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I’ve talked about issues and ideas over the last year about the use of certain tools or platforms in the social technology for social impact sector, from Causes to Ideablob to Ning.  These conversations have moved through a version of the stages of grief: outrage, doubt, fear, wonder.  We’re now, as a community, emerging into a great place and ready to figure out what we do now.  How do we create a better way of building?

Through these discussions, I find myself creating the never-ending pro and con list, or if-then clauses.  Yes, we know where we want to go (kind of); but we are also very much here right now.  Looking at our tools, I can’t help be stop for a minute to examine what they are doing to define our communities and what “community” even means.

Here are four of the biggest examples I see as to how some of the most popular tools at our disposal for “community building” online are actually not community-centric tools at all.

Numbers do not equal Activity

Many tools—whether it’s a page, a group, or a network—focus on numbers.  The number of fans on your facebook page is one of the core features on the landing page, the number of Ning network members is the same, and again with Twitter, etc. I can’t think of a tool that doesn’t put that number right in front of you.  But, I could have a million in my “community” without a single one of them “doing” anything.  Sheer numbers don’t mean activity.  And activity is what makes a community grow and thrive.

Opportunity for Community Builders:

Use the functionality options you are given (even if extremely limited) to put activity (even activity numbers if you have to) at the forefront.

“Market” does not equal “Community”

The reliance on advertising is becoming more and more visible throughout the social media space, most recently in Ning’s move to require all network creators to pay with the exception of educators (with an emphasis on using ads to offset payments). As digital citizens we are not against advertising and promotions online, per se, but have come to accept them as part of the space where we live, work, and hang out (just like offline).  But, offline, we can create community spaces that are free from advertising.  Many of the tools popular right now don’t provide that option (obviously unless you want to pay for it).  But, your community may want to feel like it’s a community – not a market.

Opportunity for Community Builders:

Look for tools that provide the options your community wants when it comes to ads or other non-community content. (Don’t be afraid to just ask them what they want!)

Owners do not equal Leaders

Pretty much every tool requires someone to “host” it or own it: to be the first administrator, to set it up, to pay for it, etc. But there are very few communities online, at least that I’ve experienced, where that person is one of the “community leaders.”  Most all communities have various roles that members self-select or grow into.  These roles may include welcomers, trainers, supporters, creators, moderators, and leaders. By it’s very nature, a community does not have an owner—all the members are owners.  Many tools create opportunity for the owner to stand in the spotlight, without much attention going to the other, more appropriate, roles.

Opportunity for Community Builders:

Look for ways to spotlight, recognize, and thank the community members who are taking an active role to lead and support the community who aren’t automatically spotlighted in the “owner” profile.

1 Community does not equal All Communities

The inherent problem with adopting many tools is that the options, functionality, and flexibility are limited. But, not all communities function, need the same options, or even want to operate online in the same way as others.  This also points to one of the big issues in strategic development: it isn’t just about knowing where your audience is, but know what they want to do – those may not always match up and it may be the case that a catalyst (you?) can step in to help provide the space where they can do what they want.

Opportunity for Community Builders:

If you see a tool/network not being used by your community the way it has done with others, don’t assume that people aren’t getting it or need training or help – maybe the tool just isn’t right for the community’s goals. Strive to be a catalyst (a spark that creates but doesn’t own) for finding and creating appropriate spaces with the appropriate tools.

Many of our current tools require us to operate as spider networks, with a traditional hierarchy and distribution of responsibility (aka power), instead of starfish communities where we can be share and distribute responsibility, and develop in an agile, organic way.  A spider network may be appropriate for some groups and communities.  But, is it right for yours? What are your tools deciding about your community?  What have you done to redefine “community” for your network?

(For more on the metaphor used above, visit The Spider and The Starfish.)

When I start thinking about this, I come back to three main issues with the current way we build:

1. Not All Communities Can Be Treated Equally

Grassroots, hyper-local, nonprofit, and educational communities cannot be expected to operate in the same way as commercial or sponsored communities, online or off.  These kinds of groups can’t even be expected to fall in the same kinds of rubrics for use or application of tools between each other as they are inherently unique, every time.

2. Payment Is More Than Purchase

I truly believe that when it comes to the financial requirements for tools and services in the nonprofit and larger public sector, payment is far more than a purchase, it is an investment.  We are willing to buy in to something if we can be part of shaping what it is, how we can use it, how we can improve it.

