Commonspace -

How social media shifts the nature of professionalism

David Wilcox — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:13:01 +0000

Bob McKee, the chief executive of CILIP - Chartered Institute of Library and information Professionals - got a roasting from Phil Bradley on a post “From the chief executive’s desk” which started:

There’s some twittering at present about whether CILIP has (or should have) any “official” presence on various lists or micro blog sites.
The simple answer, of course, is no. In terms of “official” activity, cyber life is just like real like - if it happens in a CILIP-sanctioned space, it’s official; if it happens down the pub or in someone else’s space, it isn’t.

Bob was critised for this tone, and for failing to recognise that organisations can no longer sit within their online walled garden. Phil wrote:

You cannot own the space any more and by not participating you're not stopping the conversations taking place, you're not stopping people making up their own minds, you're simply not involved or engaged. Moreover - just how insulting do you want to become? What gives you the right to tell people that their views don't matter?

The exchanges produced a lot of comments, including a plea from Louise Tucker that CILIP provide an open forum, using a Web 2.0 tool,

... to enable debate (amongst members and non-members) about what kind of support and representation that we would like from CILIP please? In other words, provide us with the opportunity to give our "wish list" as Phil Bradley has done?
I think this could benefit CILIP and its audience because it offers a chance to:
* promote to members and non-members what CILIP is already doing and plans to do that we may have missed or that we would benefit from being reminded about. For example I had completely missed the fact that your Blog exists, I only know about it now because of reference to it on Phil Bradley’s Blog, and I’m a CILIP member who’s subscribed to a CILIP mailing list, RSS feed and I read the Update and Gazette magazines);
* provide CILIP with ideas of things it could do in future that would encourage greater engagement with members and non-members;
* potentially provide CILIP with offers of assistance and collaboration to work on existing ideas and implement and new ones.

In a follow-up post Bob says he will talk to trustees and colleagues about that idea, and then observes:

A number of the comments posted have moved from issues around social media to issues around the future for CILIP and our profession. So let me return to my comment that CILIP (like many organisations) is conflicted between authority and community – or (to put it in a way which chimes more with this discussion) between systems and conversations. This is also where my other comment (about social networking changing the dynamic of institutionalised professionalism) comes in – a comment which perhaps helps to explain why there’s so much emotionality (to put it politely) in some of the comments posted (particularly on Phil’s blog) after the initial response from Phil.

Bob then goes on to analyse this conflict between authority and community and "why I think the discussion about using social media is also a discussion about the future for professionalism". He says:

...professional bodies, like CILIP, have to respond to the new dynamics, not only by engaging with social media but also by finding ways to foster interaction between the unofficial and convivial conversations of social media and the formal systems which make up the “official channels”.

And adds:

Engaging with social media in the ways suggested by Phil and other commentators will help CILIP continue on the journey away from the traditional elitist/protectionist form of professionalism and towards a modernised (collaborative, conversational, convivial) professionalism fit for purpose in the modern world. A collaborative CILIP built around conversation not instruction - modelling a collaborative professionalism which redefines our role and value for the information age - Yes, let’s try that!

Comments on the post are broadly welcoming.

Why the Net changes how nonprofits must operate

David Wilcox — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:36:02 +0000

In an interview with Amy Sample Ward, Clay Shirky really pins down what any organisation relying on members or supporters for its life must do if it is to stay in business as people increasing network online. That means change for campaigning charities, trade associations, and membership bodies who may have worked in the past through a mix of newsletters, events and perhaps not very special services. If they don’t offer more value, members and supporters will stop paying their subs.

In the video Clay tells the story of a campaigning organisation - the American Civil Liberties Union - that tried to stop members using the organisation’s name when arranging get-togethers through meetup.org. They were saying, in effect, you may have shared values and concerns, but you can’t organise around them using our name. The story has negative and positive aspects.

The negative aspect is that organisations must accept that their members can link a brand and their cause and use tools like meetup.org to get together face-to-face, and then Facebook, Twitter and other online tools to keep connecting. Or vice-versa: connect online, then meet.

The positive aspect is that smart organisations can realise what’s happening, and revise the offer that they make to members and supporters to add more value than DIY networking can offer.

