I think the message [read more]]]> I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus with my blogging due to a bit of instability in my life over the past couple of months. However, I’ve been itching to start writing again and I do have more than enough reasons/inspiration so I have nothing to do but get writing. I wanted to start off with a great video that a co-worker found earlier this week. When I saw it I immediately knew it was great fodder for a blog post.

I think the message is pretty simple. How effective are your member recruitment efforts? Are they compelling and give people good reason to join or do they simply subject people to a relentless chorus of redundant information in an attempt to wear them down (Wanna be a member)? I’d love to hear your thoughts about the video and how it relates (or doesn’t relate) to what you are doing to grow your membership.

And for those of you who are curious, the flick is called “Bimbo’s Initiation”. It was created in 1931 by Fleischer Studios starring Bimbo and featuring Betty Boop. It was the final Betty Boop cartoon to be animated by the character’s co-creator, Grim Natwick. You can read more here: Wikipedia Entry.

Here is the situation. For the past few years I have been an outspoken fan of Fusion Productions DigitalNow conference. In my humble opinion it’s one of the best organized [read more]]]> Normally I’m not one to call people/companies/organizations out for things that they do to me. I generally handle things behind the scenes if I think I’ve been wronged and move on with my life but in this specific instance I decided that it was worth posting about because it could potentially happen to any of us.

Here is the situation. For the past few years I have been an outspoken fan of Fusion Productions DigitalNow conference. In my humble opinion it’s one of the best organized and programmed conferences that I have had the opportunity and privilege to attend in my career and I always walked away energized, inspired and full of new ideas and flush with new contacts. I started off as a simple participant in 2007, but was among the very few who was tweeting the event live – long before Twitter was the in thing. Last year, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel led by Ben Martin and had a lot of fun doing so. To me going to a conference pales in comparison to being a real part of the conference.

2009 marked the first time in three years that I wasn’t able to attend/participate due to financial constraints but I still kept track of what was going on through the vibrant Twitterstream. It wasn’t as good as being there but thanks to my association friends I was able to glean some pretty useful and interesting nuggets of wisdom and I even got to see Ben do a live demo of Mogulus. I wasn’t there physically but I was definitely there in spirit.

At some point as I observed the festivities I was alerted to the DigitalNow LinkedIn group and decided that it was a good group to join on with because (a) it’s an a group that I share an affinity with and (b) I like keeping as many contact points as possible between my association colleagues and myself. The DN group was a bit different than many I have joined (and am actively participating in) on LinkedIn in that it was by approval only. A hurdle no doubt, but one that I felt was worth dealing with in order to gain access to what I perceived to be a great community of folks. In the rare instances where I have joined “by approval” groups on LinkedIn, I have normally been approved within a few hours.

Aside: I only join groups where I either have a specific tie or think I can add value – groups to me are to be treated seriously and I don’t join them just to have a pretty badge associated with my name. That is pretty much my entire approach to social networking.

Well in this unique experience I didn’t get an immediate response. In fact my request to join went unanswered for quite a while. Finally this morning I did receive a response and here is what it said:

Julie McKown has sent you a message.
Date: 4/22/2009
Subject: [DigitalNow Community] Your DigitalNow Community request
Group: DigitalNow Community

Dear David:

Thank you for your interest in joining the DigitalNow Community group on LinkedIn.

DigitalNow is the name of an annual conference produced by Fusion Productions and Disney Institute. It was started as a way to provide Association Executives and Senior leaders with a forum for private conversations about issues of import. The expectation of our audience – and of our LinkedIn group members – is that we provide a place for them to have those conversations in a non-sales environment.

Therefore, we are only able to extend invitations to participate to members of our audience, past and present speakers and presenters, and a small group of Resource Center partners who participate in our conference. (For information on how you can become a DigitalNow Resource Center partner, please contact us at digitalnow@fusionproductions.com

We can offer you other ways to take part in our community. We invite you to follow us on Twitter.com (our user name is DigitalNow), and you may also submit articles of interest to our blog at DigitalNowblog.com.

Again, we thank you for your interest in the DigitalNow Community group.

