at Grafana as we have a strong customer community we can tap in for advocacy activities like reviews.

During my time at ThoughtSpot, once someone left a review, we would invite them into deeper acts of advocacy (beta testing, reference calls, etc). Another thing we would do to drive reviews would be to look at those users who turned on certain new features and when new features go live (especially ones that came from our community/product ideas), we would invite users to share their impressions (this one was a bit manual as you want to make sure these users are relatively happy with this new feature).

I think @Joel Primack you mentioned this in another slack channel, but CS + Community joint motions is usually my go-to evergreen approach where we would enable CSMs to point satisfied users towards review sites + events-to-review CTAs, especially for community based events like user groups

#reviews - November 06, 2025 at 08:58 PM

It was these very beautiful patches (which I wish I took pictures of) and we also had paired this table with this annual survey we do (product agonistic but about our practice) and those had these keychains, so it was almost labeled as our "community" table so people can share their thoughts.

#reviews - November 06, 2025 at 08:32 PM

Hi Megan, Paola here from the Grafana team. Daniels on an airplane so I'll chime in until he's back online. We had a CTA at a table in our multi-city conference. This one was paired with a QR code and allowed them to get a cool keychain.

Complete a Gartner Peer Insights survey at ObservabilityCON on the Road 2025.

Help others discover what you already know about the products of Grafana Labs and win a special prize. Scan the QR code below.

#open-share - November 06, 2025 at 07:37 PM

Love this Mary! 🎉

#open-share - November 06, 2025 at 04:21 PM

🎉 Huge congrats to all the incredible nominees for Customer Marketer of the Year 2025! It’s amazing to see so many familiar faces (and friends!) being recognized for the amazing work they do: @Daniel Palay, Kara Manfredi, @Dave Hansen, @Natalie Gullatt, Kristen Smith

Now for a shameless plug 👀…

A special shoutout to everybody’s favorite Grafana Customer Marketer (and all-around wonderful human) @Daniel Palay! Daniel brings a refreshing perspective to customer marketing (apparent to his Bay Area preso earlier this year), leading with heart, creativity, and strategy. He gives our team the autonomy to chase bold ideas and backs us every step of the way.

A true cross-functional powerhouse, Daniel supports teams across Grafana, always finding ways to connect people, ideas, and opportunities. He’s also a big contributor to our vibrant culture, from his daily birthday and anniversary shoutouts on Slack to the genuine care he shows everyone around him.

I’m so proud to be on his team and to learn from him every day 🥹 You can cast your vote for Daniel (and the other amazing marketers!) here.

#general - November 03, 2025 at 04:07 PM

<@U09M6M4ECFK>, that sounds like a great system but totally understand the frustrations of scheduling interviews. Have you considered using a tool that lets you capture answers in a self-serve way? I know there are tools (like Slapfive which has prompts), that allow you to send the questions and even now there's AI tools that do voice to text so you can get more details

#10-community - October 30, 2025 at 08:39 PM

I used to have some ideas that I always wanted to try back with my customer community:

• 12 days of X stories: You can even use existing content or use it as a forcing function to get new stories to feature publicly (how they used your products to build something)
• "Proudest moments": You could do an end of year report of how many questions your community had, how many product ideas, how many stories, etc. or you can take a CMA approach and share aggregated data points

#open-share - September 30, 2025 at 06:57 PM

Such a good read <@U09E7QN7R27> + Gemma! I hope you feel better, I'm in the same boat with COVID for the whole family 🫠

#dallas - September 30, 2025 at 04:41 PM

It is super good! 🤤 Here's an invite:

Dallas CMA Meetup Dinner
Nov 20 • 6:30 – 8:00 PM • Fortune House Chinese Cuisine • View details & RSVP https://calendar.app.google/fUWEoVC4LfdrGqfk7

#dallas - September 30, 2025 at 02:49 AM

Sorry, COVID brain 😷 yes, 11/20. Agree, I was thinking of you Cheyenne, since Irving is a bit closer to Arlington/FTW.

Does that work for everyone?

