A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 8.1

Websites. E-newsletters. (in the non-profit world) Donate Now buttons and landing pages. These things we associate with the so-called “static” Web, i.e., the Web 1.0 world. Social networking sites. Blogging platforms. Wikis. Microblogs. These we generally think of as “social” Web 2.0 technologies. Any and all of these may be used well or poorly. Any and all enable various kinds of solutions.

Many non-profits, however, are tending still to use Web 2.0 technologies mainly for marketing communications and fundraising. 

Gartner's Anthony Bradley and Mark McDonald suggest a new-ish and better-ish alternative. From The Social Organization: “It’s not that social media communications aren’t important. But much greater value comes from the mass collaboration – both inside and outside the enterprise – that social media technology now makes available.” Mass collaboration is where the action is, the latest route to the pot o’ gold. 

IT’S ABOUT COLLABORATING, STUPID. 

Mass collaboration is a form of execution. It's another way of getting things done. When it’s done well, when it's able to truly tap the power of collective effort, big things can result.

An organization that can turn to collaborative communities to address challenges and opportunities as they pop up has a leg up. It has unique capabilities to create value for its customers, employees, and other stakeholders. Making it to that point, however, isn't easy. It's also not primarily "a technology implementation." It's more of a leadership and management challenge. 

So:

For practitioners, Gartner offers a multistep approach to becoming what it calls a "social organization." 

Using that approach, I want to try next to figure out where UCP and Red Treehouse are, relatively speaking, in their development, i.e., what stage they’re at -- then, from there, what each organization may be able to do to get progressively more social.

Specific social media tools and technologies will come and go. But none of that matters as much as the intrinsic value created when you become a highly collaborative social organization that can tap into the collective genius of your customers and employees.