Pre WeAreMedia Thoughts
by Brian Reich | 19 Sep 2009, 4:45pm
The WeAreMedia project that NTEN has put together is genius. Why? Because the project practices what it preaches. It has brought together a community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world. It is tackling the tough issues that only the people who are neck deep in the nonprofit world every day would understand.
I am honored to participate. On September 23rd, I’ll be leading a webinar about “understanding how to use social networks strategically for communications and fundraising.” My goal is to get those who tune in for the September 23rd webinar to think differently about how communities, and networks, and groups - online and offline - can be used to support the work of nonprofit organizations.
Before we get into the details next week, let me set things up this way. To survive, let alone thrive, organizations need to understand a few important things.
1) Big things are afoot. The public is more engaged than ever before, more capable of collecting and sharing information with a wider audience – for free – than at any point in our history. This drives greater interest in serious issues and the work that nonprofits are doing. But social media, and the dramatic rise in the level of participation and interest that social media supports isn’t just about having more people sharing stories, showing off their talent, building a following because the barriers to entry are lower. The impact of technology and the internet on nonprofit organizations and causes is profound. This is the beginning of a shift that will redefine every aspect of our society.
2) Think bigger. We must resist the desire to define or contain this new, emerging way of operating too quickly, to focus our attention on finding ways to marketing and monetize it above all. We should be thinking bigger. What is the potential for technology and the internet to redefine how nonprofits operate and communicate, and what say do we want to have in that? What must be change, or adapt, within our society to support nonprofits in the future? Our information experiences have changed and our focus and goals should change as well.
3) More! Despite the tough economic times, despite the challenges that always come with running a nonprofits, we shuld be thinking bigger – more voices, more access to information, more collaboration. Fueled by technology, we all have the ability to learn or discuss whatever we believe is relevant, to produce and distribute information so that it reaches audiences any time, any place, with a more diverse (and deeply invested) audience, and through any device. But to date we just haven’t taken full advantage. Instead of a few companies, distributors, creators, or similar, there should be millions. Everyone is a gatekeeper and a storyteller now. Every person with a blog or cell-phone-enabled camera can create media. Every person with a computer and an internet connection can demonstrate their creativity to the world. We spend too much time trying to contain nonprofits, to define this work online, to find the quickest path to success and channel all our energy towards that. Instead, we should be looking to support and enhance nonprofit culture, and the use of technology and the internet by nonprofits, to create more and better opportunities to tackle serious issues and improve our society.
4) Know the new audience. It is easy to forget what life is like for people who don’t spend all their time online, buried in newspapers, reviewing blog posts, creating media, getting up every morning to work at a nonprofit. There are reasons why people engage with organizations, with issues, why they spend time watching, listening, reading and experience things. There are reasons why people log on to the various platforms we build and buy the products we sell. The reasons are personal, they are poweful, and they must be understood if you want to understand the potential for media and arts in the future. We spend so much time talking about business models and monetization strategies. We obsess about the most effective and compelling ways to push information. But how much time do we really spend listening to, and hearing from, the audience - what they want, what they value, and how we can help? You must know the audience if you want to reach them - because what tools they use, when, and how will define that. You must know the audience if you want to create something they will help to promote or share - because the benefit they receive or the relationship they have with their community will define that. It is easy to forget. But it is also easy to watch and understand, and then adapt what are you doing to meet the audience’s needs.
There will always be time to talk about tactics, and write out plans that utilize different tools and techniques. But that time will be wasted if you don’t shift your thinking, embrace the full potential that media, and technology and the internet provide for nonprofits. Think about that — and we’ll talk next week.
TAGS
: NTEN Social Networks WeAreMedia
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Public Media 2007
by Brian Reich | 25 Feb 2007, 2:00am
I spoke on a panel Friday morning at Public Media 2007, the Interactive Media Association’s annual conference. The conference brings together the folks from the public broadcasting (radio and TV) communities who are focused on interactive (read: online) communications. While the public broadcasting community has been an innovator in many ways online, the conference was appropriately focused on figuring out how NPR, PBS, and all their member stations and partner groups could make the leap from being public broadcasters who have operations online to being leaders in the broader public media space, and leveraging technology to do that.