#dallas - September 30, 2025 at 12:51 AM

Looks like we have an unanimous decision of November 20! Have y'all been to Fortune House in Irving before or Royal China off Royal Rd?

#dallas - September 29, 2025 at 03:40 PM

Cool! Looks like Thursday work best for us! Let's do a new poll with options for November/December. One moment 🙂

#dallas - September 27, 2025 at 02:20 PM

Also, plz excuse my missing S on Wednesday 😭

#cabs - September 26, 2025 at 11:45 PM

Ekkk this was always a tough one to nail down but what I've done before is:
• if there are no breakouts, then we record that with professional videographers OR we used to just record the audio on Zoom at another company
• If there are breakouts, then assign someone from your org who isn't presenting to be the dedicated "scribe" and capture feedback into different categories: challenges, feature requests, feedback - support, opportunities, follow up actions, open questions, etc
Last time I did this, I created a new tab in a google sheet and added the name of the attendees as a drop down category so whenever someone captured something they said, we can attribute who said the thing to properly follow up with them

#dallas - September 26, 2025 at 11:41 PM

Also, inviting @Maria Colusi who lives in both Dallas and Chicago 👋

#dallas - September 26, 2025 at 11:40 PM

Ooo looks fun! Thanks Cheyenne for the invite!

I wish I could make it but it's my birthday week (10/24) so I'll be at a Halloween carnival that evening.

We should do something before EOY again tho! How about Nov?

#8-references - September 23, 2025 at 07:27 PM

Love that @Alexie Glover! Do you still include info on what they want to talk about? Do you mention to the customer that it's a private networking with a prospect?

#10-community - September 19, 2025 at 08:07 PM

Hi @Shelly Ryder, I really align with your thought process — I followed a similar approach during my time at ThoughtSpot, where I authored 400+ KB articles.

Many of those ideas came from:
• FAQs our community members asked across multiple threads
• Common questions raised during office hours with our professional services team
That work eventually evolved into a branded “SpotGuide” page within our community, which highlighted best practices recommended by our CS and PS teams. It became a scalable way to drive digital customer success.

I also developed a “Success Series”, a weekly webinar where we’d dive deeper into popular topics from office hours and User Group events. Many of those sessions also turned into articles, creating a strong cycle of knowledge sharing.

#general - September 17, 2025 at 07:36 PM

In past roles, I’ve typically partnered with product teams on shaping these type of strategic questions to validate whether our planned product/company direction aligned with future-looming customer priorities.

For example, if we were considering an AI-focused investment in our products, we might ask: “How much is AI currently incorporated into your XYZ strategy?”

Other questions that come to mind:
• “Which emerging technologies are you prioritizing in the next 12–18 months?”
• “Where do you see the biggest opportunities to improve business outcomes with XYZ?”
• “What challenges do you anticipate as you scale your XYZ strategy?”
@Daniel Palay - I know this is fresh on your mind with our upcoming CAB

#jobs - September 11, 2025 at 07:24 PM

A former colleague works at Squire and sent me this Customer Loyalty Marketing Manager role but super happy where I'm at so passing it along! 💌 lmk if you want an intro to my friend, I'm sure she's down to refer someone

#open-share - September 05, 2025 at 07:13 PM

Happy birthday Ciana! 🎉

#general - September 05, 2025 at 07:12 PM

Happy birthday Ciana! 🎉

#general - September 04, 2025 at 03:16 PM

I use Descript for clipping longer videos into smaller clips for social. I know that there's a way to record a video directly within the system, but I don't think there's a way you can give customers guest access to the system to be able to do that.

I believe there is a way to create a "Room" and then invite people to that room, but it wouldn't be "self-serve" or "async".

I've seen other tools that have done these testimonial videos, Slapfive and Deeto are two I can think of.

#general - September 03, 2025 at 12:04 PM

Hey @Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly), the calendar invite shows up on Tuesdays vs. Fridays

#general - August 29, 2025 at 07:02 PM

Thanks Mary for hosting, great convos! 🤓

#dallas - August 27, 2025 at 03:08 PM

Yes! I'm still able to make it. Been looking forward to it!