Today's lunch keynote was delivered by Dev Patnaik, CEO and Founder of Jump Associates and author of "Wired To Care." His talk was described as:
Standing In Their Shoes: How Widespread Empathy Leads to Better Decisions
Increased empathy and understanding can help close the distance between grantmakers and grantees, strengthen program quality, and maximize bottom-line results. When grantmaking staff see the world through other people's eyes, they forge deeper community connections, identify new opportunities to advance their missions and gain teh courage to take risks.
Patnaik was an energetic, fast talking, but inspiring speaker! I think my big takeaway tweet (and the one that got retweeted most often on Twitter) was that if you are not connected with your community - you can not have empathy or make good decisions.
The GEO conference had a sign language interpreter and was interesting to me is how the interpreter's sign for empathy changed during his talk.
Before he started, the sign language interpreter used the above symbol for empathy - which translates to sympathy. As Dev gave his speech, the sign for the word empathy changed to this:
So, with a simple visual - you can see that what he is talking about is not pity or sympathy, but coming together.
He talked about the concept of empathy on an individual level: the
ability to reach outside of ourselves and walk in someone else's shoes.
In other words, to get where they're coming from--to feel what they feel. He describes widespread empathy as getting every single
person in an organization to have a gut-level intuition for the people
who they serve--the people who really matter. He described why this important in a business context, "When
your organization develops a shared and intuitive vibe for what's going
on in the world, you're able to see new opportunities faster than your
competitors, long before the rest of us read about it in The Wall Street Journal.
You have the courage of your convictions to take a risk on something
new. And you have the passion to stick with it, even if it doesn't turn
out right the first time."
He shared a empath-meter that rated different companies for high, medium, or low empathy. He told many stories about different corporations and how empathy has made the successful. He explained the neuroscience of empathy in a humorous and entertaining way. He talked about how empathy is felt in the limbic part of brain. He explained the difference between dogs and iguanas and their ability to feel empathy. (Dogs have an under developed limbic brain and thus feel empathetic all the time, while iguanas don't feel empathy because they bump into each other.)
There was some discussion as to whether measuring results makes us less empathetic and the conclusion - at least from the audience - was that you need both. He also warned that simply asking stakeholders what they want is not empathy that it requires real engagement.
During his keynote, there was an active back channel with people in the room and of course, those from my network who responded to my tweets. I asked folks on Twitter how any of this translated to social media. Garlin, one of the speakers for the Social Media session after the keynote, equated listening with empathy.
How can we use this concept of empathy to improve our social media strategy and execution?
Last week, we launched the first session of the "Social Media Lab," a social media peer group training with a small group of grantees from the Children, Families, Communities Program. I was incredibly lucky to have a fantastic group of participants, all passionate about their work, very knowledgeable, and excited about integrating social media into their work. I also was honored to work side-by-side with esteemed colleagues Shiree Teng, Cheryl Contee, Ashely Boyd, and Dan Cohen.
Here's some reflections:
Thoughtful, Intentional Experiments
Thoughtful experimentation is setting up a low-risk experiment with metrics to figure out what is and isn't working is a social media best practice. If we can be more intentional and disciplined in our experimentation, that's how we gain insights about effective social media use. It prevents us from falling prety to shiny objective syndrome.
It is also a good technique to explore the possibilities of new tools and techniques before investing more time and energy in something that isn't right for our organizations. The add-on to my previous workshops were three "experiment in a box" modules which included Listening, Twitter, and Facebook Fan Pages. The idea is that participants would learn some of the best practices for these social media tactics and then design and implement an experiment and share their results with one another.
There is one problem with this design: Many of us find experimenting difficult. Experiments
require short-term losses for long-term gains. With limited time and
resources, we are often hesitant to make that trade-off. It seems more
direct to pay an expert to tell us what to do, not get a checklist for
an experiment. As a culture, we value answers over questions because
answers allow us to take action faster, while asking questions makes us
think. That's hard work, but worth it because good questions and
gathering
evidence usually guides us to better results.
Gift of Time: Real Time Learning
The problem with one-shot trainings is that you offer a lot of content and information, people get excited, and then they go back to the day-to-day reality of their busy work lives. Where do you get the time to put some of what you've learned into practice? And, when do you get the time to put your hands on the keyboard, shoulder to shoulder with a peer?
We included a big chunk of time for participants to work on their experiments while they were in the room. This is the gift of time. After each participant selected an experiment, we grouped them together and had them work together on setting it up. I did floating consults. This required setting up online curriculum that could step folks through set up and aid their planning and implementation. I created these for Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages, and Listening.
A New Definition of An Expert: Your Network
I think this is particularly important to emphasize if you want to nurture any peer learning, but especially around technology skills. I modeled that I don't know everything. I didn't have the courage to do that when I was younger, but now I understand the power of knowing what you don't know. I love not knowing because it encourages me to reach out to my network and find the answer. I feel strongly that the new definition of a social media expert is someone who has a smart network.
For example, during the lab session, we got a terrific question about bilingual Fan Pages on Facebook. I didn't have direct experience to answer it, but I remembered that my colleague, Manny Hernandez, had extensive experience in social media and bilingual approaches did. So, I demonstrated how to tag a person in a wall post and posted the question:
Manny Hernadez: Should an organization that serves both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking audience (and some only speak one language) have two different Fan Pages in the native language? What are your thoughts? How do you do it?
My tag or shout out also appeared on Manny's wall and it didn't take him long to reply with a link to his post about strategies for bilingual fan pages. But even better, this question posted on my Fan Page wall generated 14 insightful comments with useful advice, including one from the Facebook developer who worked on some Facebook translation tools!
Over the Shoulder Learning on Steroids: Social Learning
Ten years ago, before my son Harry arrived, I volunteered as a mentor for the Computer Club House in Boston. I wanted to get used to being around kids and what better way to do it than volunteer for a computer after school program. One thing I immediately noticed, is how the kids huddled around together at the computer screens and quickly shared what they knew with each other or how different discoveries quickly travelled from one kid to the other. There was a lot of what Nancy White calls "Over the Shoulder Learning."
As participants go off and implement their experiments, they will not go alone. We'll have check-in conference calls as well as use the wiki and hashtag to provide just-in-time learning. The peer learning will culminate in having each participant present what they learned from their experiment.
Joyful Funerals
One of the participants was Ashley Boyd from Momsrising who has a significant amount of expertise as an early adopter of social media and genersously shared a lot of what they've learned. Ashely shared a mini case study about their Pacifier Campaign.
Ashley shared a brilliant idea and technique avoid the stigma from failure. She calls it "joyful funeral" -- that you quickly say this didn't work, reflect on why, and move on. That way, on the front end, you acknowledge that since you're experimenting not everything is going to work perfectly - and that there is value in learning from those tactics that didn't work!
I anticipate that we'll probably have some joyful funerals as move through this process, including a few of my own. I hope that we can take the flop out of failure and harness the learning.
Some things I might do differently next time around:
Making the Link To Smart Objective/Audience Identification:
I used the social media game as a peer assist exercise for the first time. In all previous versions of this game, I used simulations (a fictional example of an organization or situation that had a smart objective and audience already defined). Simulations work better because participants can focus on applying the social media principles and picking tools than on defining an objective and identifying an audience.
Next time, I will use simulations based on participants or if budget and time permits, include one-on-one coaching with participants prior to the first session. While participants do complete an assessment form, I think participants might benefit from some one-on-one coaching. It would also be great to have a bank of examples that show an organization's SMART objective, audience identification, and social media strategy.
Social Media Game
I've been using the game now for almost four years in many different versions and reiterations. Many people have also remixed it. When I use it with a large group, I do a fair amount of social engineering to ensure there is the right mix of technical experience, communications experience, and meeting facilitators. Mostly that is done in the room. I think this is still important for even a smaller group.
I also remixed the game recently to incorporate some of the latest tools such as mobile and location-based social networks. And, as such, the game was a little bit more advanced than it needed to be. And while this might have caused some confusion or even stress, I think it is good to expose people to the tools that the early adopters are playing with. Just so they know the basic concept.
Over the weekend, on the heels of this session, I attended a "Playshop" by game designer Nicole Lazzaro. I learned about the four keys of fun in game design as well as the role emotion plays in engaging people. My next task is to begin to integrate this thinking into the game as well as the overall instructional design. Stay tuned for that!
Growing My Instructional Chops
I've been delivering technology trainings as a one-woman band since 1994 when I facilitated workshops in how to use email or create web pages. I've worked with a team to do my social media module, but I've never lead a team of training. I'm learning how to scale when you collaborate with other trainers and how much you need plan or create formal lesson plans.
One of the most enjoyable activities as visiting scholar at the Packard Foundation is being able to participate in think tanks on a topic. Most of the ones that I have attended have been convened by Monitor Institute as part of their network practice.
Both today and tomorrow, I've been participating in a convening with funders and others to discuss networks. If you want to follow along, we're using the #networkf tag on Twitter. What's nice to see is that everyone is much more comfortable with live tweeting, being more transparent. The guidelines are no live tweeting of confidential information!
In fact, one of the presenters mentioned how she had discovered the tag from the last meeting and was able to follow along. I find this useful to be able to connect with subject matter experts outside the room to ask questions or bounce ideas. And even though the responses are 140 characters, it can stimulate your thinking.
The focus of the day was on the life cycles of networks and Theory of Change Archetypes for Networks. As I was taking notes, I was thinking about the whole question of how and where selection of social media and online collaboration and communications fits - and the bigger picture. Much higher than the balcony, up about 10,000 feet where you can put messy social media tools and network behavior into neat boxes.
Sanjeev Khagram, iScale, took us through a draft white paper on Network Life Cycle. The paper will be published later next month, but it stimulated an incredible conversation. For me, it helped me think more clearly about relating network life cycle to the network's selection of online collaboration and communications - both those for private conversations and those for more open conversations.
It made me think of Nancy White, Etienne Wenger, and John Smith's work with online communities of practice. As Sanjeev was presenting, I wondered if the communities of practice orientation might work for a network?
I asked Nancy White on Twitter and her answer got me doodling on Powerpoint (see above).
We also had a presentation and discussion on catalyzing networks from Claire Reineit The big aha moment for me was the use of social networking analysis as an evaluation tool to look at relationships and collaboration over time.
Steve Downs from Robert Wood Johnson shared some reflections on a foundation-wide effort to become a web 2.0 Philanthropy and working in a network mindset. It generated an insightful discussion about crowdsourcing for innovation and social change, organizational culture issues, and more.
Last November, I had the pleasure of leading a workshop for a 100 Silicon Valley nonprofit organizations in hosted by Compasspoint and generously supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The workshop was filled within 24 hours and there was a waiting list. So, we scheduled an encore today for 65 people on the waiting list.
This workshop is mostly small group work and this time I experimented with smaller sized groups - 6 participants versus 8-10. It worked much better.
I tend to do a lot of "share pairs" where people get a chance to do a debrief with someone else in the room. It helps people process what they are learning. My biggest problem as a facilitator was transitioning from the share pair back to full group. I had been using chimes. But even with the loud noise they made, it did not get everyone's attention.
Nelson Layag, who designs and delivers a lot of nonprofit trainings as part of his job at Compasspoint, shared a secret killer tip with me. He suggested that you tell people at the beginning that if the group sees you raise your hand, to raise your hand. This sweeps through the room - and gets people attention. And it worked!
