After seeing a number of other association-related bloggers reference Dave Gammel’s posting on the 4 Levels of Engagement in the Blogosphere, and then coming across a link to Dave’s site on Ben Martins blog, I decided that I needed to check it out for myself.

Dave suggested model runs the gammut from the lowest level, or those who I would refer to as the digitally disconnected (Level 0), to his highest level, or those that I could be fittingly called the digitally empowered (Level 3). It’s an interesting model and quite similar in many ways to the 4 Levels of Learning / Conscious Competence Learning Model. In this model an individual learning or acquiring a new skill will generally pass through four levels:

• Unconscious incompetence: You don’t know what you don’t know. The individual neither understands or knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit or has a desire to address it.
• Conscious incompetence: You know what you don’t know. Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.
• Conscious competence: The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.
• Unconscious competence: The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes “second nature” and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she can also teach it to others.

Notice the similarities? I think it’s a great way to conceptualize the levels of engagement. Anyway, the obvious extension of this is to ask what it means to organizations and associations in general and how can we use the information to help folks mature through the model? After all, folks at the lowest two levels are either unaware of all of the great things your association is doing (at least online) and even if they are at level 1, they aren’t letting you know how to service them more effectively, sharing ideas, helping your association grow or improve. In fact they aren’t telling you much of anything.

I would say that your goals is to actively target and engage these folks in a dialouge, make them feel welcome and try to help them move into the 2nd and 3rd levels, at least if you want to engage and retain them regardless of whether they are customers, members or employees.