When you begin questioning how your organization can use social media to engage your constituents, this simple graph below is a good place to start. Better yet, go out and buy The Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

In an earlier post I wrote about the Groundswell book and how well it documented how organizations are learning to initiate conversations with their constituents. This graph (below) can be used to think about your constituents (clients, donors, volunteers, funders, members etc.) and how they are using social media on the web.

First start by examining where and how your constituents are participating on the social web. On the graph scale, think about where your constituents are most active. Are they totally inactive, spectators, joiners, collectors, critics or creators?

Once you learn more about what your constituents are doing on the social web, start by listening carefully to their conversations and thinking about strategies to engage them.

Say, this doesn’t sound too much different to basic community development work. Do your research, learn from your community’s behaviour, initiate communication, build trust, form mutual rewarding relationships, demonstrate your authenticity and transparency, help them solve their problems – not yours.

Related Posts:

Within the Groundswell – Learning to Navigate
Mastering Web Skills for Social Change

Below is an excerpt from IT Business Canada that gives an overview of Canada’s work in adopting social media and web 2.0 tools.

The Federal government’s decision to create a comprehensive system for future online collaboration and social networking projects is growing proof that Canada acknowledges the explosive potential of Web 2.0, industry experts say.

“This definitely signals a long term commitment on the part of the government to move forward on Web 2.0,” according to Michelle Warren, analyst for Info-Tech Research Group based in London, Ont.

She said governments are usually cautious in adopting new technology, and Canada hasn’t been an exception.

The term Web 2.0 is used to refer to online collaboration and user-generated content and the tools that enable these – such as blogs and wikis. Government 2.0 refers to the application of these tools by government agencies. Read the full article……

picture from Digital Inclusion & Enterprise Program

I have finally found a straightforward explanation for web 2.0 that I can use with my colleagues and friends. My discovery comes from gapingvoid: “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”. I tried explaining the cartoon drawing to a few friends and I discovered that I need to fine tune (practice) my delivery somewhat. The cartoon drawing presents a simple analogy but it brings into play so many variables that illustrate web 2.0 impacts.

the porous membrane: why corporate (and non profit) blogging works.

The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. Sure, we know it’s the hot new thing and people are paying attention to it (including big media)… but why?

Why does it work? Seriously.

So I drew the diagram above.

1. In Cluetrain parlance, we say “markets are conversations”. So the diagram above represents your market, or “The Conversation”. That is demarkated by the outer circle “y”.

2. There is a smaller, inner circle “x”.

3. So the entire market, the “conversation” is seperated into two distinct parts, the inner area “A” and the outer area “B”.

4. Area “A” represents your company, the people supplying the market. We call that “The Internal Conversation”.

5. Area “B” represents the people in the market who are not making, but buying. Otherwise know as the customers. We call that “The External Conversation”.

6. So each market from a corporate point of view has an internal and external conversation. What seperates the two is a membrane, otherwise known as “x”.

7. Every company’s membrane is different, and controlled by a host of different technical and cultural factors.

8. Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned.

9. When A and B are no longer aligned is when the company starts getting into trouble. When A starts saying their gizmo is great and B is telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment.

10. So how do you keep misalignment from happening?

11. The answer lies in “x”, the membrane that seperates A from B. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between A and B, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both side of membrane “x” to adjust to the other, to become like the other.

12. And nothing, and I do mean nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs. You want porous? You got porous. Blogs punch holes in membranes like like it was Swiss cheese.

13. The more porous your membrane (”x”), the easier it is for the internal conversation to inform and align with the external conversation, and vice versa.

14. Not to mention it makes misalignment, if it happens, a lot easier to repair.

15. Of course this begs the question, why have a membrane “x” at all? Why bother with such a hierarchy? But that’s another story.

[AFTERTHOUGHT:] And yes, this works with internal blogs as well, poking holes in the membranes that seperate people within a corporate culture; aligning “the conversation” internally etc.

The other advantage of internal blogging is that it organises conversation into a long-term manageable form. Two people sharing ideas via blogs is a lot more permanent, viral and useful for the company than two people sharing the same information over by the watercooler.