Sincerely,
The DigitalNow Team

Imagine my surprise in reading this response this morning. What I had expected was a warm welcome from Julie. And while she may not remember we interacted pretty regularly in advance of last years conference and I even went out of my way to track her down in person to say thank you for her help. However, what I received instead was pretty disappointing. Here is how I interpreted it. I really don’t know who you are and instead of checking my past records to see if you have a legitimate reason for trying to join our group I am going to say no. However, because I am opportunistic I am going to see if I can increase our Twitter follower count by one and see if you are naive enough to give us some of your valuable content as great search engine fodder for our blog.

Had Julie done even a basic Google search (dave sabol digital now – check for yourself) she would have seen the first 6 or so entries related to me and my past participation in the conference. I literally went from a raving fan to a skeptical observer in the matter of the time that it took me to read the email.

Now this isn’t an attack on Julie per se. In my past interactions with her she was warm, kind and wonderful, but this experience left me doubting whether DigitalNow is an event I want to continue to support as an outspoken advocate. I personally know that I convinced a number of friends and colleagues to attend this years event and years past as well. Maybe they don’t want my support and involvement. That’s ok though because I am sure that there are many others who are willing to pay the $600 or $700 registration plus what ever it costs for transportation and accommodations for the privilege of attending such an event.

But that really isn’t the point. I think it’s the underlying message that I was provided with – that I wasn’t worthy and they had to monitor their membership closely to keep out the undesirable elements – is what really bothered me. I have a little more than a little knowledge on building effective and sustainable online communities, in fact that was my primary area of responsibility prior to leaving PMI. So I understand establishing criteria for membership in a specific group, but as a past participant, contributor and advocate who wasn’t allowed in I have to wonder how high that bar is set.

When creating an online community ask yourself a few questions prior to doing so: are you trying to create a community or a country club? More importantly how willing are you to alienate specific member groups to preserve the sanctity of others? If an online community can be found, chances are people, especially those who are enthusiastic about the topic, subject, company, etc., will want to join it. How do you act in a similar situation?

Definitely an interesting situation, one full of learning opportunities for everyone, and something that I will likely never forget…unfortunately.

I am not totally with [read more]]]> Peggy Hoffman started a bit of a meme challenge regarding volunteerism to coincide with the Great Idea’s Conference. This isn’t just a “throw something against the wall and see if it sticks” concept because there was a caveat: the volunteer job can’t involve committee work, long-term commitments or “gobs of time”. As a result of Peggy’s post, I was pulled into the conversation by Kiki L’Italien who issued a challenge to me to build on the ideas and suggest my own.

I am not totally with Kiki on her post; I do actively seek out volunteer opportunities and have already served on ASAE’s Professional Development council and their Social Media Task Force since becomming a contributing member of ASAE. However, since my membership has lapsed due to my financial and employment circumstances I guess they count but only in a past-tense kind of way. Currently I am involved in the Open Source world and somehow found myself (ok I admit it, I stepped up) as the volunteer project manager for the Drupal Open Learning project. So I think I can draw some inspiration from the FOSS world largely from my Drupal and WordPress experience.

Why can’t volunteer opportunities be actually related to contribution as opposed to title? I have created WordPress themes and plugins and given them back to the community. If my countless hours of coding don’t amount to something I don’t know what does. I think association need to take a cue from that type of situation. How can members give their time to something without it being sanctioned by the association? How can they lower the bar to make it easy to contribute as opposed to a bureaucratic decision that requires sign-off and approval? When I worked for an association I continually heard about protecting the brand and legal liability. My thoughts? Get over it. Make it easy to contribute and people will. Put up barriers and people will contribute anyway…but they will want recognition and ownership of their contributions…Notice the problem?

