SmartBlog Insights » community

Give membership the flash mob treatment

Deirdre Reid — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:45:42 +0000

Deirdre Reid, CAE, is a freelance writer who helps organizations create content and conversation. Connect with her at Reid All About It or @DeirdreReid.

If Mitchell of ABC’s Modern Family dances in a flash mob, the trend must have already run its course, right? Not at all! I still get misty-eyed when I see a flash mob sing the Hallelujah Chorus in a mall food court. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s drawn to a well-done flash mob performance.

If you’d like to indulge in a few others – don’t worry, this is professional development – try these:

Sound of Music in Antwerp’s Central Station, one of the first flash mobs that grabbed my attention
Indian music flash mob on a college campus
BuddhaFest Om flash mob in a downtown DC bookstore

Why are flash mobs so powerful? They hold us in the present moment. The present, strangely enough, isn’t a place we spend a lot of time. We’re more likely reworking the past or planning the future. We live in the present when we’re in the ‘zone’ or caught up in the flow, for example, while chopping vegetables, painting, climbing a rock wall or experiencing a great work of art.

Flash mobs take us by surprise and allow us to share an experience together. We’re knocked out of our routine, thrown a bit off balance. “Wait, what the heck is going on? Who are these people? Why are they doing that here?” And then, “Wow, this is pretty awesome.” You can’t help smiling when you experience a flash mob.

The Knight Foundation sponsors Random Acts of Culture in the communities where the Knight Brothers owned newspapers. They “strongly believe in the potential of the arts to engage residents, and bring a community together. Hearing Handel or seeing the tango in an unexpected place provides a deeply felt reminder of how the classics can enrich our lives.

Maybe the Knight Foundation is on to something here. Give people a taste of a good art experience and they might decide to give the symphony, ballet or opera a try. After all, we all crave good experiences.

Compare that rich satisfying art experience to a typical association experience:

A one-way mailbox relationship
A semi-productive committee meeting
A “did you really need me?” volunteer experience
An educational session or conference that provided a few handouts but nothing permanently imprinted in the attendee’s brain
An endless trade show floor of needy vendors

Can a mix of face-to-face and online community participation provide a better association experience by offering more opportunities for members to share, learn, have conversations and build relationships? More opportunities for members to create their own experiences together?

Can a more innovative approach to education lead to a more productive and impactful learning experience for attendees?

Do your members depart from an association experience with a skip in their steps and a glow on their faces or, even better, in their brains?

How does your association provide the intangible and emotionally appealing benefit of a great membership experience?

How to make time for a “small bite” of community

Guest Blogger — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:07:43 +0000

Deirdre Reid, CAE, is a freelance writer who helps organizations create content and conversation. Connect with her at Reid All About It or @DeirdreReid.

Social media pioneer Chris Brogan wrote earlier this year about online communities and “platform fatigue.”

“We want to connect on maybe two or three networks tops. One or two of these will remain the “commons” services like Facebook or Twitter. The rest of people’s interactions are going to fall into smaller communities, often private or self-selected in some way.”

Our time, attention span and dedication are limited. How much can we spare for a new online community if we’re already spending time on Facebook, Twitter and other sites? What about your members?

Think about your usual online haunts. Where do you spend time? What prompts you to go there? Do you have to make an effort to go there or does the platform remind you somehow to visit? That prompt can make a difference when a community isn’t yet a habit.

Maybe your habits are similar to mine. I start my day with Google Reader, reading blogs that interest me professionally and personally. I use Hootsuite to visit Twitter at least once a day. While on Twitter I chat, click links and open tabs to read later. Twitter is my most valuable professional and personal hangout, so I schedule time for it.

I dip into Facebook about once a day, more often on weekends, to check and reply to updates. Facebook helps me keep up with friends and family, well worth my time. I sometimes scan LinkedIn network updates in my Reader and group discussion digests that delivered by email. I only go to the LinkedIn site to change my status or comment on an update.