Another process piece that I experimented with to ask the group to do active listenings to the report outs from the game and identify good ideas they might adapt. This idea came from Shiree Teng who I will have the honor of working with on an extended group training.
The major content theme was not "How do we find the time?," but a more subtle variation. How do integrate social media into someone's job? How do we manage it?
Here are some ideas:
Interns: There are definitely pros and cons to using interns. The danger of course is to recruit an intern who is facile with the technology and simply dump the social media stuff on them. This is a bad idea. Jeremiah Owyang has some good suggestions on how to integrate the intern into the team so they understand the strategic big picture. Also the intern can help the strategy people understand the team. If you go the intern route, Kivi Leroux Miller has some tips for giving social media projects to interns . And, if you want steal a great job description for an intern and recruitment method, check this post out from the ACLU of Northern California.
Free Work: Seth Godin wrote a post a while back about the difference between using interns and "free workers" people who are unemployed or underemployed who want to build their resumes.
Empower Your Fans: You can grow your social media team without making a new hires. Andy Sernovitz tells you how.
Paid Staff: Not many nonprofits have a full-time staff person doing their social media. While I haven't seen any industry wide nonprofit studies, there is some data on social media staffing for Theatres and orchestras. For those organizations in a position to talent scout for social media expertise, here's some good advice from David Armano and what should go in a job description. What I see mostly is nonprofits looking at a particular job description and figuring out how to incorporate social media responsibilities into a job that includes other responsibilities.
What resources or tips do you have to getting the social media job in your nonprofit organization?
It seems like just yesterday when I started my nine-month journey as Visiting Scholar for Nonprofits and Social Media at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. And it's good to have a journal recording what I've learned. But it's even better for learning to have someone asked you some questions. Emily Culbertson from the Communications Network interviewed Stephanie McAuliffe and I for a blog post about my time at Packard Foundation titled "Learning the Ropes of Social Media"
I participated in a meeting today at the Packard Foundation facilitated by the good folks at Monitor Institute to reflect on the work they've been doing over the past 18 months on network effectiveness. Over lunch, we had a conversation about what I have learned about working within an institutional setting and how it differs from working in the "social media cloud" or in a networked way.
Working in an institutional setting is far more structured, formal, more face-to-face meetings, slower paced, and less porosity. Working in a networked way is more non-linear, faster paced, informal, and very porous. I'm not making value judgement that one is better the other, but recoginizing they are different.
These are different cultures, different languages, different ways and styles of working. The technology to support the work is very different. I think one of the keys to transformation and adopting social media or a networked mindset is recognizing how to simultaneously have a foot in both worlds or learn how to shift between the two.
It is difficult to switch from one mode of working to the other, particularly if the different mode of working is not familiar or part of your routine. And, the first experience can be very uncomfortable. What happens a lot is that someone might try it, experience discomfort and immediately stop. The problem is that it takes doing it more than once.
I think it is really important to have a sand box where you can practice using the tools or techniques of working in a networked way in a low risk, safe environment. And, sand boxes are social. You need to be with other people because there is an element of social learning. And, the sand box needs to be more play than formal instruction.
Recently, a colleague who knows a lot about network weaving mentioned wanting to learn more about some social media tools. I wanted to learn more about network weaving. So, we decided to set aside an hour a week for sand box time.
Making time - even just an hour week on your schedule where you aren't checking something off the to do list is hard. But it has been very a rich and rewarding learning experience.
A few design principles for a good sand box:
No formal agenda
Exploratory and creative
FUN!
Invite someone new to the sandbox
Reflection at the end to harvest learnings
Another important element in the sand box is what Rachel Happe calls orchestrated serendipity. She says that serendipity is supposed to be a happy accident and that actually planning it may not seem possible. She says that you can't define actually what will happen, but you need to set up an environment and processes that facilitate serendipity happen. She points a post by Christopher Penn and an article in Fast Company called How to Make Your Own Luck that also talk about this principle.
Rachel offers five tips for making this happen:
Include room in your time and budget for cultivating topics, people, and events that will not have a direct correlated return but fall into your general range of business
Understand what type of happy accidents you would be able to take advantage of and gear your cultivation in that general direction - whether it is topical, geographic, or specific types of people
Listen, probe, and listen some more
Be useful to people in your 'zone', they will return the favor in unexpected, serendipitous ways
Assume you will achieve your goals in a slightly different way than you might think and leave room in your planning for it
How have you used sand boxes for informal learning? How do you encourage serendipty?
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Vikki Spruill, Ocean Conservancy's President and CEO and members of her communications team, Laura Burton Capps, and Dove Coggeshall about their recent experiments and learning on Facebook. The organization is a Packard Foundation grantee.
The Ocean Conservancy is dedicated to the goal of a healthy ocean by increasing public awareness of ocean
issues and bringing significant changes to the
way oceans are managed. Here's an overview of the issues they are working on. For the past 24 years, they organize an annual grassroots, volunteer event called "International Coast Cleanup" where hundreds of thousands of volunteers hit spend a few hours removing trash and debris from
coastlines, keeping track of every piece of trash they find.
One of the key principles for an effective social media strategy is experimentation, learning, and rapid prototyping. David Armano describes this process as "Listen, Learn, and Adapt." You can't answer this question "What's the Value?" unless you experiment and learn. Easier said than done.
In our book, The Networked Nonprofit,
we devote an entire chapter to something we called "Learning Loops" which
is a combination of tracking and monitoring in real time as a project
unfolds, but also incorporates a process of reflection at the end of the project to the next experiment.
It is really hard to carve out time to take a step back and reflect
on what has gone well, what hasn’t, and what to do next. Being iterative or rapid pro-typing is the secret to getting tangible results from your social media
efforts over time, yet many organizations find it difficult to do.
I was most curious about is how an organizational leader encourages learning and experimentation and decides to implement that first social network experiment? Also, how do you sustain this process of try it, fix it.
In 2007, Vikki Spruill attended a seminar hosted by the Packard Foundation with Clay Shirky and came away both scared and excited about his ideas. The idea of "giving up control" was very different for this organization. But as Vikki herself says, "Nonprofit leaders shouldn't settle for the status quo. I'm always looking at what's next and seeing how to incorporate it."
The first step she took was to make a presentation to staff about what she had learned. She initiated a discussion about how to test some of Shirky's ideas. Vikki says one of the challenges is overcoming resistance. "We get very used to our routines because they are comfortable and we know they work." Vikki says it is really important to present experiments as a pilot, a test, and that trying something new doesn't necessarily mean it is a future direction. As the leader, she is creating a culture of flexibility.
Vikki observes that one of the big hurdles for nonprofits to take a R&D approach is that there is often no ongoing budget or time to do experiments. Often, experiments are done for extra credit. It is important in designing a social media experiment that the work isn't an add-on or perceived as "extra work."
Having
considered these issues, the Ocean Conservancy was ready to design a low risk experiment and begin
measuring how social media was working (or not) After a series of discussions with staff and some survey research of their existing volunteer network, they identified a learning question:
How can we use Facebook to raise awareness about and participation in the International Coast Clean Up event?
Facebook was an uncharted territory for the Ocean Conservancy. In addition to their Fan Page, they developed two Facebook applications, "Take a Beach Break" and "Which Ocean is Your Ocean" as well as tested different ads on Facebook that linked directly to the event sign up on the web site. The applications and ads were tracked using email sign ups, daily active users, application installations, referral traffic and event registration.
The Ocean Conservancy picked very specific, narrow objectives for their experiments and specific metrics to measure them. They resisted the temptation to try to reach out broadly and instead focused on a specific target audience for a specific program on a specific site.
For example, with Facebook ads, they were able to set up a series of a/b tests using different taglines, creative, and audience targeting. By embedding tagged links in the ads to the Ocean Conservancy site, they were able to track the referral traffic for different ads.
So a few best practices here for social media experiments:
Design experiments so they involve some incremental changes of existing work routines
Try as much as possible to avoid having experiments be "extra credit," but a part of the work flow
Articulate learning questions on the front end, identify metrics/data to collect to answer questions
Spend time extracting lessons learned and design principles at the end
Incorporate 'rinse and repeat" of experiments over time
Note from Beth: As visiting scholar at the Packard Foundation, I'm connecting with other people who are studying and learning about how networks work. A lot of the ideas resonate with using online social networks and social media effectively for nonprofits, especially in the larger frame of movement building. In October, I had the opportunity to meet Steve Waddell whose research focuses on Global Action Networks.
One of the tools for better understanding networks are visual diagnostics and mapping techniques. This another area of Steve's interest and expertise. He co-authored a paper called "Visual Diagnostics and Mapping for Scaling Change" and we had an opportunity to discuss it. He agreed to write a four-part primer on a visual diagnostics, mapping, and social networking analysis primer and how nonprofits might use these tools for social change. If you missed it, you can read Part 1: Systems Mapping for Nonprofits.
Understanding who is connected to whom can strengthen your strategy. But the connections might be so be numerous, or the formal org charts might be so misleading, that you can’t “see” what is happening easily. Maybe your question is about inter-organizational connections in your issue system (eg: agriculture, finance, housing) – it may be local, regional or global. Or, if you work in a large networked organization, maybe you want to understand inter-personal ties to understand work processes better. There are a couple of tools that can help you out.
Web Crawl Mapping The “quick and dirty” one is web crawls. The internet is structured around sites that have unique URL addresses. And most sites have (hyper) links to other sites that you click on to take you to other sites or pages. These are inserted because they have more detailed information with regards to a topic (including, of course, ads), because the host wants to connect people to allies or colleagues, or because they may be foes on an issue.
These connections between unique URLs provide the basis for mapping relationships by doing a “web crawl”. A software program can draw the relationships between organizations’ web links, to give a description of the virtual network of the organization. It shows links between URLs that can collectively be called the global commercial finance public issue arena. These are the organizations to which global commercial finance institutions link.
The crawl identified 282 URLs; only the top 100 are shown in the map. Separate data that is generated lists the number of links to each URL and the direction – whether they go to a URL or come from it – which is important to understand who thinks whom is worth attention. Another list summarizes the number of links. This map itself illustrates such structurally important things as groups (cliques), bridges between groups, and which organizations are best connected.
Of course as with any methodology, this presents a limited picture. It depends upon organizations having web-sites; in global finance, it is pretty safe to assume that influential organizations will have one. Web crawls are particularly useful when used with other network analysis methodologies because they help identify organizations in a field for further investigation.
Social Network Analysis Mapping For example, the organization lists developed from crawls can be an initial list of who to include in classic social network analysis (SNA) that can show links between individuals, parts of organizations, an issue system, or subset of it.
This map was developed when GRI was thinking about establishing a South African GRI network. Surveys were conducted to identify organizations and their relationships with two particular characteristics that drew from GRI’s core strategy: organizations that were involved with triple bottom line analysis and development (social-economic-environmental impact), and organizations that engaged in multi-stakeholder processes. The map illustrates the following groups of organizations with hubs and bridging organizations connecting them; the enviro group is importantly not connected. This descriptive analysis suggests the following strategy:
1) Put the environment on the back burner for the moment, since economic-social issues are more dominant;
2) Consult with the bridging organizations as key informants and perhaps engage them in initial convening to form a GRI South Africa network; and
3) When creating a leadership group or board, make sure you engage the nodes of each group.
