ROUND THREE: What CP Parents Are For (Part C)

The next questions for leaders of CP-facing orgs become: How can you capture the passionate participation of CP parents? How do go about making better use of their know-how and know-what to get much needed knowledge work done? I'll suggest a general answer or two herein. In Part D, I'll get specific.

*  *  *  *  *

The Net. The Net. The Net. 
Need I say more?

When I say "the Net," what I really mean is our whole digital infrastructure. And I tend to make a simplistic distinction: 

On the one hand, I think of technologies and related practices that have to do with accessing and attracting resources. They're what most people probably think of when they think of social media. I more or less associate them with online communication and selling or fundraising. As for their roles in finding expertise and getting things done? They enable organizations to "selectively" tap into the world's intelligence, i.e., to find in the masses exactly the (small number of) knowledge or other resources they need.

To really drive performance rapidly to new levels, however, it's argued by the likes of too-many-management-consultants-to-try-to-name that organizations need to provide people with tools, resources, and incentives to mass collaborate. (Instead of social media think social production.) Here it's the use of "collective" intelligence -- the pooling of many small and incremental community contributions into useful bodies of knowledge -- they're touting.

Our own CP nonprofits provide us with examples of the latter. Two that jump right to mind: (1.) Michele Shusterman's / CP Daily Living's use of a Change.org petition platform in attempt to get United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) to change its name* and (2) Reaching For The Stars' use of blogging, e-mailing, and online contact forms -- in combination -- to enlist parents and physicians in successfully securing language in the 2013 Appropriations budget for specific Cerebral Palsy research funding. My "A Tale of Two Hope Machines" series also covers some of UCP's successful forays.

More about tapping into selective (Part D.1) and collective (Parts D.2 and D.3) intelligence to come.

I'd say we're just scratching the surface as it relates to taking advantage of the hidden talent out there. And I don't think it'd be unfair to there's way more social media than there is social production. The latter is difficult. Choosing projects that are worth pursuing, having well-formed purposes, clearly articulating the benefits to community members to contributing, etc. -- these are tricky propositions. 

If our orgs passionately want to improve and get better, though, they'll want to explore and master all of the above. 

*359 supporters have signed to date