A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 8.4.A

An organization that makes it to the FORGING rung (step five of six on Gartner’s analogical ladder) is in rarefied air. UCP shows signs of being close. As I hinted at earlier, though, I doubt that it’s actually there – in no small part because the deck's been stacked against it from the start. 

What do I mean?

Becoming a social organization isn’t easy. The authors of The Social Organization warn us of that in the Intro, and then re-warn readers in Chapter 3 that putting mass collaboration to work requires “a high degree of corporate skill that most companies will struggle to develop for many years to come.” It only stands to reason that UCP is probably struggling, too. 

Those same authors also researched community collaboration adoption across many fields. When it came time to rank the more active adopters, nonprofits didn’t make the cut. “The highest adoption tier comprises retail, government, media, IT, and consumer products.” Except maybe for the elite of the elite, I wouldn’t expect health nonprofits to be up to the same speed (as organizations in those other industries).*

Still...

In significant ways UCP looks to be bucking any low-to-moderate expectations and becoming a social organization:

• It has a history of having experimented with online communities over the years. (to which I’ve alluded before) 

• UCP has professed its belief in the strategic importance of community collaboration. From its most recent annual report: “UCP recognizes the power of social media to amplify the voices of people with disabilities and all who care about their civil rights struggle. UCP invests heavily in updating and refocusing its social media presence during fiscal years 2010 and 2011.” This tells me the requisite mindset is in place, i.e., the people pulling the strings there don’t think entirely in terms of hierarchy and traditional management. 

• As a parent of a child with CP, I’m thankful that there are multiple ways for me to communicate and collaborate – not only with UCP’s staff, but with its whole network of friends, beneficiaries, partners, and so on. UCP has advanced past the “broadcasting at people” to the “engaging with people” stage. 

To the last point, you could say UCP now manages its own portfolio of platforms. (something social organizations do) Some of them are limited-time-only. Others are ongoing. Next thing I want to do is arrange the ones I know about accordingly.

A ONE-SHOT DEAL?

In conjunction with World CP Day, UCP is one of several global sponsors of the Change my world in 1 minute initiative. How it works: “Throughout August and September [2012], people with cerebral palsy were given the opportunity to express what they needed to make their lives more independent or rewarding. Those ideas were posted…and participants were asked to vote for the ideas they liked the best.” Now in its second phase, this is a great example of a collaborative community charged with performing a variety of disparate tasks, including generating innovative ideas and locating experts (crowd sourcing) in a large community.  

CONTINUOUS

• “Why build your own social community if you can achieve your purpose on someone else’s?” UCP has joined some existing general social web communities (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) and maintains multiple accounts.** 

• The My Child Without Limits Support Community connects families, friends and caregivers for support and inspiration. It’s a powerful platform that enables people to connect and collaborate with others in a variety of ways, most notably via a discussion forum. Rather than build this community from scratch, UCP opted to join an existing specific social web community. More about this in part B.

• Life Labs is a home-grown UCP social community. (It’s “only” five clicks away from UCP's homepage if you know what you’re looking for! That’ll be my only jab. I personally think all of these communities are a little hard to get to.) One of the key objectives of the Life Without Limits initiative as it’s currently construed is to help improve the lives “of people with disabilities by harnessing the latest innovations in technology to increase their access to the wider world and marketplace.” Life Labs is dedicated to developing technology-based solutions for people with disabilities and partnering with others who are similarly interested in accessible and inclusive technology. Among other things, its site employs social technologies out the wazoo. There’s: a blog; an option to join Life Labs on Google Groups; a Twitter account; a wiki…

My Child and Life Labs are collaborative communities. It's through these, in particular, that UCP demonstrates that the foundation is there, the basics are in place, for becoming a social organization. 

The platforms show me that UCP knows [1.] what collaborative communities are, [2.] what the defining characteristics are, and [3.] how organizations are using mass collaboration to achieve bigger, faster and better results: 

1. Remember the three indispensable components for mass collaboration?  Life Labs has what I think is a compelling PURPOSE. There’s a very active COMMUNITY at My Child. Both sites use SOCIAL MEDIA extensively. UCP obviously does.
2. Both communities are run in accordance with Gartner's “fundamental principles or defining characteristics of mass collaboration.” Without going into detail, the six (6) principles are : participation, collective, transparency, independence, persistence, and emergence.
3. In both instances UCP's using social media in support of “collective intelligence”: the pooling of small and incremental contributions into a coherent and useful body of knowledge. (Via Life Labs, for example, people are generating innovative ideas, solving difficult challenges, and engineering products. At My Child, people are posting content, augmenting it, categorizing it, and so on.) This is a proven -- legit', if you will -- way of using mass collaboration advantageously. 

To repeat: the foundation is there. 

Now...

How far can UCP go? How are the communities built on that foundation actually doing? How much real value are they delivering? And, how well is UCP doing all the other things it needs to do to build collaboration competence up and down the organization? Well enough to garner a great Gartner grade?

My best guess in part B.