The descriptive analysis therefore supports a strategy of firmly building on the current local orientation, social structure and capacity to develop a GRI approach. Rather than GRI being a foreign entity coming in through a particular stakeholder group as is often the way a organization enters a new region – raising great suspicions among other groups – GRI can begin with a much more comprehensive strategy that weaves together current social relationships in a new way.
Steve Waddell: As Principal of Networking Action, Steve Waddell applies his 20+ years of experience in multi-stakeholder network development to address complex issues regionally and globally.
Today I had the pleasure of giving a presentation for the Packard Foundation board of directors to provide a brief report on how I spent my time as Visiting Scholar and share some insights about social media and the nonprofit sector. As I said in my introduction, I am grateful for the Packard Foundation for my time here as Visiting Scholar and the transformative learning experience.
The title of the presentation was inspired by the title of a 1995 Harvard Business School Journal piece called "Catching the Wave" by Clay Christensen who coined the term "disruptive technologies." The photo is of the Pacific Ocean at Monterey taken by a Flickr user, Amayu. (No, it wasn't a presentation about Google Wave!)
Yesterday I wrote about social media and governance describing some ideas about how social media might be valuabe as part of the governance process. The first step, of course, is education. So, part of the presentation included a live demonstration on Twitter.
I posted the following query:
Here's the transcript of responses as of two hours after the demonstration. We got a range of responses from nonprofits, foundations, and even some colleagues of board members.
social citizen social media enables you to stay relevant, share ideas, open doors and expose your ideas to a broader audience
peterdeitz Social media is helping nonprofits - and those who fund them - be more open and responsive in how they get things done #packfound
amanda Potential to connect globally, share and collaborate with others working towards the same goal, let donors 'in' and help
eekim Lowers the barrier for meaningful conversations, which leads to more effective collaboration. #packfound
eugevon breaking down barriers between grantees and non-grantees.
FCCleveland It also helps us to share news & info about the work of the foundation field w the world, & our own work of course ! #packfound
tactphil it is about information filtering, relationship building, learning and spreading ideas. #packfound
hollyross building relationships! Listening and conversing with your supporters! #packfound
engagejoe social media helps us connect so we can come together in the real world. (among many other awesome examples & possibilities)
creinelt Finding like-minded colleagues who share similar interests who can benefit from knowing about each other's work #packfound
amyrsward storytelling! from the organization, from supporters, from those served - telling stories in rich, authentic ways
kiramarch at EDF, it's about making our ideas as influential as possible #packfound
DarimOnline Say Hi to Jason Burnett for me - was a roommate and good friend at Stanford a few years back.
In addition, I shared a detailed case study about the Red Cross, a couple of nonprofit examples of using Twitter, and brief update on my work plan accomplishments, including the book, The Networked Nonprofit, and the social media trainings and coaching I undertook with grantees.
There were some great questions and discussion points. One was about Foundation use of social media and how the social media policy and guidelines might help the Trustees use of social media. (The board spans several generations and we had a range around the table of people new to social media and those who have been early adopters.)
One question about the Red Cross case study: What are the measure of success? I gave an answer, but later asked Wendy Harman via Twitter to respond:
These days I mostly measure 2 things 1) how good are we at getting our community to join/talk w each other for mission 2)how good are we at helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies?
The case study also prompted a fabulous question: "What is it about some nonprofits that allows to change and adopt social media?" This is a question, that we attempt to answer in the book in a chapter about social culture. More about that later.
They asked two questions about the experiment. First, whether I had asked people in advance. I shared that I had been sharing tweets that I was doing this presentation and experiment. Also, they wanted to know how many times the message got retweeted.
I got asked a fantastic question: What have you learned? I mentioned that I learned a lot and have been sharing my learnings with the field on this blog. The biggest point of learning for me was how to shift between the "cloud" that is the social media web and the "tower" or working within an institutional setting. These are different cultures, different work styles, and I think one of the keys to transformation and adopting social media and recognizing how to simultaneously have a foot in both worlds or learn how to shift between the two.
Doing a demonstration like this has a value - it opens up the conversation for further exploration. It also gave, as Steve Bridger notes, a window into the world of a board meeting of family foundation.
What do you think about social media in the board room? What's important for nonprofit boards to know about social media? What is the role of social media for foundation boards?
Last week, I had the opportunity facilitate a "Social Media Strategy Map" workshop for over 100 Bay Area nonprofits. The workshop was hosted by Compasspoint, with support from the Lucile and David Packard Foundation.
I don't get an opportunity to do this workshop with a large group, so this was fabulous learning experience to work out some techniques to make it scale. And they worked! I wanted to capture a couple of reflections on the process as well as content learnings by way of this post.
Ant Trails As Learning Opportunities
One of the things that is essential to good instruction (or presentation) is knowing your audience. Every time I present or facilitate a workshop, I review the web sites and social media ant trails (social media properties) of participants.
This takes a lot of time because I'm not just browsing, but I'm doing a pattern analysis for best practices that I can incorporate into a presentation about social media principles and nonprofits. I think people are more likely to pay attention if they know that they might in the presentation. Also, it allows for a more interactive discussion because participants can share their knowledge. It's a shift from sage on the stage instruction to honoring the learners for what they know.
A couple things I discovered by following participants' ant trails:
The Bay Versus the Bay: This was an excellent example of how social media strategy can support behavior change or action. Some really good design points. For example, note their call to action right on the YouTube video. They were able to share some insights about how they track the success of this effort.
ACLU-Northern California: They are recruiting for a social media intern on Facebook. They used "tagging" on Facebook to make people aware of the note. The note itself is an excellent job description for a social media intern. This prompted a thoughtful discussion about to effectively manage social media interns.
The Valley Medical Foundation: This organization provided an example of the personal versus organizational voice issue that social media often brings up. They shared how they worked through this internally.
Robot Voice Disguiser for Large Group Facilitation
I was lucky enough to be working with good folks at Compasspoint (Nelson Layag, Sue Bennett, and Sierra Catcott) who are experienced facilitators and workshop leaders. They brought along their chimes which are a great tool for getting people's attention when they are working in pairs or small groups. My son lent me his Robot Voice Disguiser which was good for an opening laugh, but the chimes were preferable. It makes me wonder about the various techniques for getting people to shift attention from small group to large group.
I've done this game enough times to know that one key to success is making sure the small groups have people with knowledge of communications plans, hands-on experience with the tools, someone who can facilitate the discussion, and people with hands-on experience using the tools. I've used a couple of techniques to accomplish this and they worked.
Using a google form, I sent a pre-survey that asked detailed questions about social media experience, communications planning, budget size, and job role. On the name tags, we indicated people with social media experience with a "T" and those with communications planning experience a "C." We made sure that these folks were not all seated at the same table - having them spread their experience through the room so there was a C and T at each table.
I also created a stand up, sit down exercise. One part included having people stand if they had a formal or informal communications plan/strategy (half the room) -and then had them sit down in waves to determine formal communications, Internet strategy, and social strategy. There were only a handful of people who had a formal communications plan with a social media strategy.
Next, to ensure that all the people who very comfortable with social media aren't seated at the same table, we did the spectra gram. I learned this technique from Allen Gunn who uses it during Penguin Day. I have people line up from "very comfortable" to "not so comfortable" and facilitate a conversation. Then, had them count off by table numbers.
Wikitation: A wikitation (word coined by Allan Levine, Cogdog Blog) is a wiki that you use to share you presentation slides and links. I used the wiki to take notes and add resources on the fly that come up during Q/A. The wiki becomes an electronic flip chart and resource collector. What's nice is that allows you save paper and be a little bit green, although you do need a couple of key paper handouts (instructions/cards). The wikitation for this workshop is here.
What's the Hash Tag? With more and more people tweeting, I announce at the beginning what the hashtag is and encourage workshop tweeting. I've be using a tool called "What the Hash Tag" that easily aggregates tweets into a transcript. Monitoring the tag stream during the workshop provides a backchannel for people in the room and allows for remote participation.
Revising the Cards/Game Aspect
As my own learning and thinking about social media and nonprofits has evolved, so have the principles and strategies. This has had an impact on the design of the cards, game instructions, etc. I spent a lot of time last week tweaking the point system on the tool cards to guide better strategy decisions. It worked, but the strategy framework itself needs to be rethought.
The first iteration of the strategy cards consisted only of online approaches and was scaled based on amount of time (listening, participate, share story, generate buzz, and online community building). The tools aligned to the components. I've evolved this to engage/listen, social content, spreading buzz, movement building, and offline impact and more fluidity in choice of tools, also adding new ones. A concept framework for strategy could be tweaked further and I have some ideas.
We had enough time so we could use the "life happens" cards where groups lose or win points based on a real life situation. You know, resistance, staff turnover, lack of resources, etc. The groups were thrilled to win points. So, it is making me think that I need to revise the "life happens" to win points if they solve the problem in their strategy.
Report Out Technique
With such a large group, I thought ten reports using the same scenario would be deadly boring. So, we had three scenarios and 3-4 tables working on each scenario. I did the reports out for each scenario which worked really well. People really got into the making up the context part. For example, one of the organizations all of sudden had a famous rap star alumni who made YouTube videos for the organization's campaign.
I asked each to report out and I listened for three things:
What was a best practice or innovative idea and acknowledge it?
Ask a strategy question about something that was missing?
What specific how to resource would be useful to know about?
Is there a tactical tip to share?
We ended with a reflection about what they will take back to the organizations and, of course, I brought along some extra books I've been sent to do a big social media book giveaway (shared myself some postage costs!)
All in all - I can say that I learned a lot and hope participants did too!
Many of us have a love and hate relationship with nonprofit dashboards. We know the power of numbers that tell us where we are headed or how well we are doing. But we also know that numbers don't tell us the whole story - whether we headed in the right overall strategic direction, taking the right road, and how to get back on course if we get lost.
But, for the most part, nonprofit dashboard reports, if they are measuring the right metrics, are useful tools. Dashboards go beyond just reporting financial results as this post from the Blue Avocado explains. And, they can be incredibly useful for helping leaders to focus attention on critical mission matters.
Nonprofit dashboard reports, which communicate critical information in a concise, visual, and more compelling way, are mostly used by board or staff for discussion at internal or private meetings or used as part of reports back to funders for grants.
That's the cultural norm in the nonprofit sector, with a couple of exceptions. An organization's dashboard is an internal report and the data not shared publicly (although NTEN shared its Dashboard spreadsheet template recently).
The Indianapolis Art Museum has been doing just that by sharing its institutional dashboard out for everyone to view. I remember blogging about it when I first noticed it in November, 2007. It was met by with both positive and negative reactions from nonprofit and museum professionals. Jim Spadaccini from Ideum Blog noted that dashboards are not new, in fact, there's a book about Dashboard Design. He went on to describe the Museums' bold move as an example of sharing information in an unconventional way.
In December, 2007, this post from the Chronicle of Philanthropy Blog, expanding on a post by Jeff Brooks, creative director at Merkle Direct, on his Donor Power Blog asked:
Do most nonprofit organizations do enough to share key information with
the public? Is it risky to provide statistics about finances and
results on a public Web site?
Two years later, we might have some answers. In October, the Indianapolis Art Museum Dashboard celebrated its' second year. The institution has continued to share its data and engage in conversations with the public on its blog about how to use the statistics to improve its programs.
