Apparently, some well-known companies have a social media policy that goes like this: Don’t be stupid. The underlying assumption is that hiring smart people means these same smart people interpret stupidity the same way. Really? That’s a pretty stupid assumption but I think I understand it. Hear me out and let me know if I’m off-base here:

Companies either…want to overcontrol the mischief their employees can make via social media so they impose a laundry list of legal “do’s and don’t’s” that make everyone paranoid about doing anything online. The results are bad relations with employees, a stifling of innovative external outreach and a reputation for being a stodgy, stick-in-the-mud company.

Or…companies want to let their employees feel free to sow their wild social media oats but acknowledge that some protection must be used. So they tell their folks, “Hey, go forth and have fun, but don’t do anything stupid.” The result is that no one knows what they hell “stupid” means. It’s rather like a parent handing their 16 year old teen driver the keys to the car with an expectation that the kid is smart and nothing dumb will happen. So what does happen? The kid gets caught up in the moment of unfettered freedom and wrecks the car anyway. How many smart people has that happened to? Plenty…and I’m one of them.

So we clearly have a problem with the whole “Don’t Be Stupid” policy. Might I propose something slightly more realistic: Put a fence around your organization’s social media activity.

Yes, I’m advocating for something in the middle of the two extremes of strict legalistic policies and loose freedom. It’s something akin to what my wife explains to me everyday in her work as a preschool teacher. We all need to know where our boundaries are, regardless if we’re 4, 24, or 44 years old. The key is to set boundaries that give a person room to roam and explore their space. Set the boundary too tight and you impede curiosity and growth; set it too loose and you risk losing focus and consistency.

What to do? Here are two key ideas but remember to put them in context with your own organization’s business strategy, organizational structure, and people policies.

Purpose: Why are we engaging in social media dialogue with our customers?
It’s a simple question that far too many organizations don’t have a consistent answer to. But using social media tools without a purpose is like taking a hammer and banging on your walls: yes, you’re doing something but you’re not really sure if it’s anything constructive (probably not). Every single organization that is using or thinking about using social media tools needs a purpose. Without that purpose, then everyone’s reasons for Twittering or Facebooking or blogging is acceptable by default.

Policy: How much room do we have to roam about in the social media space?
I didn’t say I was completely against policy. What I am against are policies created solely from upon high in the organization (likely with Legal’s review) and then set in stone. What this manages to do is disconnect the actual employee practitioners from the process. More command-and-control that regards employees as cogs that can be moved as needed by management.

Policy needs to be created like this:

• Based around your organization’s purpose, involve a diversity of perspectives and gather input into the creation process.
• Revisit your policy on a frequent basis. Anything need to be changed? Added? Deleted entirely? Policy should be a fluid, evolving structure that gives everyone an idea of where their boundaries lie.

Peer-Observation: How will we monitor our actions and progress?
Your organization has a purpose in using social media tools. And it has a set of policies to guide activity. How will you make sure they’re used appropriately? Rather than set one person up as the brute squad enforcer or make it just management’s responsibility to curb questionable activity, create an expectation that all participants will monitor their peers’ activity. And build a process where these issues can be addressed as learning opportunities as opposed to sanctioned beat-downs. If you’re not sure if this will work based on levels of trust or camaraderie in your organization, then you might have another problem to deal with first.

The thing about social media is that you better trust your people to speak honestly about their work and their experiences. If you’re thinking of launching any social media initiative and you don’t trust your folks…well, that would just be dumb.

Know what gets me fired up? When people blame tools for shoddy work when the blame should be pointed directly at the user. Case in point: PowerPoint.

Yes, we’ve all sat through some mind-numbingly dull PP presentations. And I guarantee we’ve all had similar experiences with presentations that didn’t use PP at all. The common denominator here is the presenter and their inability to use their presentation tools.

Paul Sloane at Lifehack wrote today about Six Ways to Transform your Presentation. Not surprisingly, step number one was Throw Away PowerPoint. This advice is almost cliché. PowerPoint is a tool just like a chainsaw. Give the tool to someone inexperienced, and yes, they might just destroy something.

Folks, the problem here isn’t PowerPoint…it’s the presenter.

I’m also going to argue that just getting up in front of a crowd and delivering a presentation without strong visual elements to augment your speaking is missing the potential of multimedia. Think which visual images would make what you’re saying stronger? Some folks learn more from what they see than what they hear.

The bottom line is: Don’t be afraid to engage all the senses in your presentation.