*especially in the absence of fierce and direct competition
**It has at least three different Facebook accounts, for example.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 8.3

Redtreehouse.org was created to provide a welcoming and vibrant online community for exploring resources to help children and young adults, prenatal through age 25. To call it an online community, though, may be a little misleading. 

When Gartner and others who are hipper than I am to social media think “online community,” they’re thinking collaborative community; they’re thinking mass collaboration. And in order for mass collaboration to be, three things are indispensable: Social Media. Purpose. Community. 

A few words about each: 

• Social Media: where people collaborate. Redtreehouse.org isn’t technically a social media environment. It doesn’t use mass collaboration-enabling tools such as wikis, blogs, social networking, tagging, etc.

• Community: the people who collaborate. Red Treehouse is essentially a collection of individuals, so you could say it’s a community.

• Purpose: why people collaborate. The organization itself has a purpose, but there’s not a purpose around which user contributions are directed, e.g., other parents like me don’t come to the site to contribute their knowledge, experience, and ideas to address specific challenges or opportunities. 

This isn't to suggest that Red Treehouse doesn’t value collaboration. Or that it isn't successfully facilitating the formation of communities. (maybe even vibrant ones) (maybe even massive ones) What I am saying is that any and all collaboration that may be happening is happening offline*. People are Making Connections, Discovering Answers, and Finding Hope someplace else. Face-to-face. Again, collaborative communities in the Gartner sense use social media to join people together online to address challenges or opportunities.

Thus begging the question: If redtreehouse.org isn’t an online community, what is it? A directory, maybe? One that’s updated regularly. One that allows you to refine your search…

*  *  *  *  *

Like an entertainment directory? 

Hmm. Now that I think of it, I wonder if Red Treehouse is really all that different in its scope than, say, Cleveland Scene, which highlights Cleveland-area arts, music, dining, films, and which brings together the same “three sources for information and support.” Visitors there can search for and find: organizations (restaurants, arts and entertainment venues, shops, etc.) and events. Pickings under the resources category may be a little lean, but they’re there, too.

At least two things set the online Scene apart for me. One: it incorporates social media (blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds) – including for purposes of community collaboration. For example, you’re able to review events and venues. Two: it looks like a Web 2.0 site. If "vibrant and welcoming" is Red Treehouse’s goal, its management should have a look: www.clevescene.com. 

 *  *  *  *  *

There’s nothing wrong with being more like a directory. Tools for Today and Tomorrow, the precursor to the current project, won awards. It made possible the bringing together of “more than 14,000 parents, guardians, professionals, and organizations together through workshops, conferences and the toolsfortoday.org website to inform, learn from, support and inspire one another in order to help children, families and caregivers live for today and plan for tomorrow.” Then in 2011 Ronald McDonald House (RMH) of Cleveland and Ohio Families and Children First (OFCF) pooled their resources so that they might propel a broader, stronger online tool.  

What was tried and true got new and improved.

For me, the questions now become:

Could adding online collaborative communities to the mix make what’s already good even better? Could what Gartner has to offer help Red Treehouse live up to its potential as a hope machine? And, if “yes” to both, how would the former go about helping the latter develop the superior capabilities it’d need?

Gartner actually has a step-by-step plan for building those managerial capabilities. A few of the steps I imagine they’d emphasize with regard to Red Treehouse:

• They’d help it get a better grip, in general, on what the power of using social media to tap into the skills and know-how of lots and lots of people around a common purpose can do. 

• They’d ask management at Red Treehouse about the most important goals or challenges it’s identified as standing between where the organization is and where it wants to be. This is the first place they’d look at applying community collaboration as a way of delivering value. 

• Based on how other organizations are successfully employing social media collaboratively, they’d help Red Treehouse brainstorm: "these are the audiences community collaboration efforts most commonly target; these are the categories of business value (e.g., customer responsiveness, product /service development) most commonly addressed; these are the leading reasons organizations use mass collaboration to gain value; these are the dominant types of mass collaboration being used" -- all in an effort to generate ideas about where community collaboration efforts could help the organization reach its goals. 

• They’d help Red Treehouse develop an organizational strategy for community collaboration. 

• They’d focus on helping Red Treehouse succeed with one or two community collaboration efforts and create momentum around early successes.

This represents, broadly, what Gartner would do and what I also would recommend. I hope to be able to drill down and offer more specific recommendations in time. 


*I’d bet that other parents like me would appreciate hearing about successful connections, discoveries, pursuits, etc.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 8.1.1

HALT !!

DO NOT read The Social Organization if what you’re after is a set of social media “best practices” for improving your online communication and fundraising efforts. DO read, or at least consider reading, Heather Mansfield's Social Media for Social Good. (McGraw-Hill, 2012)

Collaboration? I’m not even sure Ms. Mansfield knows the word. The premise of her book – very different than Gartner’s but not at odds – is that you should use Web 2.0 tools “to complement your Web 1.0 communications and online fundraising strategies.” That's exactly what most nonprofits have been doing the past few years. SM4SG represents the RULES OF THUMB she took away after having observed many of 'em.

