I just finished the first day of a training on Network Effectiveness for Packard Grantees facilitated by the good folks at Monitor Institute. I wanted to capture some reflections around my burning question:
How do you think about using social media effectively along the continuum of open/closed networks?
Most of my recent explorations have been focused around the effective use of social media for external communications. But many networks need a private place or password protected place to have conversations online. This need isn't about being 'scared of social media" but rather a need for a safe place online to have conversations around very sensitive topics to build trust and relationships.
Charlene Li talks about this with a frame of "open leadership." She advises asking 'How open do you want to be?"
Today, I had an opportunity to present and discuss "8 Principles for Effectively Using Social Media for External Communications." But the question still remains - where do you discuss issues or share learnings related to your Network's work that might be sensitive. Where and how do you think about privacy and security in this context?
Before we dive into that, let's talk about ant trails. Eugene Eric Kim used this metaphor to describe how social media presence (in open networks) is like an trail. Ants do two things: leave and follow trails and haul things. They basically leave a trail that says "I was here." That way others can find them and connect. He applied the metaphor to Twitter. Twitter is simply an ant trail. We can leave a pulse, it is simple and easy. It keeps the connections going.
Eugene said not to focus on the content. Leave a trail and emergence to happen.
In fact, Eugene was watching the ant trails from the training session - we used the hashtag #packfound.
What do ants do when fall comes? I'm not sure. But when autumn comes to the East Coast - there is a chill in the air in the evening. There's a slight breeze that causes the leaves on the trees to make a distinctive rustling sound. It makes me think of poet Robert Frost and the opening lines of his Mending Wall poem comes to mind:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
What I'm talking about is the place where networks need to have conversations online - that are a sensitive in nature and access must be controlled because of physical safety. We've been calling this space where bounded networks share sensitive learning online. It's usually behind a pass-protected, secure area. There's good reasons for that.
How do you reconcile this in an age of transparency and open networks? It's clear where openness belongs in the context of an external communications strategy that embraces social media. And, it is also clear where the fence or password protection belongs when the conversations needs to be internal. But, where to put that fence when the boundary is unclear?
The benefits to being open, "naked as angels" as Esther Dyson might say. Innovation, creativity, momentum. But how do you think about where to draw that line? And, when does that line move or creep?
For this training, each participant was given a copy of the book Digital Habitats written by John Smith, Nancy White, and Etienne Wenger. During an 'open space" discussion on online tools for bounded networks, we used some of the frameworks to discuss this issue. We focused on how you manage security and privacy when that is essential to the conversation. Some quick learnings:
- There is a distinction between privacy and security. Security is mostly technical issue, privacy is human behavior. (I'm hoping Peter Campbell or Michele Murrain might write a blog post explaining security protocols for non-techies)
- User or community guidelines are important. Guidelines should be articulated to participants in community guidelines. (Information shared behind this password protected area should not be shared with the mainstream media.)
- If community guidelines are formally articulated, they need to be enforced.
- Modeling community norms can be incredibly valuable. (See Eugene Eric Kim's thoughts here and here)
- If there are toxic people behind the fence, there's an art to removing them.
It still leaves me with a question that Robert Frost raised in the Mending Wall about the placement of fences that could be applied to the placement of password protected areas online:
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him
I have no answers to this question, but I do have an extra copy of Digital Habitats to give away. Leave a comment!
There has never been an easy answer to this question. Hubert Sainte-Onge has used the metaphor of a house, in which the public space is the "front porch" which is where all the interactivity takes place. This is the interactive, communal, transparent space. Behind the front door, inside, is the private space. Some ideas need cooking before being transferred to the front porch. (The private place could also be where the team does its task management, event planning, and administrative work.)
Groups that I have been working with for years are still struggling with what to make private and what should be public. One solution available in social networking sites is to indicate for any type of content who has permission to see it. Permissions can be "inside the group" "anyone" "members only" and so on. What gets interesting about this approach is that everyone who posts content may be mindful about it. And sometimes things that shouldn't be public get out, and the community learns and starts developing the norms.
/patti
Posted by: Patti Anklam | October 07, 2009 at 05:47 AM
Couple more ideas to add...