Yesterday, I read two blogposts that talked about the importance of engagement in online community.

Patrick O’Keefe’s Be Honest with Your Members about Unreasonable Expectations

Spike Jones’s Participation is Different from Engagement

The content of both posts were rather different, but interestingly enough, each inspired a similar question from me: what, if anything, comes after engagement? It’s generally agreed that participation is a good starting point, but not enough. It’s still a bit too passive when it comes to building a vibrant community. This is why engagement is a much pursued and highly cherished goal. Spike makes an important observation in his post as to the difference between mere participation and engagement:

When you go to your meetings today, you’ll see the difference. It’s between those that are sitting in the meeting – and participating by just showing up – and those that are adding to the conversation because they are engaged. In other words, you can participate without being engaged. Engagement is the step beyond participation.

I’m in complete agreement, but there’s something gnawing at me. Is there another level beyond engagement? Is engagement enough to inspire community members to monitor the site for trolls and inappropriate comments? Is engagement enough to inspire the high level of interaction needed to sustain a community over time?

I’d like to suggest that there is another level beyond engagement. Enter stewardship. Stewardship takes the energy of engagement and adds the commitment of ownership to community. Let’s face it…we care more deeply about things we feel we own. I once wrote a post at Bailey WorkPlay called Nobody Washes a Rental Car. If you can help your community members feel a pride of ownership, they’ll not only be engaged but also provide the kind of stewardship necessary to building a strong, thriving community.

There’s so much more to contemplate and think about on this topic. I anticipate that this post will lead to some more concrete advice for how to cultivate stewardship in your community’s social structures. If you’ve discovered practices, policies, processes that inspire stewardship, what did you do and what did you learn?

Is your organization thinking about how to implement a brand ambassador program? The video here is a slightly modified version of a presentation I gave earlier this week to nonprofit leaders in Austin. Highlights are after the jump.

It all starts with using a simple but effective branding model:
1. Consistency
2. Focus
3. Trust
4. Partnership

Based on this branding model, the five keys to developing your nonprofit’s brand ambassador program are:
Key 1: Create an internal strategy first
Key 2: Create a recruitment plan
Key 3: Create a wide engagement plan
Key 4: Make telling their story easy
Key 5: Create a recognition plan
Plus…there’s a final bonus key

Hope you enjoy the video and get some useful ideas and inspiration. If you’re interested in having this topic presented live to your staff or group, give me a call at 512.394.3598 or send me an email at chris@gravit8.com.

As a grad student and researcher, I’m always looking for tools that will make my academic work easier. In the past year, I’ve come to rely heavily on five tools that have become my research companions. Here they are:

Note: I’m a 100% Mac guy so nearly all of these programs are only available for the Mac. There may be PC-based alternatives that I’ve missed. If there are, feel free to add them to the comments.

1. Papers | Mekentosj: I’ve built my own knowledge management system around Papers and recommend it as a must-have program for anyone doing academic research. Built-in search functions allow you to find the latest research and easily import article PDFs into your library. Once in your library, you can annotate, keyword tag, and create smart folders for all of your articles. Plus, the folks at Mekentosj have built a companion iPhone/iPod Touch app that integrates and synchronizes your Papers library on your handheld. It’s super sweet!

2. PDFpenPro | Smile on My Mac: There are plenty of PDF editors on the market (even Apple’s Preview program has editing capabilities). What sets PDFpenPro apart for me is its built-in OCR, wide array of editing tools, and small footprint that takes up little space and sucks up little memory (its that latter item that beats the crap out of Adobe’s Acrobat program). Plus, it integrates into Papers so any notations or edits I make in a PDF are automatically sync’ed into my Papers library.

3. Bookends | Sonny Software: At first glance, Bookends may not seem like much, but once you start to use it you understand just how heavenly it is. If you’re like me, you know keeping track of bibliographies and citations in your research is a major pain in the rear. Bookends makes it simple. You can export your article citations out of Papers into Bookends and the program takes care of getting them into the right style for you. And it’s even better when you use Bookends along with…

4. Mellel II | Redlers: Yes, MS Word is a decent word processing program, but is it made for writing research? Not really. Mellel is and it does the job admirably. It integrates amazingly well with Bookends so your citations and bibliography are constantly kept up to date with your writing. It has everything you need and nothing you don’t when it comes to writing your next academic article. And it exports cleanly to .doc so there’s really no reason to even open up Word.

5. Google Scholar: I’m adding Google Scholar to this list because it is one of the most comprehensive search engines for finding published research articles. It’s simple and it’s powerful. What more do you need?