Isn’t that enough online action? If you’re hoping to get my participation in yet another community, you’ve got a challenge on your hands. My time, brain and heart are already stretched too thin. If you want to play with me, you’ll have to come to one of my playgrounds — blogs, Twitter, Facebook — unless you deliver an enjoyable experience and an efficiently packaged value that I can’t get anywhere else.

However, for people who aren’t yet immersed in social media like me, an online community can be a good stepping stone to a full association experience, if it provides value they can’t get anywhere else. An online community also gives members a way to develop relationships with other members. Face-to-face events become more alluring and easier to negotiate once the ice is broken online.

Brogan advises brand managers to settle for “small bites” – small communities. Focus on the quality of the interactions, not the quantity of members.

Associations can excel in this world of “small bites.” Provide an experience where members can connect to others with the same professional and personal interests, have meaningful discussions, get questions answered, share interesting resources and create their own small communities. Give them one-stop shopping — a package of experiences they can’t find anywhere else in one place. That’s the type of community I would find time for.

How about you? Are you a member of any small online communities? What is it about that community that makes you find time to spend there?

Carnivals for a Cause

Guest Blogger — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:54:33 +0000

Deirdre Reid, CAE, is a freelance writer who helps organizations create content and conversation. Connect with her at Reid All About It or @DeirdreReid.

If your association or nonprofit could find “a way to focus attention on an issue at a strategic moment and provide a resource that can frame an issue for policymakers, advocates and the media,” wouldn’t you jump on it?

Anita Jackson and Ashley Boyd did. They made a guest appearance on Beth Kanter’s blog last month to share what their organization, MomsRising, learned from their September Health Reform Blog Carnival, “a virtual party with a purpose.” Blog carnivals take place over a day, week or month. During that time participating bloggers write about a designated theme or topic. Carnivals can be organized by grassroots organizations like MomsRising, informal communities of bloggers or associations and nonprofits.

Some community-organized blog carnivals, like the Nonprofit Blog Carnival, travel from one hosting blog to another, usually appearing once a month or every other month. In November the Nonprofit Blog Carnival’s theme was, Ease Your Grantwriting Fears.

The American Psychological Association organized a Mental Health Blog Party in May “to educate the public about mental health, decrease stigma about mental illness, and discuss strategies for making lasting lifestyle and behavior changes that promote overall health and wellness.” In preparation they provided links to resources about mental health and a blogger badge for the 25 participants.

If your organization wants to increase awareness of its cause, educate others and build community, a blog carnival or day can help you reach those goals. The Kanter blog post provides guidance on organizing a carnival and shares some of the positive results. Here are some additional ideas:

Invite other organizations, industry thought-leaders, writers, bloggers, scientists, community leaders and policymakers to participate.
Alert new and traditional media, consumer groups and policy-makers.
Create a Twitter hashtag.
Market the event on your website, Facebook page, LinkedIn group, Twitter, newsletters and email signature.
Encourage people to create videos and podcasts if they don’t like writing.
Publish guest posts by those who don’t have a blog.
Create a resource page with tips on subscribing to blogs, starting a blog, compelling and accurate headlines, photo sources, search engine optimization and copyright. This is a great opportunity to educate your members about reading and writing blogs.

Don’t stop there. After your event:

Report back on participation, page views, mentions in traditional and new media, tweets and any other outcomes.
Encourage other bloggers to create curated lists of carnival posts.
Talk to your participants about their experience and what could improve for next time.
Created a dedicated page on your website about your blog carnival.

Whatever you call it, blog day, party or carnival, it’s a great way to create buzz for your cause and excitement for your community. Please share in the comments any other examples of successful blog carnivals or days.

Social Media and Environmental (Association) Activism

Guest Blogger — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:49:30 +0000

This SmartBrief Insights guest post comes from Ryan Alford is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com, a global software provider with its U.S. headquarters in Denver. Ryan is also known for his snowshoeing expertise and owns the world’s foremost online publication for the sport: SnowshoeMagazine.com. Connect with him on LinkedIn or via Twitter at @InsightSoftware and @SnowshoeMag.

Now, more than ever, the world needs environmental activists. Not because it’s trendy or the right thing to do, but rather for the sake of our sanity as human beings interacting with a living, breathing Earth.