Here is a quick excerpt from the conference overview on what was driving this discussion:
For one thing, all media is taking a digital form and “public service publishing” has expanded dramatically–if you extend the definition of public media to any individual or organization creating and distributing media “in the public interest.” Technical advances and innovations have eliminated barriers to entry. The cost of audio and video production has spiraled downward. Podcasting and media aggregation sites, where you don’t need a license to distribute audio and video, now reach millions of desktops and iPods. With ubiquitous blogging software, everybody can be a journalist, a critic, a pundit at a cost of no more than $20 a month.
The speed of this change has been nothing short of revolutionary.
I sat on a panel entitled “Leveraging Social Networks” which promised to answer the burning question: “How can public broadcasting stations can leverage social networks to increase engagement and build audience?” The panel was moderated by Vinay Bhagat, the Founder and Chief Strategist of Convio and featured Dick McPherson, a consultant to the public broadcasting community, Heather Holdridge from Care2 and David Woodrow from Gather.com.
I was generally disappointed with how the conversation was framed. The easy way to think about social networks is to look at the existing technologies in the field and figure out how to use them. In other words, since MySpace has more than 50 million users, they must be a place we can go looking to engage our audience. Or, since more than 65,000 videos are uploaded to YouTube every day, we should be uploading our shows because that’s where the marketplace is headed. There is not enough consideration about why these properties may or may not be valuable and not enough thought about what makes online social networking function successfully.
I kicked things off with a presentation (here is my iMA Presentation) that framed social networking and new media in a broader format. My point was simply that social interaction online, and social networking more specifically, has been happening for a long time in many different formats — and innovations in technology will only expand on that. Successful communities are built and fostered online not because of the technology that facilitates the interaction, but rather its the content and experience that people create and share that drives interest. Public media organizations need to think strategically and creatively about what they produce, how if they want to truly engage their target audience. I think I resonated with the audience, but honestly am not sure.
Dick McPherson followed me and challenging the audience to focus on specific goals they wanted to achieve online (i.e. build community and membership, not raise money) and broadly about how to creatively execute on those efforts. Heather and David offered case studies about what works within their networks.
Now, I do not mean to disrespect either Care2 or Gather.com, both of which I think are terrific organizations and both of whom were well represented by my fellow panelists, but they are only two of the dozens of options currently available to consider. I am not a big fan of presenting personal case studies on panels because it should be obvious that I would biased towards the things that I have done. That was the case with both Gather.com and Care2, who have been working with public broadcasting groups to build out social networking efforts. It just seemed to me that the message of the panel was too much about how public media groups could use those two platforms and succeed. Maybe they are the best two networks for public media. Or, maybe the public radio community should be looking at more examples, and more opportunities. I don’t know, but most people probably left that room thinking about launching Gather.com groups or launching petitions through Care2 and not enough of them were considering all the other venues available to them.
I did make one point at the end that was good, and I think resonated. A woman in the audience asked for our opinions on how many social networks should a station target and what kinds of resources should they put into the effort. A good question. However, in asking the question, she referenced ‘us’ (meaning the station) and ‘them’ (referring to the audience members who would be part of the community). After everyone else had offered specific answers to her questions, I jumped in, adding something to the effect of: Its very important for you as an organization, for your staff, your talent, whoever, to see themselves as a part of these communities. You are not separate. It cannot be us vs. them. Most likely, the reason that your audience might be intererested in joining and contributing to a community that you organiz is the same reason that you, as a staff person at one of those stations, work so hard to make it successful. Its about the content, its about the experience, its about your contribution to our society. If you see yourself as separate from that community instead of as a part of it, you are missing the boat.
I got a lot of nods, and a pat on the back from one of my fellow panelists for making the point. I probably sounded a little righteous, but maybe that helped get the point across more effectively. I enjoyed being on the panel and would love to help the public media conversation move forward to where it desperately needs to be, but I am not sure I was able to broaden the perspectives of anyone in attendance with respect to the framing of a conversation about social networking.
Thank you to Teri Lamitie of WGBH in Boston for the invitation. I very much enjoyed the conversation and I hope that I was able to contribute some interesting thoughts to the discussion. Please invite me back to do it again.
TAGS
: Citizen Journalism Event Coverage Free Advice From the Trenches Journalism Public Media Radio Social Networks TV
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