Just in case you  missed them, here are some more truly thoughtful responses to my meme, How Are You Going to Change the World in 2012? (More posts are here.)

Challenge Accepted: Make the World a Better Place (Lowell Aplebaum)

1. For the association world: Collaborate.  No, I am not talking about the ASAE social network platform (though it is a great place to connect with colleagues and get involved).  I am talking about associations working together to work together.  There are so many of us out there, and each association has the things it is REALLY good at, and those areas where we are constantly struggling (and pouring resources) to just tread water.  In 2012 I am going to identify those models I have that are the top 10% of what I see out there, and find corresponding associations that excel in other areas for the potential of collaboration.  If my association can help them with our model of success, and they can help us with theirs perhaps neither would waste so much time or resources in reinventing the wheel.

Why Change the World in 2012? (Eric Lanke)

Elevate the conversation.

Across the board–whether it’s an interaction in the association that employs me, in one of my growing list of volunteer commitments, in my relationship with my family, or even in the activities I choose to fill my reflective time with–I can more consciously be the agent that elevates the conversation one level above where everyone else is focused.

Too much of the time, you see, in all of the circles I’ve described above, we seem so consumed by what needs to be done that we consistently lose sight of why we’re doing them in the first place. And yet the why has to inform the what, or the what begins to lose its meaning.

Meme Time: Changing the World in 2012 (Elizabeth Engel)

How *are* we doing on D&I in associations? Short answer? Not well.

And I can’t change that by myself. And neither can you.

But I can light one candle. And so can you. So that’s what I’m going to do: do what’s in my power to shine a spotlight on diversity and inclusion and where we fail and how we can pick ourselves back up and try again.

I Will Stop the World From Ending in 2012 (Maggie McGary)

Embrace change–or at least shake hands with it. It’s hard to make changes, especially when a situation is comfortable and works well enough. But sometimes comfortable isn’t actually comfortable. It may work and it may pay the bills, but is that really all we want to ask of life? Is ok good enough, or is amazing out there waiting to be had? And how will you know if you don’t try something different? So this year I’m going to go beyond my comfort zone and see if I can’t find amazing, or at least beyond comfortable.

How Will You Change the World in 2012? (Geoff Livingston)

During Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington, I had the privilege of creating a training program that touched more than 350 nonprofits. Teaching and showing others how to use these tools is the best way I can positively impact the world. In 2012, I’d like to personally train or speak to more than 1,000 nonprofits about online marketing best practices.

Wow!!!  Have I missed any posts?  Let me know in the comments – and thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has participated so far.  Nothing will ever get better without each of our individual commitment to do something.  I’m not going to sit around waiting for the world to get better all by itself.  And why should I, when there are so many great people with great ideas for what they can do?  The buck stops with us.  Thank you!

Just saw this post from Edelman: Why Your Company Needs to Structure Properly for Social Media… Right Now.

From the post (my bold):

Yesterday morning in London, Richard Edelman unveiled the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer. It’s the twelfth year that we’ve conducted the study, which tries to answer the seemingly simple question: “Who do you trust?”

One thing is clear from this year’s research: It isn’t your CEO.

Globally, only 38% of informed publics think CEOs are credible spokespeople. That’s down from 50% last year.

On the other hand, trust in a ‘Regular employee’ showed a dramatic rise from 34% last year, to 50% this year. ‘Regular employee’ trailed only academic, technical experts in the company, and person like yourself as the most credible spokesperson your business could put forward. You can view all of this data on slide 21 our global trust presentation.

I’ll be posting an analysis of the updated report in greater detail but this is significant so I’m posting it now.  Watch this space for more.

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Humanize: How People-centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World takes on the topic of trust in great detail.  Buy the book today.

I have a confession: one of my least favorite things to do is public speaking. I had never done it at all until three years ago when Debra Stratton of Stratton Publishing & Marketing asked me if I’d present with her at ASAE’s Great Ideas conference, which just happened to be in Miami in February. So I said yes. I was terrified, and incredibly relieved when it was over. I figured that if I forced myself to do more of this dreaded public speaking it would get better in time, so over the past few years any time someone has asked me to speak or wanted to collaborate with me to submit a proposal to speak, I’ve said yes. While it’s gotten a tiny bit less intimidating, for the most part I still dread it, but I continue to do it, both out of desire to overcome my fear and, more importantly, because I do like to help others and share the knowledge I gain being immersed in social media on a daily basis. I figure if I’m going to spend countless hours online, reading and learning and doing, others may as well benefit from my compulsive information gathering.

