And a piece of evangelism and facilitation is letting people know where opportunities for connection are–which I think you are calling cat herding. Good “Network Weaving” is helpful to tighten the space between nodes/participants. It also helps so people don’t miss content that interests them (lower threshold to participation).

You speak of content creation and evolution, and this to me is part of the flow of community. Creating flow to encourage participation, uplift visibility, and encourage activity whether through conversations, practices, or tools. What flows do you want to enable and what, as community manager, can you do to encourage them. (And conversely what flows do you want to discourage too.)