Any other research tools that you’ve come to rely on in your academic work? I would love to hear about them.

Next Monday, I’m leading a presentation here in Austin on engaging your online brand ambassadors. It’s intended for the nonprofit crowd but I guarantee that there will be applicability to your business or agency, as well.

Finding and keeping passionate supporters for your organization is challenging no matter the economic climate. With so many competing demands for attention (and wallets) today, you need to think strategically and creatively about keeping your causes at the top of the public’s mind. Your nonprofit also needs to reconsider how it forms relationships with supporters so they remain engaged and wanting to tell others about your organization’s work.

We’ll talk about three keys that every nonprofit should know when it comes to finding and embracing online brand ambassadors:

1. Content
2. Meaning
3. Conversations

At the end of the session, you’ll walk away with the basics toward a gameplan that you can use in your nonprofit to better engage your unique community and have them wanting to tell the world about your causes.

Location: Austin Free-Net, 2209 Rosewood Ave, Austin TX [MAP]
Date: May 18, 2009
Start Time: 5:30pm
End Time: 7:00pm

RSVP at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=79231232073

05.21.09 – Update
I have posted a slightly modified video presentation of the one I gave to the Austin 501 Tech Club. The 28 minute video includes five keys and a branding model you can use in your organization.

Patrick O’Keefe from iFroggy Network writes a terrific guest post today at Problogger titled Enhance and Grow Your Online Community Through Appreciation.

It’s a little long for a blogpost, but here’s the gist:
Don’t get overly immersed in growing your community that you forget to show appreciation for the community members you already have.

This advice works elsewhere, too. Association members, customers, your employees. It’s amazing what showing just a little appreciation can do to thicken the ties in your important relationships.

Open admission: I didn’t care too much for high school. The primary reason is that I didn’t fall squarely into the so-called Cool Kids Club. I was therefore an outsider, which in some ways proved to be just fine and in other ways was excruciatingly painful. In social circles, ostracism can be a brutal punishment. Maybe this resonates with you (and if you were one of the Cool Kids in high school, it’s fine now…I’m friends with many of them now via Facebook…funny how time changes us…but I digress).

The point I’m attempting to make is to be mindful of your own community. Do you have any cliques? Is there an “elite” class who may be excluding other members from their group? I’m not suggesting that allowing groups to form is a negative. Just be careful about the dynamics forming from this behavior. If members feel they are not included and welcome in different areas of the community, they’ll likely make way for the door.

What to do? Here are four ideas to get you started:

• Build a language of inclusion into your community communications. Don’t miss an opportunity to express the values of the community. And if you don’t have a guiding set of values, create them.
• Monitor discussions and interactions. Look at how community “elders” communicate with “newbies.” Is it respectful or disdainful? You may need to pull out some conflict mediation skills here.
• Reach out to the individuals in the cliquish group. Chances are they don’t realize the potential harm of their actions. Calmly and clearly remind them of the community’s values and desire for inclusion.
• Find members who model an inclusive approach and send them an appreciative message. You’re rewarding action that you want to see.

Have you ever had to break up a clique or flag inappropriate behavior like this? What did you do? Love to hear your stories.

Oh and by the way, Heathers is one of the most grossly underrated films of all time.

When an influential organization has an outstanding opportunity to change the game and create a new movement, you can be excused for feeling disappointed when the organization wastes it. Such is my reaction to ASAE’s Power of A initiative.

All I can do is shake my head and wonder if this is the product of a committee? You know, when a group of extraordinarily well-intended people get together and then beat a good idea senseless with a lot of weak-knee compromises and watered-down solutions. What’s wrong with the campaign?

Persistent Navel-gazing. If associations can be accused of anything, it’s an internally-directed focus on themselves and the issues affecting their membership. This is only reasonable since it’s a core concept that’s driven associations for quite a while. I will not argue with the need to rally together with other like-minded individuals as there is truly strength in community. But that strength becomes a weakness when it neglects to acknowledge the community’s existence within a wider society. Too many associations exhibit an excessive self-absorption and The Power of A does nothing the reverse this trend.

Social Media Mediocrity. The campaign’s site has the look of a truly interactive community except without any of the interactivity. Well, that’s not quite true: there’s a place to add your association and add a blog post. Note, though, that the blog post is only to be used by associations (your Association is a required field for posting). So far, it looks like a way for associations to just toss in their boilerplate PR message which is hardly blogging and definitely not going to yield comments.