At any rate, last week I presented at an Association Foundation Group  lunch about association social media. They were super nice and it was a good incentive for me to collect my thoughts on the state of association social media right now. The presentation is below. I based my thoughts on a recent comScore report “It’s a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It’s Headed.” I won’t reiterate everything I said in the presentation, but basically my top points were:

1. Social networking is HUGE now–people are spending a very significant portion of their online time on social networking sites. So  not being there, or not at least knowing which sites your members are using, is a huge missed opportunity.
2. Google+ is potentially changing SEO, so at a bare minimum, educate yourself about its implications. Here are two good articles about it.
3. Email is still effective now, but digital natives’ use of email has plummeted while their time on social networking sites remains significant. What does this mean for your association’s marketing tactics over the next decade?

88% of consumers are less likely to buy from a company that ignores them on social media sites.  Check out the full Conversocial study here.  I know I notice – very strongly – when my tweets go unanswered.  If it’s a technology company of any kind? Even worse. Instant fail, and I’ll happily tweet my irritation and vow never to use them again.  Fair? Maybe not – but that’s the truth.  It’s not all bad, though – this unscientific but cool SBOSM poll says we’re doing a good job.  How’s your social customer service?

Anna Caraveli, our newest columnist, has a thought-provoking post over at the Demand Perspective called Engaging New Generations: Is it a Numbers and Data Game?

An excerpt (my bold):

Do we develop future members with formulas about how they behave with the only determinant being age? As a baby boomer I am supposed to feel all kinds of things that I do not actually feel.  I am supposed to be uncomfortable with technology; comfortable with volunteering for my community and joining membership organizations; motivated by climbing an orderly career ladder rather than by exploring, taking risks and re-inventing.  This couldn’t be further from who I am. I thrive on fluidity and change; I have been and always will be driven to transform and reinvent and I am a passionate advocate and user of social media. Is there something wrong with me?  Okay, I will grant that interest in areas such as social medi is far more prevalent in younger than older demographics.  But other groups—certain ethnic and cultural sub-segments, recently unemployed workers, senior citizens, etc—may also occupy distinctive niches in that market.

What I am saying is that we should not look to  predictability as the key to competing for the future but to the development of capabilities such as, flexibility, foresight and constant reinvention.

Read the full post here.

This same issue came up recently in a #wgbiz Twitter Chat about Humanize, and Jamie wrote the first of possibly several future blog posts on the topic (also my bold):

Even though there is tremendous diversity within each generation, there is still a sameness that warrants the distinction among those generations.

If you can be comfortable with that paradox, then you can start to really use the knowledge about generations to your benefit. You won’t make the mistake of trying to use the generations to determine how the people in your office will behave. That’s silly. Generational tendencies don’t predict individual behavior, nor were they ever intended to. But generational differences can help you guide a conversation among colleagues about your organizational culture and processes, because it may help you understand some of the different behaviors and approaches. It guides the conversation, rather than providing the answers.

I think both of these posts are referring to instances where generational attributes are wrongly trying to give us, as Jamie says, the answers – not asking questions that would prepare us for a world that is more and more unpredictable.

What do you think?  Are you a Boomer who feels “boxed in” to certain stereotypes?  I know plenty of Millennials who do… Please weigh in.  Do you think we’re having the wrong (= ultimately unhelpful) conversations about generational differences?

"People are more likely to share information from their strong ties, but because of their abundance, weak ties are primarily responsible for the majority of information spread on Facebook. The figure above illustrates how a majority of influence (orange) can be generated by weak ties, even if strong ties are individually more influential."

Just came across this fascinating article about a study Facebook released this week. (My bold below).

I’m confused. I figured I’d start this post with that, just so you know that I don’t have any answers here. Only questions. At the risk of inadvertently raising political ire from every corner, I’d also like to start by saying that both sides have important points to make.

I’m talking about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261. The Senate version is PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), or Senate Bill 968. I won’t get into comparing the two bills–that’s not my thing. For the purpose of this post I’ll focus on SOPA. Oh–and don’t bother clicking on those Wikipedia links if today is Wednesday, January 18. Wikipedia is decidedly against SOPA, and is creating a huge buzz by blacking out today. They got my attention–thus this post.

Let me see if I can round this up–excuse the vast oversimplification. Or use the comments to correct me! SOPA is supposed to protect copyright holders and give them a means of combatting copyright infringement online. Even if the website is not based in the US. There’s a medical angle here, too, as one intent of the bill is to stop the illegal import of counterfeit pharmaceuticals into the US market via Internet sales.