Full analysis of the interview on socialreporter.com

Social reporting blends online and off

David Wilcox — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:28:01 +0000

Over on my blog socialreporter.com I've been exploring how a combination of journalism, facilitation and social media can help promote collaborations both online and offline. Here I've summed up How social reporters can turn old-style conferences into the new convening spaces, with links to a guide.
Earlier I wrote about the ideas of Etienne Wenger - who helped developed the concept and practice of online communities of practice - on social artists and social spaces, how facilitatators can use video as part of the work, and how creating a blog for an event can help an organisation start to use social media.
All posts about social reporting here.

The challenges of membership

David Wilcox — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:10:02 +0000

A seminar at NCVO's Annual conference in February 2009 looked at the future of membership. The chair of the seminar, Matthew Taylor is chief executive of the RSA, an organisation with 27,000 members. He wrote on his blog that three points particularly struck him:

Organisations find it very hard to be honest about the task of managing and engaging with their membership. It was only after I was very open about how challenging this is at the RSA that other delegates started to open up. It turns out that the issues are very similar in many different types of organisations. Change involves simultaneously confronting barriers (such as activist capture, cumbersome governance and stuffy inward looking cultures), building capacity (finding new ways – particularly on-line - of engaging people) and developing new content propositions (what are we asking members to do and how can we make this an attractive and rewarding proposition).
Creating a new culture and set of expectations among members and in the relationship between the centre and localities can be a major, time consuming and resource intensive change management process. Many organisations lack the confidence or resources to confront the issues, so they are continually brushed under the carpet.
Very few new charities are creating democratic or quasi democratic membership structures. New philanthropists and social entrepreneurs have seen the hassle that can be involved and tend to plump for much leaner and more centralised forms of governance.

Does membership matter? Membership and association in the new decade.
Presentation and links from the February 2009 seminar.

Join us to explore the future of membership
NCVO and the RSA are bringing together a consortium of leading charities from across civil society to shape a new vision for the role and practice of membership in the future.

Membership in the future
A think piece by Megan Griffith Gray written in April 2008 on the drivers shaping the future of membership

Welcome to Commonspace

David Wilcox — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:30:04 +0000

We are exploring how self-organising, made possible by social media, meets more traditional collaboration - with a focus on membership organisations, trade associations and professional bodies. More here, and how to use the site.

Re-convening in Commonspace

David Wilcox — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:49:35 +0000

It's been quiet here since April 2008, but that's now going to change!

This site was originally created for The Membership Project, which was started David Wilcox (me) and Simon Berry "to explore how the social web and other factors are changing the ways in which we may belong to groups and organisations". You can read the background here. We took a rest during 2008 as our partners NCVO and RSA developed plans for the research programme. As you can see here, that's now under way.

Meanwhile Simon has created an amazing demonstration of just what can be achieved using the social web, without an organisation, through the Colalife campaign. I've been blogging at my main site - socialreporter.com - with a fair amount about organisations and the social web. I've also been doing some consulting and mentoring for membership bodies, and highlighting RSA developments through OpenRSA.

The other day Clay Shirky, whose book Here Comes Everybody best raises many of the issues we want to explore here, gave a terrific interview to Amy Sample Ward. I wrote over here:

Clay Shirky really pins down what any organisation relying on members or supporters for its life must do if it is to stay in business as people increasing network online. That means change for campaigning charities, trade associations, and membership bodies who may have worked in the past through a mix of newsletters, events and perhaps not very special services. If they don’t offer more value, members and supporters will stop paying their subs. I’ve suggested this before, Clay says it much better.

That interview, and the research programme, provided me with fresh enthusiasm to see if we could re-populate this Commonspace, and pick up on some of the other work that we orginally planned, including a guide and toolkit. At first I'll be re-blogging a some of the interesting developments I've spotted recently, and pulling together resources useful both for research and practice.

If you already have an account on site, do join in. Anyone can comment, and send me an email if you would like to blog as well. More here about using the site. Thanks to Daniel J. Wilcox for freshening up the Commonspace theme, and other work on the site.

Key issues from conference

David Wilcox — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:58:10 +0000

Megan Griffith's presentation at the recent NCVO conference on membership schemes aimed to spark some discussion among those at our workshop - and we weren't disappointed. Here's some of the key issues reported back from group discussion, transcribed from the flip charts by Simon Berry. The groups were asked to consider:

What do you think are some of the major challenges and opportunities facing membership organisations in the 21st century?

and

What might your membership scheme look like in 5 years time?