To celebrate, Rob Stein, the CIO, has started a series of blog posts on transparency. Part 1 addresses the prevalent concern shared by their peers about adopting transparency, a fear of the unknown, or that sharing the gritty details with the public will be too overwhelming and therefore misconstrued. Rob goes on to say that nothing terrible has happened. I caught up with for a quick email interview:
Has your organization always been an "open" institution?
Prior to the IMA Dashboard and in particular the arrival of Maxwell Anderson as CEO in 2006, the IMA was more closed about sharing details about its performance. Max's leadership from the top of the organization was important in that he advocated a culture in which it was better to be open and understand areas of poor performance, so that we can take steps to improve... rather than hide behind rationalizations for why certain things were broken. I think all organizations have these broken areas, it's been refreshing to work in a culture where honesty and transparency about them is encouraged as a step towards continuous improvement.
What motivated the dashboard project?
To improve as an organization, we need to understand our baseline performance against things we care about. The Dashboard is both a way to communicate to donors and the press the truth behind how we're running the museum, but also a crucial tool for staff members to track their own performance over time, knowing that the world is (potentially) watching. The "openness" is a hair shirt that encourages us to stay on the straight-and-narrow, an external motivation to continue to do the right thing even when it has a negative appearance on the surface.
Were there any institutional concerns internally?
Certainly there were concerns initially, and there are limits to how open we can be. I made a suggestion in my blog post this morning that Transparency is the discipline of an organization to demonstrate its integrity. Obviously sharing certain types of information can be illegal or potentially damaging to the museums mission in a number of ways.
In general there were some concerns about the "unknown" factor of how it would be received, how it could be maintained, and what the long-term impact of doing so might be. I think we've resolved many of these over time. (The Dashboard turned 2 in October) We've certainly used the tool for performance tracking and press relations during that time...
What has been the response to "learning in public" when numbers don't go the right way?
We've certainly had our share of bad data to share in the last 12 months. The total value of our endowment took a significant beating as demonstrated in the online statistic. Couple that fact with our Contributed Support numbers which are displayed there, and its clear that this has not be the best financial period for the IMA. We also went through a restructuring which resulted in the elimination of a number of staff positions which is also indicated online. There were some gut-churning moments putting those numbers up, but they are really the proof-in-the-pudding and demonstrate that the dashboard isn't just a spin exercise for the museum's PR department.
On a positive note, sharing the negative statistics accurately gives us a GREAT platform to talk to donors and funding agencies about the realities of the IMA's financial situation, it's very clear that we are caring for the museum well as indicated online, but continue to need support from our community. It's great to let the facts make the case for you.
What does it feel like to be an open institution?
It's work, but overall feels really good. We're constantly figuring out ways to adjust / add to / drop statistics and information that is of the most value for continuing to improve the IMA as an organization. The Dashboard is a reflection of those areas we consider to be vital to the museum's mission. Large numbers of staff from the museum are responsible for updating statistics related to their areas... so these important metrics are frequently brought back to mind as they continue to track and update them online.
One big issue that I've seen nonprofits grapple with when they want to be more open is deciding what to share. Do you share everything? If not, how do you decide what to share?
As I mentioned above, integrity needs to be our guide in what information to put online. Obviously anything that breaks a law is out :) But we start from an assumption that all information is available to go online. We can then look at things to disqualify based on what impact this data can have on the museum. Admittedly, there are few hard and fast rules that govern this process, but it's important to start from a position of openness instead of approaching the problem from a protectionist view. More importantly choices about what to share are driven by which metrics will be the most important in helping the museum grow or improve as an organization. Which areas are the most critical to our mission. These are the areas we want to track and keep an eye on so that we ensure that we continue to improve and maintain excellence there.
Is Indiana Art Museum just an outlier exception or will this type of transparency for nonprofits become the cultural norm for our sector in the next five years? Are there other examples of nonprofit institutions opening the kimono to their dashboard and discussing results with stakeholders?
Update: More thoughts on transparency from the nptech blogosphere and beyond
I encounter a lot of social media skeptics who ask me pointed questions. I can answer most, but sometimes I get hit with a question that I can't answer (adequately) on the spot. I love those questions - they are a real gift.
Recently, I've been getting a question like that goes something like this, "All this social media stuff is great if you're fund raising or selling something or running a grassroots advocacy campaign, but what if you're focusing on carefully vetted scientific research or want to impact policy? What if your goal is large scale systemic change, why bother with social media?"
A few weeks back I met Melinda Venable, Associate Director Digital and Ethnic Media at Resource Media who told me about the ClimateChangeUS Twitter strategy.
The Twitter account was started with a focused goal of raising awareness about the release of the Global Climate Impacts in the United States report last June. A few weeks after the release, they decided to broaden it's goal to sharing the latest peer-reviewed climate science that highlights immediate, near-term threats from human-caused warming. The goal is to be a trust agent for climate change scientific information.
They are building a following of journalists and others who are looking for carefully vetted scientific information. What's interesting about this Twitter account is that it isn't an automatic feed that streams links to their own reports. They share the latest, and best peer-reviewed science through Twitter conversations.
They also tweet about real-time impacts, which usually is extreme weather and how that fits within the pattern of global warming. They rely only on credible sources. They do offer our opinions or promote any one policy or get into politics.
They are using Twitter and a Facebook Fan Page to grow an audience interested in carefully vetted research. They've become a trusted resource for educators, journalists, and others. I'd like to know more about the specific results and how they are measuring the success of their social media strategy - as well as what they are tracking to improve what they are doing.
The use of social media is part of a larger strategy to inform the public about the impacts of climate change, not just at the North Pole, but in their backyards. They are co-producing video spots, which air on television and on the Web. They also engage directly with weather casters, a group uniquely positioned to inform the general public, by instructing them about how to incorporate the science of climate change into their daily broadcasts.
In early 2009, the Compete Blog posted its media trends for 2008, suggesting that publisher media continue to integrate social media.
Last week, as part of my work at the Packard Foundation as visiting scholar I had the opportunity to participate in a face-to-face convening of the "Network of Network Funders," facilitated by the Monitor Institute. The most exciting moment for me was to meet June Holley face-to-face - the guru of network weaving.
Network weavers are people who intentionally and informally - and often serendipitously - weave new and richer connections between and among people, groups, and entities in networks. They also weave new and richer connections between among networks.
Note that the definition uses the plural form, network weavers versus network weaver. That was one of my ah ha moments from June's presentation and subsequent discussion. You want everyone in your network to do network weaving on different levels. Take a look at June Holley's list of characteristics and you'll quickly see that network weavers wear a variety hats - networkers, project coordinators, facilitators, and guardians. I might also add "technology stewards."
June urged us not to think narrowly about Network Weaving as a specific job description, but rather as a role. "You don't hire someone to be a network weaver. You want someone who is open to learning and a good listener and can teach others network weaving skills. You want to spread the capacity throughout the network." You extend networking weaving skills by using a peer learning model not a traditional training model.
June Holley used the metaphor of "Being Rhizomatic" and explains it as where every bud contains the nourishment for other buds. She used an image of a single tree. A single tree can be cut down or die from lack of water. But in a bamboo forest (a unique rhizome) -- the trees are connected through the roots and if one tree gets nutrients and supports others.
The image that came to mind for me was from the movie Fantasia and the scene in The Sorcerer's Apprentice when many brooms come to life from the one chopped up broom. (Go 5:49 in the clip)
June Holley emphasized the importance of self-organizing, she said "Network weavers catalyze small joint actions between groups of two or three people. She talked about the importance of online collaboration and project management tools as a way to support those self-organized actions. (My single next action step is to set up a sand box with June and others to explore some of these tools in the context of network weaving.)
She also introduced a new (to me) concept: Network Guardian. This is someone who isn't doing the day-to-day work, but thinks about how the network could be more than it is. They think about the network structure, evaluation, communication, training, opportunities, and reflection.
June also described some of the tasks that network weaving may include. One might be drawing the map of the network's connections and facilitating a discussion about what the network looks like. Angus Parker from Wiser Earth recently blogged about this in "How To Weave A Tighter Network."
One connection I made is that nonprofit social media strategists like Carie Lewis from the Human Society, Danielle Brigida, NWF, Wendy Harman from the Red Cross, Apollo Gonzalez from NDRC, Constance DeCherney from Planned Parenthood, and others are doing some form of network weaving - whether it be their Facebook or Twitter networks or possibly internally between departments. It also made me wonder whether there might be a hunger for a professional peer group of social media network weavers.
I took that idea into a small peer assist session. My question: Is there a network of peers who do network weaving for nonprofits to support external communications? For starters, I'm going to ask Holly Ross at NTEN that we have a birds of a feather table at the NTC10 or if I get ambitious I will sign up to lead an affinity group meeting. As we discussed this, I realized that perhaps the frame was too small.
Maybe we need to do some field building for nonprofit network weavers in general as well as consultants who work with Network weavers. And while this would include those who work for nonprofits on social media strategy for external communications, it would include network weavers more broadly. There might be a sub-group or interest area on technology. Maybe this conversations could take place on an existing community of practice (Iscale).
Are you practicing network weaving skills in your nonprofit or network?
What are you learning about network weaving?
What inspires you about network weaving potential?
This video is from a local site in Louisville, part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's "Making Connections" initiative Part of the Making Connections core approach uses (offline) social networks. You can read more in this series of five reports that looks at the definitions, research, power, practices, and insights relating the impact of social networks on family strengthening and community change.
Last week, as part of my work at the Packard Foundation as visiting scholar I had the opportunity to participate in a face-to-face convening of the "Network of Network Funders," a community of practice facilitated by the Monitor Institute. The focus was on learning about "Network Effectiveness" and the specific topics included strategies for network impact, approaches to evaluating networks and tools for accelerating and assessing network impact.
A peer learning environment requires creating a safe space for conversation. This is why the session started with a discussion defining confidentiality. I'd sum up the confidentiality rule as sensitive information shared in the room should not be shared outside of the room. It is a "What happens Vegas, stays in Vegas" rule if any internal politics or grantees names are mentioned.
I wondered whether the more general learnings about network effectiveness and evaluating networks would be considered confidential? I've been exploring the line between open/closed networks or communities, particularly online learning communities. It isn't black and white. There are definitely some shades of gray.
I asked if I had permission to blog or tweet general insights? We had a brief discussion clarifying what was "bloggable" and what was not. I was asked a fabulous "skeptic" question, "What is the value that 'live tweeting' offers? My perspective:
Live Tweeting forces you to be succinct so when I tweet, it is a form of notetaking and it alters the way I listen. It makes my listening and learning more effective because I'm looking for synthesized bits of wisdom to share.
Live Tweeting allows other people who may not be in the room to respond to questions or share resources. It may deepen and enrich the discussion.
I welcome skeptical questions about social media because it gives the opportunity to openly discuss concerns. This leads to better understanding of networks and social media and more effective adoption of the tools and network practice.
The "live tweeting" use the had tag #netfunders and I was not the only person in the room contributing tweeting from the convening.
My key learnings:
Bill Traynor's rule that you need to mandate that every network meeting have someone new join the meeting. This is important to keep the network fresh and growing.
Networks have different purposes. Some identified include:
-Build Community -Engage People -Advocate for Policy Change -Coordinate resources and services -Learning Networks - Develop and share best practices -Innovate -Get to Scale
Network purposes adds another layer of clarity. It helps a network get more specific with the work flow which maps to different online collaboration and social media tools. This can help you make better decisions about use of tools. One factor that is important to consider is how a network introduces online tools that can support self-organizing - whether the network does it work behind a password protected area or openly on the web or someplace in between.