That’s the gist, but there are problems with the way SOPA is written according to many Internet analysts, scholars, and online businesses. And problems with the approach to enforcement. Folks who are against SOPA have made all kinds of doomsday predictions, which I don’t completely buy in to. But I will say this–the legislation adds a lot of additional legal risk and burden to those of us who are trying to do the right thing. Meanwhile, the folks who are actively flouting the law are probably going to find a quick technical work-around.

There were hearings on SOPA in November and December of 2011, and it was scheduled for more debate in January, but it looks like it’s all on hold until February now.

SOPA–or whatever legislation evolves out of this bill–could have a big impact on associations who are managing online communities and knowledge bases. If you have members or other stakeholders uploading content to your website, you should be paying attention to this issue. The fear is that one unscrupulous person would upload the wrong thing, and your whole website would be blacklisted. (See? Doomsday.) But here’s the thing. The most recent law on the books for this stuff is the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which includes the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. 1998 was the year Larry and Sergey started this little research project that turned into Google. That law is OLD. There was no Facebook. No Wikipedia. And probably not much of an inkling about the problems that SOPA is trying to correct.

Take a look at this infographic provided by businessinsurance.org. It’s not unbiased, but it helped me understand some of the moving parts in this complicated issue.

I invite you to use the comments of this post to share your thoughts on SOPA, PIPA, and the potential impact on associations. Keep it civil, but let’s have a real conversation on this stuff, shall we? I know some of your associations have taken a stance on this issue–don’t get yourself in trouble here, but if you’re able to give us your thoughts, please do.

We’re very pleased to introduce our newest regular columnist here on SocialFishing:  Anna Caraveli, of the Demand Perspective. You may recognize her name from several outstanding articles she  wrote for Associations Now. (Read more about her here.) Her monthly column for us will focus on what Anna calls “the building blocks for constructing new membership and business models” for associations. She will explain and explore for us how “demand-centered models require a re-orientation of an organization from products and policies to people—customers, members, stakeholders” — and these are ideas which clearly relate very directly to the themes we’ve been exploring both in Open Community and in Humanize. 

I have been preaching model change for years. Don’t just play on the periphery; transform your entire organizational model. I thought I sounded pretty cool until calls for new membership and business models became ubiquitous.  Now what? It seems to be time to begin asking new questions; like what we mean by a “new model” after all.  What results do we expect? One question, in particular, dogged me: How do we envision our associations to look and behave like after a model change? Not very different, it turns out, judging from conversations with association executives and articles on the topic.

For many, a “new model” is a new “thing”–new program, format, structure, delivery vehicle—that you can just plug in somewhere and bring about magical results.  This line of old thinking cancels out the “new.”  It assumes that the basics—the elements that maintain “the association as we know it”—remain intact.  It looks for solutions within the same categories of tactical and programmatic “plug-ins,” but somehow expects different results; results that will never materialize.  Perhaps there will be modest or temporary improvements but not a new level of performance, value and market positioning.

What I list below are lessons learned from years of practice and recent research squeezed into 5 building blocks for achieving deep, systems based innovation that substantially re-shapes the way your organization thinks, does business and achieves bottom line results.

•  Aim at new business concepts rather than new “models.”  You don’t simply pull a model out of thin air and then click “insert.”   Arrive at the decision for what model to select organically; on the basis of what best supports your strategy, the way you define your business and view the world.

•  Understand that systems-based innovation is different from launching an innovative program, product, delivery vehicle or process.  Unlike a single program or product, a business model is embedded in all dimensions of your organization. This is how New Market Advisors, an innovative consulting firm, defines “business model:”

The business model of a company – its formula for sustained success – becomes deeply ingrained. It is reflected in who the firm hires, how it measures performance, who it targets as customers, the standards it creates for budgets, and how it views competitors. Indeed, the business model must permeate the firm in this way if the company is to become better at executing this formula than its competition. When a company is well-aligned around a business model, it repeatedly wins battles fought on that turf.

•  Build real, deep, tangible foundations for executing and not just conceptualizing sustainable innovation. While alignment must occur on all fronts, culture, daily practice and orientation are perhaps the most significant domains in which to anchor a new architecture.  Demand-centered models are executed by a re-orientating every aspect of an organization from a focus on products and policies to one on people—customers, members, stakeholders—and the solution of problems that prevent success.   This means that metrics, criteria of success, economic models, priorities for budget and resource allocations, staff recruitment and promotion must all contribute to the same goal:  customer and stakeholder success.