Simon has grouped the responses:

General

Different people mean different things by membership: subscribers (to services); supporters; LEGAL members
"Membership is still growing but slowing down"

Challenges

Access to information no longer a valued service (1st item mentioned in both workshops)
There needs to be more sophisticated use of information
Membership organisations as sources of trusted, filtered information.
What does trusted information look like? Does it come from the centre or from the network?
Aligning membership with mission and purpose . . . are we about restricting access to information?
What's your role? Lobbying? Source of expertise? Providing [membership] services? Advocacy?
Being clear. Is membership an income stream or is it a cost?
Members taking to each other (the network vs the hub and spoke model) - branding issues, danger of others doing things in the organisation's name
Information is not enough, 'belonging' is not enough. It's about networking - need to know more about members to enable this (RSA Networks allowing members to 'tag' themselves according to interests)
Need to communicate using old and new media - high costs
Technology is changing so quickly it is expensive to keep up
Members have more complex needs
Members have multiple networking opportunities (not just your offer)
Aging population - support, delivery media and access implications

Opportunities

Expertise not information
More tailored information to different classes of membership - members are expecting this
Creation of platforms to give people a voice
It's not just about membership fees it's about the whole relationship. Legacies, ad hoc donations, etc can be just as important
Members as lobbyists/activists/advocates - the more members the better!
Members taking to each other (the network vs the hub and spoke model) - the knowledge is in the network - online and offline, peer to peer mentoring/support
Collaboration. Use another organisation's network rather than try to establish one yourself
Don't assume that age is a barrier to use of ICT (eg NFU, SMS messaging to farmers)
Collaboration and networking opportunities between membership organisations
Movement should be away from commoditisation (free gifts etc). We need to focus on values.

Ideas

Restricted 'Who's who'. Enable, opt-in, peer to peer interaction
Multiple memberships held by individuals could be matched by membership organisations linking up better

Turning a tanker: recreating one of the oldest membership organisations around

Sophia Parker — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:39:18 +0000

I thought I'd share my comments from yesterday's conference at NCVO. I was talking about the RSA's experiences in renewing itself as a membership organisation that's fit for purpose in the 21stC.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the RSA, it's a 250 year old Enlightenment organisation, with a long-standing commitment to achieving positive social change. That commitment has not waned - far from it - but over the last year we have been trying to make sense of what it means in the modern world. Two particular things seem different to when the RSA first started. First, the nature of the social challenges we face are complex and global in their nature, requiring the actions of many to tackle them (I'm thinking about climate change, terrorism, food security to name a few). Second, people increasingly have the tools to work together on issues they care about, unmediated by organisations - here I'm thinking in particular about the role that web 2.0 can play, but one only needs to think about farmers organising by text message to realise it's about more than that too...

The RSA today has 27,000 Fellows (what we call our members), from a very diverse set of backgrounds, spread all over the world. Until recently, these Fellows were seen as a rather passive audience, with our mission being 'delivered' through the production of pamphlets, seminars and lectures, similar to a traditional thinktank approach to social change. What we are trying to do now, alongside this thinktank-y work, is create a Fellowship that is much more focused on action - where the Fellows themselves, rather than the organisation, are the agents of change. It's a huge challenge for an organisation which has a massive legacy and a culture that has in the past tended to be wary of overdemanding Fellows with half-baked ideas (I'm exaggerating, but you get my point...)

Over the last year, with the generous support of NESTA, we have been testing our hunch that the single biggest value of being a member of the RSA is meeting, collaborating and working with other Fellows in pursuit of real social change. We've experimented with new, more interactive events based on Open Space techniques. We've also tried to make the most of online opportunities, developing a proto 'ideas marketplace' online. The current version is a test site, but the lessons we've learnt about how to make such a site work are being incorporated as I type into the RSA's new website.

And given we've only been running for 7 months or so, we've made some real progress. Over 500 of our Fellows are signed up online; we have about 15 networks of Fellows around the country working on issues they care about, like reducing reoffending, or re-engaging excluded young people.

There's a lot further to go however. The 3 challenges I shared in the workshops yesterday were:

Passion

The RSA doesn't pay its Fellows to work on projects: instead it wants to make it easier for Fellows to *do* something with their passions, to turn those passions into real projects that have an impact. So we've had to learn how as an organisation we can unleash those passions. We've found that at the heart of doing this is the need to 'hear' people, to acknowledge them, and to help connect them to others who share those passions. Of course, increasingly sophisticated tagging systems and so on can help, but this stuff needs a human touch. Facilitation is a new role for somewhere like the RSA, but it's increasingly forming part of people's job descriptions, and this will need to continue.