We worked in small groups by network purpose. I gravitated to the learning network discussion. My three ah-ha insights:
When thinking about learning networks, keep in mind that there are different stages of network: ignition, connection, alignment, and production (See Peter Platrik's thinking)
The pork chop factor and the potluck supper. The pork chop factor has to do with the motivations of individuals who participate. Why are they motivated? It is important to know the individual value proposition. The pot luck supper is a wink and node to what I learned from Eugune Eric Kim a few weeks ago It is the idea that trust building and relationship building is important to informal learning networks. As @eekim said, "Relationships are built over meals."
Open/Closed and how it impacts the learning. How, where, and when do you move the fence to bring in new people to the learning network without disrupting the safe shared place and trust.
As part of a presentation about the Making Connections program, I watched the above video documenting the work of the Making Connection sites in Louisville and its social networks approach. This slide show demonstrates the powerful outcomes that a social network offers and how/why relationships are important. Using visuals to document a network's outcomes - whether photos or videos - is incredibly powerful. Sometimes written words and numbers simply can not not describe the transformative effect.
A new (to me) concept: "Network Vibrancy" a term that Sanjeev Khagram from Iscale introduced. I think it means that things you don't expect to happen take hold. There is a deep quality, reciprocity, and self-organizing. Network Vibrancy adds to the many challenges of measuring the social impact of networks. Real time monitoring and rapid learning opportunities are key to creating vibrancy. I want to take a deeper dive into the techniques for real-time monitoring and see if there are methods for rapid learning opportunities.
I had the opportunity to finally meet June Holley face-to-face. June is the guru of network weaving and I finally had an opportunity to deepen my learning about the art of network weaving from the person who invented it. (I will share this in a separate blog post in a bit as I'm savoring the learning like sipping a fine wine.) This is yet another example of a person that I have followed through their blog or Twitter ant trails, but had never met in person. Yet, through reading and interacting with her online through Twitter I trust and respect her.
The discussion on evaluation of networks was illuminating. There are many challenges to assessing the impact of networks. There are different measures for different types of networks and stages of work. One big challenge is that we don't have the tools for assessing emergent, complex, non-linear, rapidly changing systems. "It's like changing a tire on a moving car."
Network assessment happens at three inter-related levels (and this is part of what makes it challenging). The three levels include:
Connectivity: What is the nature of relationships? Is everyone connected who needs to be? What is the quality of these connections? Does the network effectively bridge differences? Is the network becoming more interconnected? Wat is the network's reach?
Network Health: How healthy or vibrant is th enetwork along multiple dimensions (participation, network form, leadership, capacity, communications (technology), etc)
Outcomes: What progress is the network making on achieving its intended social impact? (e.g. policy outcomes, innovative products, etc) How do you know? (Put another way, Network X made Y happen)
Network evaluation should be part of an ongoing process of rapid learning and adaptation. Learning from evaluation needs to be shared and used by network, but not end up on a shelf. The network needs to conduct self-evaluation that helps it improve the way it works.
As part of this gathering, I had the opportunity to facilitate a small group and test some frameworks for thinking about how to incorporate social media and online collaboration tools for closed networks. I came away feeling that it is important for people to touch the tools. I also came away with an interest in more direct learning about online collaboration and project management tools that allow for self-organization and getting things done in smaller groups. I also came away with a sand box learning plan with some colleagues.
The evening session included an interview with me by Diana Scearce from Monitor Institute about some of the ideas in the book I'm co-writing with Allison Fine. (Some notes here)
Over the summer, Holly Minch, who is an expert at helping nonprofits and philanthropies unlock the potential of strategic communications for social change, suggested that I facilitate a workshop on social media strategy with a group of nonprofit and philanthropy communications folks.
I'm so glad she did because for a while I've been wanting to better understand how a social media strategy can best align with overall communications strategies and where the nuances of implementation may different. How does designing (and implementing) a social media strategy easily support and enhance the overall communications mix? And where are the tensions? How to resolve those?
Last week, Holly's suggestion turned into a reality. I had the honor of working with a group of really smart communications practitioners who have decades of experience working with nonprofits and/or foundations. I learned a lot in terms of the content but also as a facilitator.
Aligning Social Media Strategy With Communications Strategy
I've facilitated many versions of the social media strategy game that I first co-taught with David Wilcox in the UK in January, 2007 and decided to create a new version for this group to get specific feedback on how to align the social strategy thinking process with the communications thinking process.
Some overall observations and insights from the participants:
Focus on audience, messaging, and theory of change. The strategy discussions during the small group sessions were rich and focused on objectives. There was, however, the tension between the tactical versus keeping it at higher level. What's clear is the need for a very clear theory of change.
Planning Time Frames Differ: I kept reminding people that the strategy they came up didn't have to be finished or perfect. That the learning was in the discussion, not necessarily the finished product. This group shared that they usually have many meetings to focus on the message, objective, audience, and research. I wondered about the Clay Shirky quote, "We spend more time trying to make something perfect, than we do if we just tried it and fixed it." Social media requires a little bit of micro planning - those small tests and this could be a tension point for social media strategy mixing with communications.
Listening is more than free market research: With traditional communications planning, research is very important and there is a lot done on the front end. With social media, listening needs to incorporated into the research phase at the beginning but must also be used as the social media strategy unfolds (real time monitoring) and as ongoing evaluation.
Fluidity of the social media implementation process is a benefit: The overall communications planning approach requires a lot of structure and discipline. As one participant said, "You have your communications plan but it sometimes can prevent you from jumping on opportunities. On the other hand, you need to have some framework to be able to jump on opportunities. This causes a lot of anxiety. But your social media strategy has this flexibility to react to issues and be adaptive."
Experimentation and Metrics: Experimenting and tweaking and refining social media must be pegged to particular metrics and it is helpful to have some method for experimentation to reap all the learning. The important question is to ask, "to what end?
Tool mastery may belong to younger people, but .. Experience and seasoned communications people can provide guidance on strategy, time management, and other values.
Importance of Fast Failure: That's a difficult one to negotiate because staff members (or consultants) don't get paid to fail. It is important to define expectations, put mitigation plans into place, and embrace failures that will no doubt happen.
Some reflections I had on the materials:
Situation: This is the description of the organization or network the same group is developing a strategy for. I've experimented with having very realistic and detailed scenarios, just a few sentences (the group makes up the rest), fictional scenarios that were fun, and not so detailed realistic scenarios. I think key is to keep it simple, if a group gets stuck because some detail is missing, encourage them to make it up.
Point System: I need to rethink the point system based on the changes I've made the social media framework, especially some of the assumptions about social content. I need to revise the scoring system so it encourages the best social media strategic thinking.
Cards: Some really good suggestions about having a sub header on the cards that describes an outcome. Also, include tip sheet that provides these tool is good for xyz, but not good for abc. Right now the cards have questions and this group was asking for experiential advice on the cards. I'm thinking a handout might work best because those evolving best practices tend to change quickly.
Purpose Check: The last part of the exercise should circle back to the objective and discussion that asks does the strategy we created help us reach our strategic goal or not? List three reasons why this tool or tactic helps us reach our goal. There was a request for another set of cards that might have some metrics.
Next Modules: This would include going in more depth on how to use the tools. I see this as the perfect design, similar to the WeAreMedia workshops. For example, deeper dives on the mechanics of listening, engaging, social networks, or social content.
Next week at the Communications Network Conference, my colleague Gordon Meyer from Community Media Workshop in Chicago is doing a 90 minute version of the "Social Media Strategy Game." I'll be curious to find out what they discover as I'll be doing a two-hour version of the game the week after next at PopTech.
Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor co-wrote "Net Gains," one of the first practical handbooks on building and working in networks for social change. Whether it is a network of organizations or individuals, this handbook provides a wealth of theory and practice on build, manage, and fine tune a network.
Peter is a president and co-founder of nuPOLIS is the Internet presence of the Innovation Network for Communities (INC), a national non-profit helping to develop and spread scalable innovations that transform the performance of community systems such as education, energy, land use, transportation and workforce development.
Madeleine is co-founder and principal of Arbor Consulting Partners, a research and consulting group led by senior social scientists.
We talked a lot about network practices. It was a fantastic opportunity to identify similarities and differences between building networks of organizations as well as individuals - and of course how to weave together the two. There are many parallels to the use of social networks like Facebook.
I was particularly interested in hearing their views on how to ignite a network - how it to get it started. For those who are working on social networks and looking at how to catalyze their crowds on places like Facebook or Twitter - the advice resonated. Do you know what the group's value proposition is? Do you know what the individual value propositions are? (What's the pork chop factor?) It's all about building trust and relationships. It reminds me of Eugene Eric Kim's point about networks - everybody is people.
Peter and Madeleine describe networks as "platforms for relationships." And the goal of those relationships can be learning, collaboration, policy, service delivery, advocacy, mobilizing or action. Peter is one of those people who likes to draw his ideas and at one point he got up and drew a grid on the whiteboard about the different types of networks and what interventions are needed for success. Later, I found the chart in Net Gains.
We also discussed the whole issue of network evaluation and the difficulty of measuring those relationships versus a specific impact. Also, the idea of faster tools like social network analysis that give us real time information and the need for someone who is embedded in the network as a real time evaluator. And, of course, what metrics to use.
Madeleine shared a copy of the network health scorecard, a diagnostic tool that networks can use to reflect on how to improve. She also discusses it in the video above.
During lunch, we discussed the field of network building for social change - what's needed to build this field? This is the drawing on the napkin that is described by Peter in the video.
Peter and Madeleine raised some interesting questions about the use of social media and support of network's work in a brief outline and I've pulled a couple of questions to chew on:
What are the hypotheses about the differences social media can make for achieving a network's goals - learning goals, policy advocacy goals, innovation goals, and others?
What patterns can social media use reveal that provide strategic insight for network?
How can social media be used to build high-quality connections, a motivating relationship between members and build trust and reciprocity?
One of the topics we discussed was about the skills and practices of
network weavers - whether they are working with networks of
organizations or supporting an organization's network of supporters on
Facebook. As Madeleine points out in the video above, a network weaver is looking at how people are connected and what value they are getting from being connected. A key skill of the network weaver is to pull out threads and pull people together.
As Madeleine notes, "it isn't about everyone being connected to everybody all the time."
A big part of the network weaver's job is pattern recognition and that requires a sort of scanning and watching - that takes time. I also pointed out that it uses a different part of your brain and there is a need to shift mindsets to get other types of work done.
I tend to map my "working the clouds" work in short, time boxed bursts. I tend to do it when my concentration is at a lower point. But, when I have to write or blog or think about something, I find more and more that I need to stop being social - not do Twitter, Facebook, or email. I also need to put classical music on my Ipod and concentrate in a different way. I've also found that I need to do something physical to transition between the two - like take a walk or simply walk around my desk.
Peter described an interesting framework for thinking about this use of time:
Activities that can be done while doing multiple tasks
Activities that require quiet and doing that one task
Activities that require several days of concentrating, creative immersion, and laser focus on that task
I was in Washington, DC on Tuesday and Wednesday for a two-day workshop is designed for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights and Justice Leaders, who lead and manage networks or accomplish much of their work through networks. The workshop was hosted by the Packard Foundation and Monitor Institute. You can find the workshop materials here.