Social media can help.

It’s no longer an “inconvenient truth,” but rather a pending disaster. The human fingerprint on the Earth is permanent and all too devastating. The recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the threat of climate change is quickly altering the global landscape. Varieties of plants and animals that share space with us on this borrowed planet are going extinct — for reasons surrounding our ruin of the environment.

Of course, this is all arguable. That’s why this blog entry is intended for comments and reaction. Feel free to dilute my opinion.

I believe it’s important not to think of environmental activism mired with politics and the agenda set by our government. Think of it as a responsible choice that starts within your household (such as recycling, conserving water, etc.) Those methods will then spread to a more civic duty that has a localized approach (volunteering, donations, etc.). Start small and join a collective effort that will make a difference.

You can research ideas via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Here are a couple places to start:

The Environmental Protection Agency has a great Facebook page with loads of information on volunteering and activism: http://www.facebook.com/EPA
Via my Snowshoe Magazine Twitter page, I’ve created a list of “green” users that I monitor on a regular basis: http://twitter.com/SnowshoeMag/greenery
LinkedIn has a group called “Green” that exists for members to share ideas on climate change, renewable energy, sustainability, and more: http://bit.ly/c0EJww

Recently, I volunteered for a unique community experience that assembled more than 250 people. The 4^th Annual South Platte River Cleanup was a combined effort to pick up trash along a six-mile stretch of the river and bike path in Denver, Colo. It was a great success. Collectively, volunteers removed 1.5 tons of trash.

This event represented a unique opportunity for my family to spend the day together giving back to the Denver community and getting to know other volunteers. Coincidently, I discovered this event via Twitter — two weeks before it started. In fact, my wife won a pair of Keen boots during an after-party raffle supported by the event’s sponsors.

It’s simple: social media can help bolster a life of environmental activism, or any type of evangelism, subtle or strong. Think about it in terms of your organization. Is there an industry issue that gets your members fired up as much as those who rally around the environment? How would they band together? What could you offer them to get them pumped?

Xtreme Communities

Jessica Strelitz — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:45:17 +0000

Deirdre Reid, CAE is an association consultant, speaker and trainer focusing on member engagement and social media at Deirdre Reid LLC and Leadership Outfitters. Connect with her @DeirdreReid.

My knowledge of evangelical churches is limited to driving by mega-churches with gigantic parking lots, the kind that cause traffic jams on Sundays. But I’m captivated by their approach to community.

Xtreme Ministries, a church in Nashville that’s also a mixed martial arts academy “where feet, fist and faith collide,” is one of a growing number of evangelical churches where ultimate fighting attracts and retains a hard-to-reach demographic — 18-34 year old men. We know this lesson — provide activities that appeal to young adults if you want them to pay attention to you.

Brendon Beals, lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church, created the church he’d always wanted as a spiritual home, a place where he’d want to hang out — one that recently had 100 men show up to watch ultimate fighting on big screen TVs. Half of them weren’t members but came because they heard about the party. Maybe they’ll also come to his lectures that draw parallels between ultimate fighting and Christ’s life, “the ultimate fighter.”

Beals says this is “not a gimmick to get 20-somethings into our church. Canyon Creek doesn’t need a gimmick to encourage them to come.” I was skeptical about that until I read his description of the church’s Culture:

Expect the unexpected
Irrelevance is irreverence
Love people when they lease expect it and least deserve it
Playing it safe is risky
Everyone is invaluable and irreplaceable
Everything is an experiment
The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet
Maturity does not equal conformity
Go the extra mile

Make no mistake, this is a seriously evangelical church, but they’re doing it on their own terms, in ways that are authentic to its members. In addition to services, they have cook-offs, movie nights, book clubs, yoga, sports, a Facebook fan page and podcasts, all aligned with their Core Beliefs — be Real, Relevant, Relational, Reproductive and Rousing. They’re creating an innovative spiritual community.