Creating the conditions

The RSA created a small team (the RSA Networks team) to run the work that's gone into this change project so far. Our constant challenge has been to remind people that we are not another project on the work plan, but instead that we are the engine of change for the organisation. Every single interaction Fellows have with the RSA needs to communicate the right messages, and invite action - from the format of the lectures, to the design of the welcome letter. And every part of the RSA needs to consider how to involve Fellows, which means looking again at how we design projects, and what incentives staff have in their roles. Any organisation seeking to engage with their members on new terms needs to see this work as affecting all the 'touchpoints' of the organisation from the receptionists to the chief executive!

Challenging mindsets

Related to this is a problem that any membership organisation seeking to create more action-focused partnerships with their members will face: that organisations have an annoying habit of building walls and creating power dynamics between people on the inside (staff) and people on the outside (members). Those staff need time and support to recognise the potential benefits reaped by working more openly and collaboratively. Our tactic at the RSA has been to take something of a guerilla approach, trying to 'infect' all the different parts of the organisation one way or another with our work, and finding advocates in different departments and offices who can inspire others around them.

This stuff takes time; many of our Fellows who were excited when we set out on this journey are frustrated at how slow progress has sometimes felt. But we have learnt that you cannot underestimate the scale of cultural change implicit in the desire to turn members into agents for social change in their own right. But the huge potential makes it all worth it. Just think, if we engaged 1% of our Fellowship in projects for social change, we would be nearly 4 times as big as the next largest thinktank in the UK. I vote for what we're doing any day. I think the vast majority of our Fellows would too.

Drivers shaping the future of membership: yesterday's presentation

Megan Griffith — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:46:51 +0000

I wrote this think piece as the basis of a presentation on the drivers shaping the future of membership, for the NCVO membership schemes conference on the 22 April.

Individuals are affirming themselves as individual agents
Individual freewill and autonomy have become important social values. This individualism, although often associated with selfishness, also links to growing notions of self-reliance and personal responsibility. A linked trend is the decline in deference; our willingness to accept without question what those in authority say has declined.

Our identities and how we express them is more complex
Personal identity – how we define ourselves in relation to others – has become increasingly complex. Generally speaking, people are less willing to conform to narrowly defined identities. A sense of individual freedom enables people to define their own identities, often based on multiple cultures or values (an arsenal fan, a mother, a knitting enthusiast, a socialist, fair trade campaigner, Londoner and a British and global citizen!) As social beings, individuals look for groups and organisations to join which enable them to express their identities, campaign for change, meet like-minded people and find out things of interest to them. Our huge and diverse sector and membership organisations in particular, thrive on people coming together in this way.

Political participation has shifted towards single issues
One manifestation of more individual and complex identities is a decline in participation in 'formal' politics. Parties are playing less of a role in connecting the public with the political process as voter turnout at elections falls and traditional affiliations with political movements and parties declines. However, the public is not apathetic and politics with a small 'p' is alive and well. The public have simply chosen to express their values and political ideals through engagement with a number of single-issues, often by joining membership organisations or supporting particular campaigns.

Forms of individualised action are on the increase
Another manifestation of individualism is an increase in individual action. People increasingly think about their own actions as a way of effecting change – one example is the increase in ethical consumerism. The way in which business, government and often the VCS speak to the public, mirrors, and perhaps reinforces, this trend (eg websites like 'we are what we do', or government discourse around personal responsibility in relation to public health or climate change). There is a risk that the actions of individuals are seen as more important than collective action. However, there is an opportunity for membership organisations to facilitate the transition from individual action to collective action.

Forming groups is easier, and does not require a mediating organisation
The internet makes it easier for people to find others that share their interests, often regardless of their geographical location. Many membership organisations have exploited the potential of tools such as e-mail lists and online forums to reach more people and communicate with them at a lower cost. However, there is a new generation of online websites (sometimes termed 'social networking' or 'web.2.0') which have two important characteristics: firstly, they allow an individual to build a unique online presence and profile; and, secondly, they facilitate connections between individual users, allowing each user to build a personal network. These have made it even easier to form groups, particularly without the need for a mediating organisation. As it becomes easier for individuals to make new connections and form groups, power can shift away from traditional membership bodies towards individuals and their informal networks. This can be a challenge for those who view themselves as the only experts in their field wanting to remain the gatekeepers of information for their audiences and these organisations may find that their members increasingly migrate to other online groups. However, for organisations willing to work in a more open and collaborative way, this offers opportunities to engage with people where they choose to come together, and to draw together and aggregate a range of perspectives and experiences.