The workshop will be an opportunity for social change leaders to step back from their day-to-day responsibilities and develop strategic insight about their networks. Specifically, the workshop will be focused on:
Introducing and applying network tools, frameworks, and case studies that can help network leaders assess their effectiveness and increase their impact
Facilitating peer-learning and exchange
Exploring what it means to work with a network mindset
An interactive presentation on best practices for using social media for external communications
Peer discussion on use of online tools for collaboration for bounded networks, exploring some of the concepts in Digital Habits (each participant got a copy)
Half-Day Session: Social Media Strategy Game which included small group work for participants to come up with a strategy for both external communications and an internal learning network to share best practices.
Some reflections on the game:
Many the networks in the room had a track record of working together and a number had deep social media expertise. This made for a rich session for me because participants were sharing their wisdom. The strategy presentations were some of the most detailed and creative I have heard to date - and after doing this workshop many times. I got a glimpse of what doing this workshop with a room full of social media rock stars would be like.
For the small group work to be an optimal learning exerpeince, it requires having at least one person with hands-on experience at each table. I incorporated a human spectragram using very comfortable with social media and not very comfortable. This gave me a visual of who had experience and asked them not to all sit at the same table.
Since there was a strong sense of community and connection in the room, the spectragram discussion was really rich. I asked the "very comfortable" people the following question:
What was your ah ha moment with social media, when you understood its power and benefit to your movement/network?
Participants offered anecdotes from personal use.
"I was able to organize my high school reunion in a half hour because I was friends with everyone on Facebook."
"My personal blog was getting more hits than our organization's web site."
"We also heard a couple of examples of organizational use that described mobilizing activists quickly on Facebook."
Then I asked the people who were standing at the other side of the room, what was it about social media that made them uncomfortable. I also pointed out that they were showing network leadership because they were comfortable with their discomfort. One person shared that social media made them uncomfortable because they were an introverted and being 'out there' did not feel natural.
Then, I asked the people on the comfortable side of the room if they ever felt this way when they first started to use social media. Many did and shared their transition.
I asked the comfortable group if everyone in their organization was a comfortable as them or more like the other side of the room. This prompted some great insights into adoption strategies.
This was the first time I was able to weave the external communications piece with the internal bounded networks piece. It worked well. Aside from the brainstorm about tools, we heard some wonderful techniques that some participants were already using "blogging behind the firewall." This points to how the social media strategist also functions as a network weaver or technology steward internally.
This group was one that was comfortable learning in public and modeled it. I decided to model it and take advantage to learn in public from talented co-facilitators to keep the energy up during the small group activity. I learned some nuances in the share pair technique as well as a quick energizer when the level dropped during the small group.
I revised the cards for the first time in a while to reflect some of the new content. I also got a great idea: a set of cards for the facilitators of each group.
Stephanie McAuliffe inspired to start keeping trainer's notes that focused on the process and now am adding these to the reflections.
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!
Yesterday at the Packard Foundation, as part of a series of "deeper dives" to learn about networks and social media, Eugene Eric Kim of Blue Oxen Associates gave a talk about "Networks in an International Context."
I've gotten into the habit of asking if there will be confidential information shared and what is or isn't bloggable. This makes me more comfortable for me to open my laptop and take notes. Eugene said at the beginning that he would not be sharing any confidential information and that everything is open. I asked if I could live tweet to bring others into the conversation which I did using the tag #packfound.
More than one third of Packard Foundation’s grantees are networks and many more get their work done through networks. The Foundation’s Organizational Effectiveness program has long supported projects to help Foundation grantees improve management, governance, and leadership. But over the past two years, the program has expanded its work to include a focus on how grantees can improve the strength and use of these networks.
Since 2000, the Institute of International Education has worked on leadership development with the goal of building and sustaining networks of leaders who would improve the delivery of family planning and reproductive health outcomes through improved services and policies. There are now 990 actively engaged Fellows—across the five focal countries of Ethiopia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines—regularly participating in the Leadership Development for Mobilizing Reproductive Health network activities.
The focus of Eugene's work with this network was to better understand its community, the most promising group practices, and have an open discussion that would facilitate learning and interaction among these leaders who were miles apart, spoke different languages, and had Internet access challenges. With the entire network engaged, the leaders worked together to create a report to document the lessons they were learning from implementing leadership programs for reproductive health, through a new wiki.
This session was particularly exciting for me because I got to meet Eugene Eric Kim face-to-face. I've known him through his "Twitter ant trails" (I'll explain that in a bit).
We began the session by filing out of the conference room to the parking lot outside for an interactive exercise called "The Dance Floor and the Balcony." The intent of the exercise (besides getting us to move around) was to help reflect and learn about self-organizing group collaboration. The instructions for the exercise are:
Get in a circle. ask each member of the circle to pick two people, but don't tell them. When facilitator says go, everyone moves so that they are always equidistant between those two people who they chose.
Repeat the exercise, this time with the goal of moving one person to the opposite side of the room. One person is identified to move to the other side. Everyone again has two persons with whom to remain equidistant. By moving others move - the aim is to impact the person who needs to be moved to the other side.
Debrief:
What happened? (Let participants describe what actually happened as they tried to maintain equidistance and in the second half of the exercise too)
What was our learning? (Checklist: our influence is interconnected, often we can influence events which may not be in our direct sphere of influence. It is not always easy to keep control of events.)
I had attempted to use my FLIP camera to document us doing the exercise, but I found myself so engaged in the learning versus the documenting, that I only got one clip at the beginining and it was so great. On Eugene's site, you can see a much better video of the exercise with participants in Africa.
We had some rich learnings in the reflection of what happened in the group. Some takeaways about emergent collaboration:
Having a shared goal can really catalyzed the group, without it you get interesting random behavior.
Self-organizing is difficult without communication
Trying to accomplish our personal goals the first time we did the exercise was playful, but chaotic. We decided to ask each other who we were following, we quickly were able to fall in line.
The second time, with a sense of purpose and goal, the exercise easier to do
We had different strategies for accomplishing our personal goal and the group goal.
Some of us experience goal conflict between individual and the group
Some abandoned group goal for personal goals, while some abandoned the personal goal for group goal
Doing the exercise two times gave a sense of confidence the second we did it. We knew what was coming.
The first time open-ended, playful like being on a social network. The second-time was more directed
Getting involved in a movement exercise that includes having people reflect on their individual and the group behavior was really valuable - this relates to the title of the exercise - that network leaders have to be on the dancefloor (or in the weeds) and then get up on the balcony and observe the patterns.
We came back in side and Eugene Eric Kim did a fantastic presentation offering up excellent principles. His slides and my notes and reflections follow.
As a prelude to his talk, he asked to think about to take a moment to think about the best experience you ever had collaborating with other people. He asked us, "If you think about the best experience, imagine a world that all your collaborations is at least as good as the best experience you ever had?" That's the vision for his company and work.
He has deep experience with emergent communities, groups of people that have a loose network that come together to form their own groups, not meeting face-to-face but doing amazing things. This is the way I've described the Nptech Tagging community and other ad-hoc communities where people come ogether first through social media tools.
His focus is on emergent collaboration and understanding what the how to create the conditions to inspire action and learning. He talked about the importance of individuals having a "learning attitude" - that is someone who thinks about things and takes lessons away - regardless of the teacher. (I might also add regardless of whether or not the experience was a "success"). He also talked about collective intelligence as the group ability to learn and improve.
He then gave us Five Principles to Think about Networks. What I loved about his frameworks is these can applied to social media work for external communications plans and even inward facing work. These are particularly important for International Networks made of people speaking different languages and having different cultural norms.
(1) Everybody is People
Eugene shared his experience going to a developing country for the first time. He mentioned that he ad done a great deal of research. He was asking his local guide a lot of questions about what was and what wasn't appropriate. He shared that he was not only jetlagged, but "freaked out" because didn't want to make a mistake and break etiquette. His guide in country turned to him and said, "Be yourself. You'll make mistakes, but you'll learn. People will understand."
He mentioned that he did, in fact, make a mistake. He didn't bring a long sleeve short in the dessert because it over 100 degrees. However, the local culture was to cover your body up. Eugene related this to working with international networks, "There is a chance to screw up in the projects, but you can't go in with that mindset. You're going in with good intentions, be self-aware, and people will accept that. Do your due dilligence, but go as a learner."
Everyone is people. That's a challenging notion for thinking about networks. "We visualize networks in a different way. Critical to remember that networks are piles of people who have a relationship with each other. When you talk about catalyzing learning, action, or collaboration - what makes networks is the relationships between humans. What makes it hard is that our assumptions about people isn't always correct."
Technology is a dehumanizing. Our interaction with technology makes us reorient ourselves around the tools, not the tools serving us and bulding relationships. Online network work in general is people work. We can't forget about our basic humaness when interacting with other people.
He talked about how culture manifests itself in online collaborations. He pointed to the Japanese wikipedia page noting that in Japan, the cultural norm is for the group to discuss the page in the discussion area before developing the content together. In Western countries, people dive into collaborating writing first and then use the discussion area to settle differences of opinion.
With international networks, it is important to recognize cultural norms both online and offline.
(2) TRUST: Trust is Everything
He emphasized the importance of actions to garner trust. It made me think of Chris Brogan's "Trust Agents." He talked about how in Nigeria everyone has a "money guy" who can exchange your currency. The reason is that the banks usually rip people off. He asked his guide how they find a money guy who told him that they get referrals from friends and family and based on how your treated. You have good faith upfront and then it depends on how you're treated. Kim said it is very important to understand the trust norms in different cultures and how these translate to an online context.
Online networks and collaboration happen if participants have some sense of trust through previous relationships, play, or past experience. "To catalyze the network, you have to invest in relationships." He pointed out this plays out differently depending upon the life cycle of the network. For example, networks just getting started, need to build social lubrican of trust and this happens through relationship building. "Relationships are built over food and drink."
He also said that we can't go into using social networks thinking we're going to see the tangible results because the first focus has to be on this relationship building. "If we want to do something amazing, we have to start with building relationships first.
(3) Be what you want to see
Eugene talked about the importance of modeling to create. "You have to set an example and it only takes a few people to do that and it seeps into the group." He suggested that a biggest value of my participation at Packard as visiting scholar, was modeling how to be connect with professional networks via social media - the blogging and twittering that I'm doing. He used the example of the recent NetFlix prize as an example.
Simple rule for collaboration: Just get a few people to establish the collaboration norm, those people will establish the norm. Modeling the norm. The way it is implemented - it can be intentional. One of the things that technology gives you the opportunity to do - to see things in an open and transparent way Observation - see the whole - allowed us to shift the behavior. To create an environment where the network can learn from each other requires intentional modeling.
(4) Simplicity Scales
He used the metaphor of the ants. They 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.
(5) Peturb the Ecosystem
This was all about giving up control - networks work when you give up control. How much are you giving up control and seeing what happens?
I left this session with some new insights about the networks and social media tools. Networks can exist as part of your external communications strategy, your outward facing work. That's a lot of what I write about on this blog -- crowds, groundswells, and movements. Emergent collaboration takes place when your supporters remix your content and share with their friends.
There are also networks that are very bounded - where the people are known and the work they are doing together is confidential. These principles apply to their work, but it doesn't happen out in the open where anyone on the Internet can see it. There is controlled access. The group can use some of the social media, if appropriate, to do its work.