•  Re-orient leadership and the management of people around the competency needs of the new market orientation.  A focus on the human side of your business requires a people-focused organization both internally and externally if your innovation is to move past “messaging” clichés into execution and, ultimately, better business results. This implies different roles for, and criteria of evaluation for, staff; different culture, environment, relationships.  And to link the pieces together and drive concept to execution new competencies and models of leadership are needed.

Leadership is not a technical discipline to be mastered and then applied. It is the ability to enable people and organizations to realize their potential.  And what it takes depends on time and context.  Noted leadership author and consultant, Michael Maccoby, argues that models of effective leadership for our era – which he calls “the knowledge-service age”—differ substantially from those that were effective in previous eras because “the tools we’re using —the computers, the Internet and so on, are very different types of tools [than those used in previous eras.] The relationships are different. The customer/producer relationships are different. The meaning of what creates productivity is different and what creates quality is different.”

 What does this mean? Maccoby argues the leadership needed today is collaborative rather that authoritarian; enabling rather than prescriptive:

 You’re dealing much more with empowered people who are dealing as free agents and co-producing with each other in teams and with  customers. Leadership has the task of getting people to share.” 

 Moreover, by leadership, Maccoby refers to a system that permeates an organization rather than individuals or positions.

This framework for leading organizations and managing people is needed for the execution of new association models that are in sync with today’s demand for knowledge service.  If the world of orderly “products, services and benefits” required efficient management of events and processes, demand-oriented knowledge service requires leadership competencies throughout the organization; entrepreneurship and innovation; the ability to piece together disparate bits and pieces from multiple sources to craft innovative solutions for customer problems.

 The role of today’s leader is to nurture the continuous building of new competencies and empower individuals with the authority, leeway, environment and access they need to execute this model successfully.

• Above all else, the “new” in effective model change is not the specific model itself but the capacity to constantly innovate on the basis of entire models and systems.

Gary Hamel nails it in his book “Leading the Revolution:”

 “Industry revolutionaries don’t tinker at the margins; they blow up old business models and create new ones… Business concept innovation will be the defining competitive advantage in the age of revolution. Business concept innovation is the capacity to reconceive existing business models in ways that create new value fir customers, rude surprises for competitors and new wealth for investors.”

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Interested in this subject? Read more at Anna’s blog, the Demand Perspective.

There has been so much going on lately in the social media blogosphere that it seems the most efficient way to let you know the most important stuff is in a quick round-up post.  So here’s the latest on:

Google+ and Google search

• Google+ Brings Out The Big Guns (SocialMouths)
• Dirty little secrets: The trouble with Google’s social search (CNN)

I’m watching this one – lots of debate about it. Main takeway: ignore G+ at your peril.

Pinterest

• Pinterest: A Tool To Curate Relevant Visual Content for Your Audience (Beth Kanter)
• Cause Marketing: Using Pinterest to Tell the Story (RealTime Report)
• Steal these 42 Creative Pinterest Ideas for Nonprofits (Frogloop)

BONUS: Brands, Businesses & Blogs on Pinterest – find one like your org, and click through to the individual pin and then again to get to the org’s boards to see what they are pinning. Main takeaway: If your work is visual, Pinterest is worth it.

Facebook

• How Facebook Changes Are Impacting Engagement on Brand Pages and What Nonprofits Should Do About It (Beth Kanter)
• 17 ways to revive your organization’s Facebook Page (SocialBrite)
• How (and why) to engage with other Facebook Pages as a Page (Video Tutorial) (John Haydon)

Twitter

• 12 Tips to Organize and Run a Tweetathon (Waxing Unlyrical)
• HOW TO Post Your Tweets At Optimal Times (Buffer)
• How I’m using Buffer to sync my social (Christopher Penn)

BONUS: Forrester have updated their social technographics ladder.

• Global Social Technographics Update 2011: US And EU Mature, Emerging Markets Show Lots Of Activity

Here’s some analysis from Geoff Livingston: The More We Stay, the Less We Say. Main takeaway –  less commenting across the board seems to be a trend.

Did I miss anything major that you’ve come across?  Add any must read tool tips links in the comments.

… at least according to the always super smart Rohit Bhargava. This slide speaks for itself; and it’s what we’re digging deep into in Humanize. The book breaks down how human organizations work at all levels, and explains how exactly you can start helping your organization become more human.

Check out the full slide deck from Rohit here.