There is a wealth of free information online
In the coming years, it will continue to get much easier to access a huge volume and variety of free information online. The type of information that is available is also changing, with much of it produced by 'amateurs' or what some have termed 'the former audience'. 'Experts' no longer have the status that they once had and individuals are increasingly more inclined to trust their peers. This presents a challenge for membership organisations providing information and advice, as it suggests that they may increasingly be bypassed in favour of informal peer-to-peer sources. However, in the context of the ever-increasing amount of information online – a world where 'common sense' can often win out over facts – there is an opportunity for membership organisations to position themselves as a trusted source of information and advice, and to aggregate, filter and provide routes to navigate the wealth of information now available. In addition, membership organisations can increase the quality of the advice and information they provide by building new knowledge communities by hosting and moderating online peer-to-peer services.

Membership is becoming more fluid…
As a result of the drivers discussed above it is likely that individuals' membership of organisations, groups and networks will become more fluid. Research on volunteering suggests that although volunteering overall is stable or growing, volunteering has become more 'episodic' with long term commitments being replaced by more short term activities. Likewise, loyalty is changing. Whereas older generations were often loyal to an organisation, younger generations who are used to far more fluid online networks are more likely to be loyal to a cause which expresses an aspect of their identity or values, and to move their activism, participation and formal membership around different groups and organisations related to that cause.

… and commodified
And as membership becomes more fluid, the membership 'offer' is becoming increasingly commodified – in other words, viewed as a good or a service that individuals (as consumers) can buy or dispose of, rather than a commitment. This is an unsurprising trend as membership organisations respond to a more individualised audience, which is less likely to be loyal to an organisation for life, and offer benefits targeted at individuals as consumers. But is this a vicious circle? Are membership organisations complicit in this commodification, reinforcing the trends of individualism discussed above?

Supporting teams, communities, networks

David Wilcox — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:13:03 +0000

Conversations at today's conference on membership confirmed what a big stretch membership covers, from providing infomation, advice, a voice, networking opportunities, through to the development of collaborative projects between staff and members. Each activity will require different communications, marketing and engagement approaches.

Fortunately Anecdote have published an excellent paper on Building a collaborative workspace written by Shawn Callahan, Mark Shenck and Nancy White. It isn't aimed at membership organisations, but is very relevant if you see membership in some instances as a collaboration going beyond an offer and acceptance of services . The authors first give us some useful definitions:

In team collaboration, the members of the group are known, there are clear task interdependencies, expected reciprocity, and explicit time-lines and goals.

In community collaboration, there is a shared domain or area of interest, but the goal is more often focused on learning rather than on task. People share and build knowledge rather than complete projects.

Network collaboration steps beyond the relationship-centric nature of team and community collaboration. It is collaboration that starts with individual action and self-interest, which then accrues to the network as individuals contribute or seek something from the network.

There is a checklist to establish whether you have a collaboration culture appropriate in each of these situations, a listing of success factors for teams, communities and networks, and discussion of the role of leadership. I suggest taking a look at the rest of their blog too.

Also very relevant, I believe, is a piece by Steve Dale on Communities of Practice, where he identifies what a good facilitator should do to meet different needs for members helping each other, developing and disseminating best practice, supporting innovation, stewarding knowledge.

We'll have more here over the next few days from the conference, but meanwhile one of the issues that resonated with me was the increasing capacity for members to network directly with each other, rather than through the centre, because of what's possible on the Internet. I believe that organisations would be wise to support this activity as an additional benefit they offer, on these lines: "of course you can connect with others on the Net without us, but we'll make it easier for you to find interesting people, we'll offer additional communication tools, and the opportunity to meet".

If organisations do go down that route, they'll need to look at the lessons from facilitation and collaboration specialists. Sophia Parker told us how the RSA is developing RSA Networks on these lines, and she will post something here in the next day or two. It's proving quite challenging, but RSA are sharing their project evaluation as they go, as Sophia reported here earlier.