And then there are the networks - that are coming together for learning and improving and do their work out in the open. The goal is not an external communications strategy.
What I wonder is how and when a network that is coming together to learn and improve decides whether it can open or needs to have a gate or password protected space. What are the cultural shifts that need to occur? When does being completely open disrupt or impair the learning and improving part?
Michael Quinn Patton, an evaluation guru, visited the Packard Foundation yesterday. I participated in a lively exploratory conversation about "How do you evaluate network effectiveness?" along with others on the Packard Foundation organizational effectiveness team. I also had an opportunity to hear his thoughts on the state of the
evaluation field, how it has changed and get a deeper understanding of developmental evaluation.
Michael Quinn Patton uses metaphors and stories to talk about evaluation in everyday language. He is a genius at connecting evaluation to other people's contexts. As a result, I had several "ah ha" moments and found a couple of connections for thinking about social media strategy - especially how we address culture change, social media measurement, ROI and the whole larger question of social media for social good.
By way of this post and video, I'm sharing some of Michael Quinn Patton's thinking about evaluation. I invite you to share your thoughts and reactions in the comments.
But first, some context.
Patton has written several books on the art and science of program evaluation, including Utilization-Focused Evaluation (4th ed., 2008), in which he emphasizes the importance of designing evaluations to insure their usefulness, rather than simply creating long reports that may never get read or never result in any practical changes.
He is also the author of a book called "Getting to Maybe" about social change. The big idea in the book is described below:
Many of us have a deep desire to make the world around us a better place. But often our good intentions are undermined by the fear that we are so insignificant in the big scheme of things that nothing we can do will actually help feed the world’s hungry, fix the damage of a Hurricane Katrina or even get a healthy lunch program up and running in the local school. We tend to think that great social change is the province of heroes – an intimidating view of reality that keeps ordinary people on the couch. But extraordinary leaders such as Gandhi and even unlikely social activists such as Bob Geldof most often see themselves as harnessing the forces around them, rather than singlehandedly setting those forces in motion. The trick in any great social project – from the global fight against AIDS to working to eradicate poverty in a single Canadian city – is to stop looking at the discrete elements and start trying to understand the complex relationships between them. By studying fascinating real-life examples of social change through this systems-and-relationships lens, the authors of Getting to Maybe tease out the rules of engagement between volunteers, leaders, organizations and circumstance – between individuals and what Shakespeare called “the tide in the affairs of men.”
This is one to definitely add to the plane reading list and a theme of my talk at Mashable Conference on Friday.
I'm not an evaluation practitioner, so I wasn't sure exactly whether there would be any connection to my work in social media. What I discovered, is that through his engaging storytelling, I got inspired by evaluation.
As Patton shared with us, the field of evaluation is dynamic. When he approached updating the fourth edition of his book, he thought it would be just about updating the stories. In the course of writing the book, he realized the field had changed. Most noticeably in the rise of cross-cultural, international evaluation program work. The question of how to adapt evaluation methods to other political and cultural systems in developing countries was big challenge because evaluation, over the past three decades, has been deeply rooted in the Western ways of thinking.
He then launched into a series of "creation stories" or "beginning" stories to explain the difference between traditional evaluation approaches and "developmental evaluation" (an evaluation of a program that helps you improve it.)
In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. God saw everything. Everything is good. So the 7th day he rested. How do you know what you created is very good? What are you criteria? What are the outcomes? Aren't you a little close to the situation to make an objective assessment? His rest was greatly disturbed by these questions. So, on the 8th day he got up and created evaluation (hell.)
The above story is a metaphor for the traditional summative approach to evaluation - create something, then evaluate it's impact, but don't change the program.
He pointed out that this was very difficult to apply to programs in
developing countries. He realized it when started to look at creation
stories in different cultures.
Maori in New Zealand Creation Story
In the beginning, father sky and mother earth - embraced. Such a fierce embrace - only darkness was in between them. Children were born into this space but they became unhappy and plotted to push the parents apart. It became clear that they would have to join together and need the strength of the oldest. A lot of bickering followed and failed attempts by the younger siblings. Having observed failed attempts, the oldest said said they would have to put their backs into it - back against father sky and feet against mother earth. The push the parents apart. Father sky was crying - and that became rain. Pushing apart parents, had exposed the nakedness of his mother. He began to plant trees to hide her body. They had never planted a tree before. First they tried roots in the air, leaves in ground. It failed. They tried laying them on the ground. Finally they succeeded by planting the roots in the ground. They then grew forests and the eldest child became the god of the Forrest.
Patton points out that they were not sure what they were trying to get too. They didn't know what a forest looked like. They had a general sense, but had to go through a listen, learn, and adapt process before getting it right. This is the essence of developmental evaluation.
A group of people like Adam and Eve were there in the beginning. In the mist, a grass hut appears with no doors or windows. They surround the grass hut. There are noises and they are frightened by it. They spend the day debating - and end up not doing anything because they can't decide. Frozen by fear, they go to sleep. The next morning, the hut is there. The noises continue. The uncertainty is making them crazy. They love the place where they are and they don't want to leave. They decide they have to open up the hut. They cut a door. Out comes the clan, the medicine people who have knowledge. They thank them and share their wisdom.
Developmental evaluation involves asking a lot questions. This story is about the scariness of asking questions, looking at a program, campaign, activity and ask are we prepared to learn about it? Do we stay in that place believing it is okay? The story is a metaphor about the fear of asking questions and the knowledge that comes with it.
I also see this as a metaphor for the fear of engaging from social media. What if we get a negative comment? What if we loose control? That fear keeps nonprofits from engaging.
Some other takeaways from his talk about evaluation:
Evaluation needs to be relevant and meaningful. It isn't a horrible alien thing that punishes people and makes judgments.
Need a culture of inquiry, sharing what works, what doesn't. A willingness to engage about what to do to make your program better.
Evaluation is not about getting to a best practice that can be spread around the world in a standardized way and to answer the question, "Is everyone following the recipe?"
Program development has to be ongoing, emergent. It isn't a pharmacy metaphor of finding a pill to solve the problem.
Real-Time Feedback/Evaluation is different from development evaluation which is directed towards a purpose to do something. Police use real-time evaluation to allocate their resources. For example, if crime increases in a neighborhood, they know how to allocate patrols.
Developmental evaluation speeds up the feedback loop.
The other conversation I participated in was focused on network effectiveness and how to evaluate it. Stephanie McAuliffe captures is must better than I did, so go read her post. Patton observed that thinking about networks has changed. He shared one framework that describes what the network does:
Networking/information sharing/learning
Coordination
Collaboration
Partnerships
The framework assumes that networks can move up or down through these phases. The question is when do the networks move to these other levels? He talked a lot about ebb and flow - that a network could be doing "information sharing/networking" and that you can measure it by looking at how people are connecting and their trust.
The connection here for me about social media is the notion that it isn't just a "campaign" - where you flip on or off switch. It's about this ongoing building of relationships with the people in your network. What you measure is engagement and trust.
Also, there is a catalytic moment when the network needs to scale into coordination or collaboration to take action. He describe how some networks work while in the "networking" phase - they imagine different scenarios or "fire drills." Another metaphor was disease - going from chronic to acute.
He also mentioned the importance of someone playing the role of being a network weaver who captures the lessons/stories in real-time. Someone who doesn't own the purpose.
Evaluating network effectiveness looks at two different criteria. Outcomes as related to purpose. Is the network focused on problem-solving, networking, connecting fragmenting programs, a campaign, sensing network, etc. The other criteria is process - what are the tasks and processes.
What connections are you making between social media and the thinking of Michael Quinn Patton?
As Visting Scholar at the Packard Foundation, it's been a living laboratory, learning about social media and networks in a philanthropy context. The conversations about what constitutes an effective nonprofit social media strategy have been thought provoking.
In the last few weeks, I've an opportunity to present and participate in conversations about social media, nonprofits, and foundations with those who work in philanthropy. I did a presentation for a group of Bay Area population research funders along with Scott Swenson, editor of HR Reality Check. The most interesting question was "What should funders think about to encourage effective social media strategy best practice?"
Last week I facilitated a workshop in Michigan for the chapter leaders of EPIP which stands for Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and again this week for the Bay Area Chapter. A theme that comes up in these discussions in way or another is the question, "Social media for external communications makes a lot of sense for nonprofits that are advocating, fundraising, or marketing something - but what if the Foundation isn't doing that or 'selling anything.' How to or if to use social media?"
I've been thinking about that question a lot. Foundations have the opportunity to spread thought leadership through social media channels. Jill Finlayson from Social Edge at the Skoll Foundation pointed to a discussion about using Twitter for social entrepreneurs and I think some of the points could more broadly inform a strategy for thought leadership via social media channels. And these are a translation of social media nonprofit best practices.
1. Learning: A fast and flexible learning strategy that encourages listening for learning - both at the organizational level and professional/individual level. It's tracking what people are saying about the Foundation, its programs, and the issues and grantees supported. It's about field scanning, pattern analysis, and trends. There are barriers to listening- information overload, honoring professional learning as work, and getting comfortable with the tools - but these can be overcome.
2. Engaging: Once systems are in place to listen and it is embedded the work flow, the learning has to be porous. Engagement begins but through social media channels. Convening the conversation with grantees, with colleagues, with the field - is something that foundations are already doing and it can be could be done effectively through social media. People who work at foundations are experts in asking reflective questions, sharing new insights, whole systems thinking -- why not have this learning leak out to the field through Twitter or Facebook? There are challenges to navigate - which is the line between personal/organizational voice, using online to enhance and extend face-to-face relationships (not replace), and keeping sensitive conversations private when they need to be.
3. Sharing Insight: This is educating through sharing ideas, research, trends, best practices, and other content with colleagues, grantees, and the field. This is already being done through other channels - whether staff is speaking/attending conferences, publishing articles in journals, conversations with grantees or experts in the field, posting white papers and research on the web site. With my short time Scholar in Residence, I've been exposed to a gold mine of incredible thinking, discussions, and resources on topics related to my field. Nothing proprietary or sensitive, just that I've been exposed to papers, studies, links, thought provoking articles. Why not have those items shared more broadly?
Foundation people also have a good lens - so looking through the streams and sharing the best resources would save people time. All that needs to happen is a content strategy to have these valuable insights shared through social media channels. Why keep them locked up? There are barriers - mostly having a clear understanding and policy about outward facing communications and feeling comfortable.
A few days ago, I came across an interesting article about how to Tweet your corporate culture - and it struck me that the points might lead to a content strategy for tweeting thought leadership.
I'm slowly inching back into a routine which includes blogging. I wanted to share with you some of what I learned today.
As part of my research at the Packard Foundation, I've had the opportunity to attend a lot of briefings and discussions related to social media and network effectiveness. This morning Peggy Duvette and Angus Parker from WiserEarth spent some time at the Foundation sharing their experiences in building successful online communities of action and networks of networks on the WiserEarth online platform.
I appreciated the introduction from Peggy and Angus because while I was aware of WiserEarth, I wasn't entirely clear what it offered and the benefits of using the platform. Now, I'm a fan!
“I knew that if we could understand the connections and visualize the breadth of global efforts on behalf of social and environmental justice, we would recognize the largest movement the world has ever seen. WiserEarth is where this movement can begin to see itself.”
