A change from top down to bottom up

Slide from David Wilcox

There were some fantastics reflections and comments in the post, "Social Change Behind the Firewall" and you all are so smart that I wanted to summarize the thread and share it with folks who many not have trolled through all the comments.

The visual is from a reflection by David Wilcox after a workshop he gave in March.   What struck me is that it was the same message I heard last week at NDN from Micah Sifry.  It's no longer about top-down campaigns.  As Joe Trippi said, "It's the Network, Stupid."  Just wanted to flag that pattern.

Now, to dig into David's post.  He summarizes the internal control issues elegantly:

New media tools can give housing associations better ways to provide information, and support communication and collaboration within and outside the organisation. However, if the tools are in the hands of the resident/customers, that changes power relationships. Things shift from "take it from us" to "we'll take it from each other".

That's where the difficulties arose. While many people in the workshop were excited by the possibilities, they foresaw difficulties which were summed up in two phrases. The first was "we can't do that" - which meant the IT department and senior staff won't let us look at certain sites, or use free tools. The second was "we can't let them do that" - which meant that within the culture of the organisation it would not be conceivable to help customers develop their own voice, except within quite tightly controlled circumstances.

David points to a guide that I'm printing off to read on the plane called "The Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organizations" by Colin McKay.

This post struck a nerve with some folks who mentioned how difficult it is to get "upper management" presumably analogue adults to understand the power of social media and the culture shift that is happening.  This needs to happen around all social media activities and each new tool seems to require a new stealth strategy.

Take for example video.  Beth Dunn mentioned she'd like to start making short videos to post on Youtube, but the communications staff would prefer to upload the organization's dinner video.   Jay Dedman and Michael Hoffman offered some excellent advice.)

Part of the reason it is difficult is because many have not experienced it first hand.  So, how do you get senior management to understand?

1.  Keep talking about it, keep bringing it up.  One method suggests Connie Benson is to introduce the concept well in advance and then continue to talk about it.  The metaphor of the dripping faucet.  You can't give up.   

2.  Don't present it as tools only.   It is also important not to present social media as "tools" but get upper management to understand the cultural shift that needs to happen to be successful.  If you explain as tools only - then they are more apt to dismiss it as a fad notes Maryann Devine.

3.  Show them the money.

Carie Lewis at HSUS offered this advice.  Experiment under the radar and show them the successful results:

Our strategy at HSUS was to dive into everything we could at first, under the radar, find what works, and present the results to upper management. When we found that MySpace was good for advocacy, Facebook for fundraising, Flickr for easy website photo slideshows, and YouTube for increasing video views, we decided to invest our time into those four.

After awhile, we presented the amount raised and number of new email names we acquired via social networking, and those hard numbers sold them. As a result, I was able to hire 2 full time employees this year to help with internet marketing!!

That, of course, means that you've carefully thought through what metrics and measurement you'll use to track your experiment.  Will Nourse points to some data collected by his organization.

4.  Find an ally who has influence.  Try to find an influencer who understands the space and bring them on board.

5.  Avoid the "they don't get it" syndrome or you're so lame.   Assume that they do, but it needs conversation.  Think about how you present advises Marnie Webb.

There must be more tips?

Comments

[John Philip Green]

Great slide. I've seen social software explained a million ways, but it doesn't get much clearer than that. Was this part of a bigger presentation by Mr. Wilcox?

[Will Hull - United Cerebral Palsy National Office eAdvocacy/eCommunications Coordinator]

If you are interested in this topic, I would also highly, highly recommend Margaret "Meg" Brindle and Lisa Mainiero's "Managing Power Through Lateral Networking" available at Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Power-Through-Lateral-Networking/dp/1567203345/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210686209&sr=1-1.

This book describes the ABC Power theory. Essentially you are the A, the person who holds the "socially constructed" power in the way of you getting what you are looking for is B and C is the context of the environment in which you are getting something done. One more variable is X, what you want (is it reputation, to help, etc.). Think of this in a design of a triangle. If you want a more collective voice, look for more A primes that want what you do and if B won't give you what you want, seek a B prime that could also make the decision. Don't loose sight of X or C or you may be in some trouble.

Again, I would highly recommend this book. I read it for a class in grad school last semester. Very easy to understand and easy to follow and Dr. Brindle is a really great professor.

Thanks.

[Ashley Schweitzer]

Thanks for synthesizing the comments from yesterday. There weren't any comments when I read the original post, and this prompted me to take another look just to see the discussion (which is excellent).

Something I would call out from all of these comments is the importance of treating your colleagues as allies and stakeholders. Just as you can't build a coalition overnight, you won't be able to change the perception of others at your organization with one conversation.
I know that there can be roadblocks. For me, considering why others may have that negative reaction to social media has always been helpful. Then, I work to challenge and change those assumptions through conversations that illustrate the positive impact. Identify what is in it for them -- whether it's the show them money style or a way to attract volunteers -- whatever is the best message. In a nutshell, I think you get buy-in by helping people come to the realization that social media can make their job easier and & help them achieve their long-term goals.

I know all of this may sound obvious. However, in my experience, when others don't see something that seems so very clear, we can get frustrated and forget to consider why there is a disconnect. So, I remind myself to take a step back and try to out myself in their shoes. To check myself and my assumptions, and then meet them where they are, not where I wish they were.

[Teresa Crawford]

Tip #6...My new mantra...you can't just talk about it...you have to do it. One of the best things about some of the leaders in our field is that they practice what they preach. They blog, they wiki, they vlog, they Twitter and they talk about the process all along the way and that discussion helps all of us make the case to analog folks about how these tools can be relevant, useful and can break down/rebuild relationships and new ways of doing things.

Now that I am on the inside of an organization and trying to foster the adoption of these tools I am having to make things real by testing the tools out, committing scare time and resources to creating content and drawing into the conversation an ever widening circle of colleagues, partners, consultants.

Just today I had a colleague repurpose some materials we created for internal use, slap a Creative Commons license on them and ship them off to a new partner of ours in South Africa. It was great. Now what other vaults of knowledge and expertise can we open up?

[Ameet Deshpande]

Dear Beth, that is such a telling slide! It takes the hardwork out of explaining importance of social media and journalism:)

The potential of citizen journalism is indeed enormous. We, at
NGO Post, are using it for bringing
NGO's, nonprofits, volunteer groups and individuals together with the
aim to facilitate social action through information exchange and collaboration.

Hope you'll find articles of interest at NGO Post. Do share your social welfare
related contributions there too!