3. Investment Is More Than Money

If investment was required to get a tool, I believe many groups would be willing to participate in evaluations, provide feedback, submit user stories and help in the development of the tool.  All things that take time, which is valuable. But not money.  Many groups would much rather have an impact and involvement in the shaping of the tools they use than pay for something that others control.

So, how do we build this marketplace?

When I wrote about this back in November, I closed my post with an invitation.  I’d like to repost that invitation here and then add a next step.

Your invitation:  Join this conversation.  Tell me what the recent Causes/ideablob announcements means for our sector and for you.  And share your ideas with your friends and colleagues to further the breadth of the conversation.  The more voices the better!  Here are some places to start:

• Evaluate your use of social media tools: do you encourage your supporters on other platforms to register on your website, ensuring you have their contact details?
• Evaluate your community: are you reaching a diverse community or operating in a silo?
• Evaluate your relationship with developers: are you using tools that allow you to surface suggestions, ideas, and useful functionality for development? Do you know what the plans are for the tools you are using?

I have already had creative, exciting conversations with others in this sector about how we could build a marketplace that:

1. allows end users surface ideas for tools or new functionality for existing tools
2. allows those ideas get support, gather feedback, get fleshed out by developers and users
3. allows funders (whether they are foundations, organizations, VCs, companies, etc.) identify tools to fund
4. allows developers to find work they know will be adopted and start working on tools with an active base of users
5. maintains an expectation that these tools will continue to be available for the people, by the people.

It is the last point that I think is the most important. It isn’t about having a crazy-liberal or Utopian version of the web.  It IS about adopting tools that we feel comfortable deploying to our communities and building on, knowing they won’t close or leave without notice.

I am going to continue having this conversation, examining how a marketplace could work, and what these events mean for our sector. Please join me. Share your ideas and your experiences. Let me know how you wish we built things.  Let’s start at the vision of how we want it to work, and then build towards it.

“In recent days, Causes has left MySpace and IdeaBlob has shutdown. To some, these events were unimportant. In reaction to the Causes announcement, Economist bureau chief Matthew Bishop tweeted “Who knew it was on MySpace?” to which New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom tweeted back “No kidding.”

But to many people active in online social action communities, these events had deeper meaning. This is a guest post from Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared’s Global Community Development Manager.”

—–

There’s something in the wind, other than in-coming winter, that has my attention.  It’s something I can only wrap my mind around by talking to others and hope that this is a chance to further a very important conversation.

First, let’s start at the beginning:

Causes Leaves MySpace

Two weeks ago, Causes, the application that lets individuals and organizations campaign and fundraise, removed itself and all Causes-related content/data from MySpace.  (Read more about Causes leaving MySpace here.)

This separation came with no public announcement, either before the move or when it happened, except for a very short email sent a couple days beforehand to account administrators as a warning.  The message explained that Causes would be focusing on only providing service to the Facebook platform, encouraging any MySpace users that wanted to continue using the application to migrate, too.

and then…

ideablob Shuts Down

By now, you may have heard about the very abrupt closedown of ideablob, a competition and promotion platform for entrepreneurs.    Late last week, registered users, interested supporters and social changemakers participating in a funding competition were all greeted with the message below when visiting the ideablob website:

Users (whether they were people with a project in the competition, those that had voted to support an idea, or were general registered users of the site) received no notice that the closure was coming, or even when it happened. The only bread crumbs to find were some business reports about Advanta declaring bankruptcy, like this one, that don’t even mention ideablob.

Here’s a bit of John Brennan‘s story (an ideablob member who was competition in the competition) from his comment on my original blog post:

“It’s upsetting that companies like this aren’t actually thinking or caring about the real people and ideas they are effecting. This week our idea was up for the sprint and in the top 3. Why did they even start the competition when they already were going through bankruptcy talks?”

and so…

The Conversation

What’s this mean to you as an activist, supporter, volunteer, changemaker, entrepreneur, innovator or *insert preferred title* online? Well, it means a lot.  We can see (and learn a valuable lesson about) the way current ecosystem of social media works in regards to transparency, data, and community.  To unpack this, let’s narrow in on each:

Transparency
The lack of communication about the actual decision, but more so in the lack of communication about the development, direction and intention of Causes and ideablob indicates that transparency isn’t a part of the package.  There are many who approach the online landscape with very different views than their offline business decisions.  For example, if ideablob or Causes were a product offline, and you were a funder, an investor, or a consumer/user of ideablob or Causes as offline products providing no integral communication, you would probably not have ever considered participating/consuming.   Just because you aren’t meeting offline, in real-time, in the same room with your supporters and the competitors in the ideablob competition, does not mean likewise that you do not need to know if the platform will even be around for your competition to finish.