UCP has a pretty good handle on those*. Red Treehouse, on the other hand, might really stand to benefit by what she has to offer. Quickly. Whereas the fruits of social media enabled, i.e., Gartner-style, collaboration may be sweeter, these are lower-hanging and easier to access. In fact, social media could well be applied to some of Red Treehouse's current initiatives: 

• Rolling out the website. A blitz marketing campaign that’s ongoing. Could be aided and abetted by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc. 

• Asking families, professionals, and organizations to help “spread the word about Red Treehouse by downloading graphics to use on your web site, email, or any other marketing communications.” Red Treehouse could conceivably make it easier for others to share its messaging. Social media (esp. sharing and liking functionalities) has much to offer in this regard.

• Soliciting donations. The same things as above apply to fundraising. Even Twitter's being tried.

And this is to say nothing about all the new ways in which mobile /smartphone technologies are helping nonprofits reach their full potential! More on all of these things, I hope, down the road. 

For now – back to Gartner.

*which isn't to say UCP couldn’t learn a thing or two from the book

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 8.2

When you use social media for community collaboration as a matter of course, when it’s the way you operate, when challenges or opportunities arise and "Would a community be a better way to deal with this?" always gets asked – yours has become a social organization. Per Gartner, you’ve reached the FUSING stage, the topmost rung on its SIX F attitude-toward-social-media ladder. THE place to aspire to be. 

An organization on the bottommost rung, on the other hand, views social media as a source of entertainment with insufficient or no business value. It has a FOLLY attitude. Which is NO place to be. (Or truer to the Gartner spirit, no place to stay if you hope to become great at what you do.)

On which rung or rungs do Red Treehouse and UCP stand? Where are they in terms of their development? How sophisticated are they in their understanding of social media?

These are the kinds of things I’ve been trying to zero in on with the help of my borrowed Gartnerscope: a precision instrument, to be sure -- though its usefulness and my views through it have been limited by the fact that I'm on the outside looking in. Unfortunate. But you have to start somewhere. 

RED TREEHOUSE:

So, based on what I’ve seen and not on what may be comin’ down the pike...

I’d peg the social media attitude at Red Treehouse near the lower end of Gartner’s ladder, somewhere in the FOLLY—FEARFUL—FLIPPANT range. The organization as a whole appears either to have a limited interest in, or a limited understanding of, social media and the management tools needed to realize its potential. 

Flipped around and restated: Red Treehouse seems to have lots of room for growth in this regard. Lots of room for adding new organizational competencies. 

A couple of things that've informed my view: 

• Red Treehouse is a relative non-user of social media. It did join a social Web community known as Facebook (heard of it?) in October of last year – but that's the last time anyone from the organization shared anything there. My recommendation would be to disable the account in the interest of "doing no harm" to RT's reputation, if only for the time being.

• This may come as a surprise given the organization’s mission to be a vibrant gathering place, but I don’t see www.redtreehouse.org as an online community in the Gartner sense. 

 I aim to elaborate in the next post. 

UCP:

The ideal of Internet-connected and hyper-empowered people has been near ‘n’ dear to the Life Without Limits initiative from the start. UCP saw the potential of social media enabled communities back then and it's been exploring ever since. (Sometimes very imaginatively. Before we address UCP circa today, let me point out that Ruby’s Bequest [2009] was a crowd-sourced immersive scenario game that’s well worth looking into if you’re not already familiar with it.)

Fast forward to the present. 

I’m puzzled why there are no Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube badges or links on the homepage at www.ucp.org (or throughout the site, for that matter). Nevertheless, I can look beyond that. And when I do --

It becomes clear, first of all, that UCP has one foot squarely on Gartner’s fourth rung. It easily meets the criteria for having a FORMULATING attitude toward social media in that it: treats social media as more than technologies, funds multiple social media platforms, and integrates community collaboration in a variety of ways. 

What’s harder to tell from the outside is whether or not UCP's other foot is firmly on the fifth, a.k.a. FORGING rung. By definition, organizations at this stage have “developed the capabilities needed for consistent, repeatable success with social media across the enterprise.” Has UCP been building the right kinds of managerial capabilities behind the scenes? I'm not sure.

On one hand, I have some doubts. I’ll express why in an upcoming post. (For now, even the fact that telltale social media signs at www.ucp.org are so few and far between makes me wonder.) More detective work is needed. 

On the other hand, there's a UCP community -- I have in mind the forum at www.mychildwithoutlimits.org -- that seems to be making all the right moves. There's also LIFE LABS: an online R&D center for creating technology-based solutions to problems facing people with disabilities. It looks to be a collaborative community in the truest sense. It features social networks and other Web 2.0 projects (including, for example a wiki for submitting assistive technology ideas and potential projects, i.e., things “to build upon and improve”)...

I’ll elaborate on all of the above and go more specifically into what Gartner may have to offer Red Treehouse and UCP, individually and separately, in the next few posts.