Anyway, enough of my soapbox, I think the idea is that it has to be easy and open. With that in mind I would take Kiki’s idea’s – which are all really solid – and add my own:

1. Guest blogger – absolutely! Let’s call it a subect matter expert and then it transcends a single medium. Authority in a subject matter area is key – social media, training and development, component relations, marketing, etc. Let’s face it, as association execs you may know stuff, but your members probably know more.
2. Informal advisor – why not line up your best contributors and use them as formal/informal sounding boards. Again, you may have good ideas, but members who have been around a while may be able to shed a whole new light on why it may or may not work.
3. Item writer – granted this isn’t original but the one thing that I loved about my work at PMI was the fact that we gave our certified members the opportunity to help develop the certification exams of the future. They’d give a day of their time – generally coinciding with one of our events and in return they would gain recognition and some sort of non-monetary remuneration. Professionals love being involved in helping shape their field.
4. Twitter contributor. It seems like Twitter has gained a ton of traction in the association community. Why not acknowledge the contribution of members who are actively engaged in events by contributing to the Twitter-stream. Even better, establish a hastag(#) for your even then you know exactly who and how they are contributing. I believe that every little bit counts.
5. My last Great Idea is actually another simple one. Why not make all of the associations content easy to share (e.g. ShareThis, AddThis or something similar) and make it easy for members to share the content with their colleagues? Is it truly volunteerism? In my mind, if you aren’t getting paid to do something and it’s contributing to the betterment of something or someone else, you are volunteering your time. Going back to my original theme, make it easy for all members to get involved and I think you are going to be satisfied with the results – provided that you have content worth sharing.

There are plenty of ideas out there if you put some thought into it. Perhaps the ultimate ideas is not to overthink it and just go for it. I’d love to hear from some folks who I think have better ideas than I do:

Jeff Cobb – @missiontolearn
Jamie Notter – @jamienotter
Chris Busse – @busse
Frank Fortin
Rick Johnston – @rjohnston

Wow, it feels like forever since I posted something here. Come to think of it, it has been. I don’t have any really good reasons, just excuses and it’s been far too long. Being removed from the direct stream of the Association world has been a challenge as it was a good source of inspiration for me. My new role as a Web Project Manager / Director of Instructional Design for a start-up has kept me busy and provided me a lot of great topics [read more]]]>

Wow, it feels like forever since I posted something here. Come to think of it, it has been. I don’t have any really good reasons, just excuses and it’s been far too long. Being removed from the direct stream of the Association world has been a challenge as it was a good source of inspiration for me. My new role as a Web Project Manager / Director of Instructional Design for a start-up has kept me busy and provided me a lot of great topics to write about but most of it has been highly technical in nature. I have to try to bring in some of the experiences and lessons learned because I do think everyone could benefit from what I am seeing / doing, but that is another post for a different day.

My reason for writing today is to share my excitement for the 2008 Election and try to get everybody else motivated and mobilized to exercise their right to participate in the democratic process. I have written about it before and it’s worth repeating again, I won’t use the blog for any specific political reason. I have been involved in politics and know how divisive it can be. I also feel that because we live in a free nation each individual should have the right, and responsibility, to vote for and support the individuals that they feel best represent what he/she believes in.

Having an undergraduate degree in Political Science and also having completed some graduate course work in the area, I aligned myself with the Republican party for a number of reasons. Most of it was based on an idealized vision of what the party stood for based on it’s tradition and founding ideals. However that was a decision that I made many years ago and a lot has changed, both in my life and in the party. Regardless of how I was aligned I never voted based on party affiliation, rather I voted my conscience based on the qualifications of those running for elected office.

I don’t like the idea of big government, don’t really care for government intervention in business or our day-to-day life, and think the role of the government is to provide a level playing field for people to succeed or fail on their own. I do think the government has a responsibility to help those less fortunate but don’t think those that have achieved more should be penalized for their success. Essentially, I think the role of the government is to keep the nation safe and and thriving and get out of the way. Needless to say my vote has always reflected those views.

The past 16 years have led us through some interesting times, both good and bad, joyous and tragic. No party should be blamed or credited for it. We the people have made it what it was, what it is and we will make it the way it will be. The first step in that process is exercising our right to vote but it extends far beyond that.