There are other half-nods toward social media. There’s the inclusion of a Twitter feed using the #pwra hashtag and a Social Media Room which is little more than a collection of ASAE resources (and a “Power of A Badge?). None of this I would go to the trouble of categorizing as social media.

Audience Confusion. I could almost forgive the above two problems if there was a sense that ASAE knew who its audience is. But its painfully apparent that there is no clear understanding of who this campaign is targeted toward. Witness on the front page these two statements:

• Help us share The Power of A with all Americans.
• ASAE created this site to stimulate discussion among association leaders, policymakers & other stakeholders, so that the best and brightest ideas can be shared & help resolve issues of importance.

So who in the world is The Power of A speaking to? In an online world with intense competition for attention, where is the value proposition for anyone to learn more about the work that associations are doing? It may be an attempt to generate awareness, but with without individual interactive engagement it still equals boringly old-school broadcasting. Again, it seems that the focus of this site is a whole lot of “look at us, aren’t associations grand!” and “please pay attention to us, we’re very important.” but very little “what can associations do to be relevant in your life?”

One reason why I’m so critical of this campaign is because I really want for associations and ASAE to succeed. There is so much great work being done through this sector of our economy and a lot of good people put their heart and soul into this great work. So rather than contribute little more than armchair sniping, here is what I hope The Power of A can truly evolve into:

Engaging Public Dialogue. Speaking with policymakers is fine and it should be what every ASAE member expects from you. If it takes a special campaign to do it, then something is going wrong. And frankly, even if this is a problem, I don’t think this is the critical issue facing associations. The real issue is relevance. The question is always, “How are associations relevant to the betterment of our society?” For goodness sake ASAE, if you’re still wondering if public awareness is important, then act like you don’t know because you probably don’t. We live in a golden age of communication so here’s a start:

• Engage individuals not involved in associations with provocative questions.
• Stop talking at people. Instead, listen, understand, and share.
• Open up www.thepowerofa.org to allow these people to ask questions, truly learn more, and develop meaning for themselves.

Connecting Value. If the general public doesn’t understand what associations do, throwing high-minded generalities at them probably isn’t going to help. If you want to build lasting awareness, then help people connect the value of associations to their life on their terms. That last phrase is important. Marketing, PR and the Communication trades are learning the painful way that bludgeoning an already overwhelmed audience with their corporate-driven message is a losing proposition. If you want people to listen now, you have to develop a relationship where your audience wants to know you, wants to know your perspective, and wants to share their own. Connecting value is a two-way dialogue.

Exciting the Imagination. Dang it, ASAE…surprise me! Help me believe more fervently that associations are worth having. If every single association shut down tomorrow, why the hell should I care? Again, don’t pitch me on some high-minded generalities. I’m not an association professional any longer so think of me as one of your target audience members. Make me a believer. And then help me make others believers. Do it soon because right now, I’ve got a strong case of the “whatevers.”

05.03.09 – Update #1
Other folks have similar criticisms of and suggestions for The Power of A campaign. All recommended reads if you’d like to get a flavor for the reaction:
Deirdre Reid’s The Natives Are Restless – How Do You Respond?
Maggie McGary’s The Power of..Huh?
Lynn Morton’s Power of A, lets take it to the next level!

05.04.09 – Update #2
Two more blogposts today related to The Power of A campaign:
Dave Sabol’s The Power of Missed Opportunities
Jamie Notter’s The Power of Frustration
And finally a response from John Graham, President and CEO of ASAE and The Center:
The Power of Conversation

The ever-wonderful Jackie Huba pointed me to this example of a company who understands the value of monitoring their brand on the web. Turns out Jacque Jo at girlofwords loves Micro Center but had a world-class crappy experience and blogged about it. She presented the good folks at Micro Center a gift and they graciously accepted. How? Ed Lukens, the company’s Marketing Communications Manager, within a day simply apologized to her via the comments on her blog. And then Jacque Jo responded with a terrific followup post. And there was Ed again thanking her for her kind words.

Business leaders…care to know what I did after reading this? I went to see where my nearest Micro Center is located (sadly, none in Austin). But I now know I can buy online from them and I’m inclined to make Micro Center my first stop when shopping for electronics.

All it took was a conscientious employee monitoring the discussions for their brand and rectifying any complaints with a swift apology. Easy, right? Then why don’t more businesses do this? Look at how something so simple as an apology can create passionate customers.

Kudos to you, Ed. I hope your management appreciates the work you’re doing.