Building on what patti said... it is really important to be able to explore ideas fully and wildly without worrying that it is good, bad, doable, stupid, whatever. That we can explore without having to commit to it one way or another.
Another is the idea of community and I'm thinking of the 'cellular church' model also. By working together in smaller groups we get to know each other better, to understand what we mean, take things the correct way, build trust. There is something to nurturing ideas in this incubator and then opening up the door. The challenge (or opportunity) then, is to expand and dissolve the insiders/outsiders wall. And this I think requires a shift in mindset for each 'insider' to become an initiator to welcome and cultivate other's entry- being a good hostess.
Posted by: Rebecca Krause-hardie | October 07, 2009 at 07:44 AM
I do agree Patti
http://www.craigspr.org
Posted by: sharon | October 07, 2009 at 11:57 AM
We're grappling with this for our online community at the moment. We want to build on principles of transparency and inclusivity but recognise that many of the conversations we want to have with our members will be sensitive. It seems that trust (and, consequently, willingness to share) is at the heart of why we would restrict access to some groups or discussions. Recognising that participants need to know and be comfortable with each other in order to share. But it is my assumption that the critical exchanges may still not happen in the written format of a community group, even with limited access, in part because of the perceived fluidity of the boundaries of groups over time and the permanence of the written word. So my question would be how to define the safeguards that give people the necessary trust to participate? Complicated further by the likelihood that individuals each have their own thresholds about what level of trust is necessary to feel comfortable sharing.
Posted by: Patrick Mallet | October 07, 2009 at 01:15 PM
Thank you for introducing us to these new resources, and for including the links to your slides and Digital Habitat. The downloadable chapter/handbook on "being a technology steward" is immediately useful. If you still have the extra copy of Digital Habitat to give away, I'd appreciate it to share with our nonprofit partners and foundation colleagues.
Posted by: Mary T. Migliorelli | October 07, 2009 at 01:25 PM
Beth - great job to use the Digital Habitats to foster the discussion as I found the 'orientations' exercises to be very impactful in discussions that I've around the community. As community builders we need to be mindful of our individual orientation as well as that of the communities which we service.
I work with both open and closed networks and find the distinction of 'secure' and 'private' a really important distinction worth further exploration around technology and humanity.
Thanks
Posted by: Lauren Klein | October 07, 2009 at 04:25 PM
Lauren,
Can you share any insights from your experience stratling the fence between open and closed networks?
@patti
I love your suggestion of practicing setting up fences in different ways and I'm wondering how you sandbox that effectively with a community. It might be easy if the community is starting fresh with a new platform.
Also, what if you have a privacy issue where say - if information was that was private was shared - someone's life could be in danger?
Posted by: Beth | October 07, 2009 at 05:25 PM
What a timely topic for us... We (the groupery) serve a lot of parent volunteer communities in schools (PTA/PTO groups) where privacy and walled gardens seem to be implicit. But notwithstanding obvious privacy/security issues surrounding children, we'd like to see these groups consider being more open to the local community to make it easier for local business leaders, volunteers, etc. to understand and join their cause.
However, for many folks the lowest common denominator for communication channels is email. There's this inherent feeling that even group emails have a certain degree of privacy, but of course, they can be forwarded anywhere. Maybe it's time to help groups be more explicit in their group communications about what is meant to be open/public vs. closed/private? Community-based tools could support each mode to the degree possible, but also tag these communications in a more obvious way so the community can police itself (and not forward closed communications).
At least that's a conversation we're having with our groups now as we consider how to help support their community guidelines and I welcome any thoughts on what would be the "ideal" way for an online community platform to support communities that are typically closed/private (eg. schools) vs. communities that have more public channels as a normal way of doing (some) part of their cllaboration (eg. nonprofits building social traction).
Posted by: Darren Lancaster | October 07, 2009 at 10:40 PM
Peter's post on privacy
http://www.idealware.org/blog/2009/11/security-and-privacy-in-web-20-world.html
Posted by: Beth | November 03, 2009 at 09:50 PM
Michelle's post on privacy
http://zenofnptech.org/2009/10/security-and-privacy-in-a-web-2-0-world.html
Posted by: Beth Kanter | December 02, 2009 at 09:43 AM