Are we providing Real, Relevant and Rousing professional communities for our members? I agree, being relevant isn’t enough, but here’s how their definition of Relevant:

Understand the emerging culture
Utilize creative innovative means to present truth
Encourage diversity
Willingness to change

That aims higher than our usual definition. Why do we settle? Think about it: how many communities can people have the attention, time and energy for? Maybe several, but if your association is not meeting their need for a Relevant and Rousing community, it’s not going to remain high up on their relevance scale, or their attention, time and energy scales.

Their church evolves so it remains Relevant to the community. Do our traditions, activities and ways of operating really work for everyone, or just those who actively participate? Do they prevent us from evolving? What happens if someone proposes something new? Do they dare to even do that?

Churches like Canyon Creek are successful for many reasons. Take a look at churches in your neck of the woods through an organizational development lens. You may find that they are fulfilling their primary organizational mission while remaining flexible and innovative in how they serve their members. Their parking lots are full. Are yours?

Why do some discussion forums and groups fail?

Jessica Strelitz — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:41:20 +0000

Terrance Barkan, CAE, is chief strategist and business architect with GlobalStrat, providing professional advisory services for the not-for-profit community. Connect with him on LinkedIn or on Twitter at @TBarkan.

A few weeks ago, I used an online discussion forum to ask community managers why past online forum and listerve efforts failed. I wanted to know why they failed in order to better understand how to make sure new efforts succeeded. The main reasons (in no particular order) for failure cited included:

The forum did not allow non-members to engage and so was limited to too small a group of participants.
Questions were met with a very limited response due to a lack of critical mass, especially at launch time, and it withered.
Lack of knowledgeable resources (people/experts) to promptly answer questions or to offer stimulating content and discussion.
Inappropriate use; example, discussing “fluff” that is of little professional value.
Using technology that is not VERY EASY to use, creating an obstacle to getting people engaged.
Lack of proactive moderation or management to make sure the launch gets momentum and the community stays on track.
Lack of a clear purpose for the online community and not communicating that purpose adequately.
Lack of investment in the right tools.
Lack of a plan or strategy for the forum (what are you trying to achieve?)
Using too many forums so none gets critical mass or people have to monitor multiple (too many) channels to get their information.

Although we now have great tools to facilitate active group discussions, the basics on how to sustain engagement in an online community never changes: stimulating, thoughtful content nurtured by proactive community management and a clear purpose for the community that adds real value for its members.

Are online communities a threat to associations?

Jessica Strelitz — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:08:50 +0000

Deirdre Reid writes about association and business management, with a focus on building communities in the association, non-profit and business world. She also shares her ideas at Reid All About It and on Twitter. She will be a contributing blogger for SmartBlog Insights.

Association professionals gather Tuesdays at 2 p.m. (ET) on Twitter to wrestle with association management challenges, including how online communities affect association membership.

Many of us participate in online communities and belong to associations; what can we learn by examining the value we receive from each, as our members are likely to do? We get news, education and access to experts online. We develop and deepen relationships with peers via online communities. Some question the value of their association membership as they now receive more of these critical benefits freely online than from associations. Are our members experiencing the same?

Be community builders and relationship brokers
One strategy is to augment a member’s social networking experience with value that we alone can provide, whether it’s as a starting place to meet peers or the glue that holds folks together. We must be present in the outposts (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) yet link our members back to our home base, while continuing to provide face-to-face networking opportunities. We are experts at face-to-face, and can use online tools to enhance and extend that experience.

Demolish the silos to meet new challenges
The slow-moving “decision by committee” nature of many associations is preventing them from addressing these new opportunities for member engagement. Businesses are learning that social media crosses many departmental lines — marketing, sales, public relations, research and development, customer service, human resources — associations must also break out of their silos. Any steps into social media should be part of an integrated plan involving all departments. As early adopters, we must help create a safe, trusted environment in which leadership and members can make sense of this new world, get sound advice and be willing to experiment.

Want more? Read the complete post.

SmartBlog Insights » community

Give membership the flash mob treatment

Related Posts:

How to make time for a “small bite” of community

Related Posts:

Carnivals for a Cause

Related Posts:

Social Media and Environmental (Association) Activism

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Xtreme Communities

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Why do some discussion forums and groups fail?

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Are online communities a threat to associations?

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