After the votes are counted and the winner is decided it’s up to US to work together. Party affiliations, socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, none of it matters. Our greatest strength as a nation is our ability to transcend our differences and come together as one. This evening when I enter the election booth, I will be voting for Barack Obama, not so much because I dislike Senator McCain or don’t agree with his message, but moreso because I believe Obama is far more representative of my ideals and the future I would like to see created. I don’t agree with all of his platform just like I don’t disagree with all of McCain’s but I believe Senator Obama has the vision and energy to help get the US back on track.

I also appreciate his sincerity and his message of hope. Borrowing a passage from my fellow blogger and good friend Jake “The Community Guy” McKee said in his post titled: One voice can change the world:

Months ago, Senator Obama put in short form what many of us social media wonks have been struggling to communicate, and more importantly, prove.

If one voice can change a room,
then it can change a city,
and if it can change a city, it can change a state,
and if it can change a state, it can change a nation,
and if it can change a nation, it can change the world.

The Obama campaign has started a movement; it’s generated enthusiasm and action and interest in politics and activism. It’s made millions, including myself, believe again that a single voice has power beyond itself. This is Social Media. This is Community Building. This is Customer Collaboration. This is changing the world in the way those of us wonks have been begging the world to do.

Today is the day that you can make your voices heard. Today is the day that you can make a difference. Call me an idealist or romantic but I still believe in the democratic process and the fact that one vote does matter and can make a difference. Just get out there and vote.

In order for [read more]]]> I’ve been getting frustrated the past few weeks after hearing stories of people and organizations launching a new Facebook group or adding a blog to their website and claiming to be taking part in the new world of social media. The problem isn’t the fact that they are making an effort or getting involved, it’s that they are taking these actions in isolation without considering how the actions fit into their organizations broader strategic goals and objectives and creates member value.

In order for social media, or any other tool, technology, program, etc., to be successful it needs to be part of a larger plan or strategy. So what is social media? To me, it’s a means to an end, not an end in itself. I found this recent quote from Valeria Maltoni’s Blog: Conversation Agent to be extremely relevant, timely and similar in sentiment:

“Social media is a tool, just like the telephone is. It’s not even marketing — in the traditional sense, marketing is dead.

What social media does is simply allow you to do one thing: communicate. That’s it. Social media is not the conversation. It’s the room in which you hold the conversation. It still comes down to saying, doing, or producing something valuable for your customer. Companies which forget this will simply throw money down the social media hole. Companies that get it will find social media a valuable tool — if they they are prepared to stick it out and learn how it works.”

The first sentence warrants repeating: “social media is a tool.” Of the many definitions that exist for the term “tool” one of them is: “the means whereby some act is accomplished”. The challenge with having a variety of tools at your disposal is knowing how to chose the right tool for the task. More literally, you can hammer a nail into a wall with a screwdriver, but wouldn’t it be a lot more efficient and effective if you used a hammer instead. If you subscribe to Valeria’s thinking, which I do, social media is simply a tool that enables a conversation to take place. To take this a step further, conversations are the fundamental building blocks of community, because it having a conversation implies having something to talk about like a shared interest.

While I am not trying to downplay the impact or criticize social media in general, I do want to call into question the way people and organizations are leaping into the use of it without considering the implications and obligations of doing so. The broad availability of these tools and lack of the typical barriers to entry further exacerbate the temptation to leap before you look. There are short and long term considerations that need to be weighed and balanced related not only to the what, but also the why and how. There is definitely room for experimentation, trial and failure, and doing things differently, but I think the fundamental rules of business still apply – know your market, provide value to your stakeholders, make your service/product easy to use, focus on the benefits – however, if you fail to plan, plan to fail.

You don’t have to have a perfect vision of the future in mind to be successful but you have to have a general idea of where you want to go or you’ll never be sure that you have gotten there. Let’s start thinking deliberately about what we are trying to accomplish and how we are trying to do accomplish it instead of throwing ideas out with no expectations or criteria for success. Anybody can launch initiatives that attract a large percentage of their member-bases, but it takes real strategy, focus and commitment to create viable communities that are sustainable and create value for the member and the organization alike.

Here’s to the bright New Year, and a fond farewell to the old; here’s to the things that are yet to come, and to the memories that we hold. May you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008.