WiserEarth is more than a "green" online social network for individuals, although you join as an individual. The vision is to help the global movement of people and organizations working toward social justice, indigenous rights, and environmental stewardship to connect, collaborative, share knowledge, and build alliances. The WiserEarth platform does this through a variety of strategies.
First, there is the Directory - the largest international directory of non-profits and socially responsible organizations - approximately 110,000 from 243 countries. (There is also an Open API so this information can be repurposed on other areas of the web.) You'll also find a detailed taxonomy of issue areas related to social justice and environmental restoration.
But the most interesting part of WiseEarth platform is the groups feature. It allows groups of individuals or organizations or a mix to set up a space online to engage in discussion, share resources, or collaborative on projects. What's nice about this feature is that has a lot of flexibility - so you can set up private spaces, semi-private spaces, or public spaces. It's designed for networks of networks and communities of action, whether the network or community consists of people or organizations.
Some of the groups have been set up by organizations to convene workgroups of staff or collaborations across organizations and need a secure online space to do their work. For example, The Nature Conservancy is part of a group called the US Fire Learning Network group. The features inside of groups include discussion board, file archive, wiki, events, a map, and a number typical features to support online collaborations.
An example of "semi-private" group, is the Permaculture Alliance of California. This was initially set up by an individual passionate about permaculture and wanted to pull together all the various grassroots, ngos, and individuals working on the issue.
If you're like me, you're probably wondering what the heck is permaculture. Luckily, there are some subject matter experts here at the Foundation who answered:
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies. It was first developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture.
The intent was that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals could design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth's ecosystems.
While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following. This 'permaculture community' continues to expand on the original ideas, integrating a range of ideas of alternative culture, through a network of publications, permaculture gardens, intentional communities, training programs, and internet forums. In this way, permaculture has become both a design system and a loosely defined philosophy or lifestyle ethic.
So, what's very unique about this platform is that is flexible enough to support activists who want to weave together their personal networks around a particular sustainability issue. It can also support the work of organizations and networks of organizations. But, the value-added is that you find and connect with other people and organizations that you may not know about - just as you would on a social network like Facebook or Twitter. But the value here is that all members are interested in sustainability.
When you set up an account, it is much like setting up a profile on a social network. Except, that when you connect with others, you invite them to join your personal network. On your profile, similar to Facebook, you can see your friends photos and names, but you can also navigate through your social graph visually. Above is the visual representation of my social graph on WiserEarth - it shows me groups, interest areas, and friends. I click on a name and explore their network.
Peggy and Angus shared some tips for online community building. These include:
What are your goals? Pick three things you want to do together.
The importance of a technology steward or online moderator
Think about what you want to accomplish and pick the tools/features to support that work
You will probably be using a variety of tools
The importance of piloting an online space before going to scale(here's an example)
Last week, I had an opportunity to participate in a two-day workshop was designed
for Packard Foundation grantees, from across the Foundation’s funding
areas, who lead and manage networks or accomplish much of their work
through networks. The workshop, facilitated by the Monitor Institute, was focused on Network Effectiveness. Specifically, the workshop goals were:
Introducing and applying network
tools, frameworks, and case studies that can help network leaders
assess their effectiveness and increase their impact
Facilitating peer-learning and exchange
Exploring what it means to work with a network mindset
I learned a lot about the network approaches and was particularly interested learning a bit more about social network analysis and mapping processes. During the session, I live tweeted the notes using the hashtag #packnet. A number resources were shared and interesting points made during the back channel which I summarized here
The first day I presented a brief over view on social media for external communications which included 8 principles. The presentation is above.
On the second day, we did a half day session using the Social Media Strategy Simulation Game. The hypothetical organization was part of a network and working on Earth Worm Sustainability. Some design learnings:
Program staff have a harder time coming up with an objective than technical or communications people. Might consider giving them a choice of objectives to select from, rather than have them construct.
Constant dance between understanding the tools and not leading with them. What's needed is permission to explore the tools.
Because it took longer than anticipated to formulate the objectives, we didn't have opportunity to explore the adoption/resistance issues.
The small groups should a mix of people and include someone with experience actually using the tools and one person who is a good facilitator.
I'd like to be able to add a set of "metrics" cards, and possibly experiment cards. This is probably more appropriate for a more advanced level.
The report outs from the small group had some terrific strategy ideas and approaches. You can read the notes here. The game wiki is here.
On of the ah ha content moments for me was:
"You mean there are young people in our organizations who know how to use these tools?"
This points to a great opportunity for reverse mentoring and working across generations.
You can find lots more resources on Network Effectiveness over at the Monitor Institute's "Working Wikily"
"There is a tension with using social media to support your network. On the one hand, you need to have a clear purpose of what you want to achieve and an understanding of your network members. But, how can you choose the right tools and design your onspace if you haven't experienced those tools. It's like designing a space suit to wear on mars when you haven't been there." - Participant
Yesterday, I participated in an all-day working session on Network Effectiveness for Packard Foundation Grantees hosted by the Packard Foundation and the Monitor Institute. Over the past two years, the Packard Foundation has worked in partnership with Monitor Institute to explore how networks were changing the social sector. (If you want to get more context to this work, read the paper "Working Wikily" and keep an eye out for the update of this paper in the near future.)
The session provided an overview of networks, introduction to different network types and typologies, an overview on network mapping techniques, and a diagnostic that helps those leading networks identify areas of strength and improvement. The diagnostic tool includes 8 different areas: membership, leadership, governance, purpose, strategy/structure, assessment, communications/technology, and resource management.
The session was expertly facilitated by the Monitor Team which included David Sawyer, Diana Scearce, and Heather McLeod Grant. I learned a lot from the material presented by Monitor and their facilitation processes as well as the insights shared by participants about their network effectiveness in general as well as their use of social media.
I did a presentation on social media and nonprofits in the afternoon. In preparation for the session, I took at look at the "social media footprints" of participants. We also did a pre-survey to learn where they were in terms of using social media for external communications. This was very helpful as always because I tend to incorporate participant examples in the materials as much as possible.
The network effectiveness diagnostic tool included three desired attributes for use of technology for communications:
Ample shared space, online and in-person, allowing members to easily connect with one another
Communication tools are appropriate given member skills
Communication tools are a good fit for types of interactions needed to meet the purpose
In reflecting on the desired attributes in the diagnostic tool, these are useful for assessing communications and use of technology for what I called "inward facing" groups or a bounded group where the members are known and the purpose might be for internal communications, coordination, collaboration, sharing resources, and learning. And the choice of tools may not be focused on consumer-based social media tools and is much broader to include online collaboration tools. This requires a different set of asessment, planning, and implementation steps than you might follow if you were creating a social media strategy for external communications.
What are the desired attributes for network effectiveness and the use of technology for "outward facing" work? Here's a stab:
Network use of social media tools and strategies supports objectives in external communications plan
Network use of social media tools and strategies is embraced and understood by network leaders and members
Network use of social media tools and strategies incorporates metrics and ongoing learning experiments
Both attributes would also need a set of checklists, benchmarks, or more detailed assessments to unpack effective social media use both for inward facing and outward facing goals.
The latter, the area of my core expertise, is used for engagement, support, fundraising, outreach, and taking action. The toolbox includes many different types of social media tools. Here's a couple of visuals:
The participants represented a wide range of networks, disciplines, staff roles, and experience with using social media personally or for their organization. We also had a wide range of attitudes about the use of social media - from healthy skepticism to excited practioner. As a result, the questions and insights shared were rich and varied. A couple of takeaways for me to tuck away for the future:
It's hard to balance a wide diversity of experience and interest in social media in a training or working session. If the session is not focused on technology, but just a small module in the day -you need to have a short brief high level overview and a separate deeper dive for those seeking practical, nitty tips and information.
For those organizations/networks looking to select tools to support their work, there needs to be some exploratory, hands-on experience. If this is their first foray into social media tools, they should seek out low-risk, simple experiments that are fun.
The following questions/issues emerged as it relates to use of social media tools to support Network Effectiveness:
Outward Facing
Now that we have 5,000 Facebook friends, how we can get them to make a difference on the ground? How can we activate the activsts in the real world? (I put this question out on Twitter and summarize in the next blog post)
We created a network of fans who are remixing our context and spreading our message, how do we guide them effectively without controlling them? Using social networks creates more information and touch points, how do you manage overload in a networked world?What are some simple "learning experiments" that use "first steps" that we can follow to get started? How you balance your persona/professional presence with the organizational presence? Are there best practices?
Inward Facing
How can we best support our network's work online if some members have slower Internet connections? How do we create a safe place (private) for discussions? How we engage our members online when there is a lot of diversity, people are busy, and have lots of other things to do? How do get to know the tools, but don't let the tools drive our choices? How do work in a networked way and not get overloaded? What are some simple ways to use technology to support working wikily?
Additional Resources from the workshop over at Working Wikily
Today I attended an informative lunchtime presentation by Chad Nelsen who is the Environmental Director at the Surfrider Foundation where he has worked since 1998. (He's currently getting his Ph.D in surf economics!) He gave a presentation about how Surfrider Foundation is striving to make its grassroots network more effective. He touched on how they are using social networks/media in this effort.
One of the slides that struck me was a map that look at the full range of their activities offline and online (including social media) using two data points (numbers of people and ladder of engagement). The levels of engagement included: stranger, friend, supporter, member, activist and leader. The challenge is how they move people through these different stages. Chad did a video clip explaining the slide. (He also said he'd upload his slides on slideshare.)
Some takeaways related to network effectiveness and use of social media and technology:
The most important metric they use for network effectiveness is "Coast Victories." It's a very tangible measure and they have a goal for victories.
While he didn't touch on it in-depth, I'm sure they have a system or framework for measuring what is working and what isn't working along the way, in real time and especially for their use of social media. In other words, I'm curious what their process or system is for "listen, learn, and adapt." The above map that Chad explains gets at it.
Learning across the network, particularly across chapters is important. Their chapters grow faster than internal staff can support them. There is constant churn of activists and a deep learning curve. They use Internet tools and regional trainings to support learning across the network. This is a community of practice that is most likely using social media/networks to accomplish this.
If you search for surfrider foundation on Facebook, you will find several hundred groups/pages for the chapters - many using their own variation of the organization's logo. They also have many high school groups on Facebook. I asked how they work effectively with chapters when they can't "control" the message or groups necessarily. Chad pointed out that they rarely police what chapters are doing and while it might annoy the lawyers, they rarely have to intervene. I wonder, though, what the coordination role across Facebook groups or other social media outposts might like look? How do you facilitate the hive?
Surfrider's CEO, Jim Moriarty, commented that it was a function of their organization's culture - that everyone is focused on the mission and principles and they have a DIY culture. "We're more focused on the our mission than our brand and so we're open to letting others shape our brand." It reminded me of the talk that Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, gave about how the culture of happiness enabled his company to scale.
He also mentioned that their organization lean and agile and there is a culture of a willingness to experiment and learn from it.
He talked about the balance between "atom-based" work -- staffing, offline activities, showing up at hearings, etc and "bit-based work" their work online - Facebook pages, etc. How to weave the two in order to scale.
How do you analyze the use of social networks/social media in the context of online/offline activism? If your organization has discovered many Facebook pages/groups set up by activists or fans outside of your organization, what are your best practices for supporting and facilitating this activism? Or do you just step away and let it roll?