The transparency issue is a steep mountain to climb with social media.  Unless you knew that ideablob was part of Advanta, and you were reading the business sections of the papers last week, you wouldn’t have had any idea ideablob was even considering discontinuing.  But, transparency is even more than this, and really is a part of the Data and Community, too.

Data
We can count our Twitter followers or how many people have commented on our blog post, or could have counted the number of supporters on Causes or voters on ideablob, but that doesn’t mean we connect with them.  Now that Causes removed itself, it’s content, and any related data from MySpace, organizations cannot connect with their supporters who were using Causes.  ideablob particpants are locked out from seeing any comments or feedback on their ideas.  The fact that access to data, whether it’s supporters’ email addresses, tracking actions taken, or anything else, is instantly gone should be a big alert bell to those working in a “networked” way via social media to grow their community. To connect with supporters, organizations and individuals working on projects will need to be sure that data gets back to them.

How are you encouraging your supporters all over the web to connect with you directly?  For example, when you post a message (whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook, or even Change.org) telling your supporters that you’re ramping up for some big news, a new project or something else, include a link where they can sign up with you to be on the email/announcement list.  When supporters sign a petition or take action on your organization’s behalf in social media platforms, include “thank you” and “learn more” links wherever possible that link to ways to connect directly with your organization, ensuring the contact information is in your database, not just Facebook’s.

Community
In the Causes move, the issues around community are very clearly focused on the different demographic groups represented on MySpace and Facebook.  With ideablob, it isn’t so much that groups are being separated/segregated, but entirely shut off.  These events raise many questions and flags about diversity, opportunity, and even corporate decision-making.  Communities on both platforms were clearly not part of the development and communications process, yet they were actively using the platform (for example, a grant from ideablob helped Epic Change implement a technology lab in a school in Tanzania).

What is the difference between a community actively using a platform and one actively involved in the evolution of the platform?  If a platform were to disappear, would the community be able to continue on?  Perhaps so if it had been active in the development and direction (or, perhaps that would indicate that the platform would be more unlikely to disappear or at least not without notice)?

What’s Next

I don’t necessarily want to call for the communities on MySpace or on ideablob to call for the return of the tools. We can see by the issues raised above that the platforms weren’t necessarily operating in the best ethos anyway.  But, I do want an arena for the communities to describe what they do want and be an integral part of the process to building and sustaining whatever that is.

How can this work? I can’t speak for others working in the “innovation sector,” but at NetSquared we can’t emphasize enough that our Community is what drives us – whether’s it’s online or offline.  Community feedback shapes everything from our goals to our website and everything in between.  We are able to work as a small team on the organization side because of the passionate, collaborative, dedicated Community.

For example, you can follow the website redesign process via the blog where the feedback and directives for the redesign, the people who stepped up to implement, and the step-by-step process have all been open and Community centered.  This isn’t about creating a new splash page, this is involving the users in the design of the Gallery where their Projects are housed, showcased and voted on; involving bloggers in the design of the collaborative sharing space they contribute to already; involving Community members in telling us both the bad stuff and the good stuff, so we can work to make it everything they want.  As another example, the Net Tuesday network is now up 56+ groups meeting every month around the world—a global network of events, bringing the NetSquared Community together offline—and growing in an entirely organic way.

That doesn’t mean NetSquared’s perfect, by any measure, but it does mean that a quick abandonment isn’t in store.  That also doesn’t mean that NetSquared is the *only* or the *best* place for absolutely everyone to find what they are looking for.  It is, though, one example of trying to make it work.

Your invitation:  Join this conversation.  Tell me what the recent Causes/ideablob announcements means for our sector and for you.  And share your ideas with your friends and colleagues to further the breadth of the conversation.  The more voices the better!  Here are some places to start:

• Evaluate your use of social media tools: do you encourage your supporters on other platforms to register on your website, ensuring you have their contact details?
• Evaluate your community: are you reaching a diverse community or operating in a silo?
• Evaluate your relationship with developers: are you using tools that allow you to surface suggestions, ideas, and useful functionality for development? Do you know what the plans are for the tools you are using?