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Three Actionable Ideas for Welcoming New Volunteers

by on August 26, 2009 in Communication

[Note: I originally wrote this post for the BaileyHill Media blog. Even though it is aimed at a political audience, I think there is a great deal of relevance for nonprofits or other organizations that are charged with building a strong volunteer network. Enjoy!]

Create Passionate Volunteers for Your CampaignDo your supporters know how to most effectively support you and your campaign? Sure, maybe those key individuals who have been with your campaign for a while know how to do it. But what about new supporters? Have you made it easy for them?

My majority of my professional background was spent in nonprofit association membership management. For my association to be successful, we had to be adept at quickly engaging prospects and helping them go from curious prospect to new member to passionate advocate. The cost of not engaging these individuals at their first exposure to the association could have dire consequences for the long-term success of the organization. It’s very much the same for your campaign. If you want to create a welcoming environment that helps turn a curious potential supporter into a passionately vocal advocate, here are a few ideas you can implement on your website and Facebook page:

Create a Volunteer 101 page. Don’t assume that everyone knows how to volunteer for a campaign or what they should expect from the experience. You likely find that many folks are getting involved in supporting a political candidate for the first time. Go beyond the all-too-typical Be A Volunteer/How I Can Help web form and post information like…

  • a volunteer FAQ answering typical first-timer questions
  • descriptions of volunteer activities with anticipated time commitments
  • profiles of volunteers with their testimonials

Have your passionate volunteers serve as welcome committee. Go to almost any church and you’ll see a good model for how to welcome new folks to your campaign. As important as he or she is, it’s not the minister who does the bulk of the welcoming – its the passionately excited members of the congregation. Figure out who your most faithful are and prep them to reach out to prospects and new volunteers.

Show videos of other volunteers in action. Take away some of the mystery of volunteering by showing your volunteers canvassing door-to-door or making phone calls or hosting house parties. Create a documentary as volunteers share their experiences, what works, what doesn’t work and why they feel their volunteering for your campaign is so important.

Three Reasons Why Micro Wins Business

by on July 13, 2009 in Communication

From Marketing Vox comes Half of Communicators Think Twitter’s a Fad. Actually, I would wager that you could substitute just about any business-related profession in place of “Communicators.” It happens every time a evolutionary shift takes place and individuals are confronted with the need to change. The data behind this latest article comes from Ragan Communications and PollStream. And for more commentary on the study, definitely read blogposts from MarketingCharts and Ragan (the comments are insightful, as well).

For me, here’s what the study drives home.

1. A shift from the masses to the micro.
Here’s a quote from Bob Hirschfeld, senior public information officer for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:

“[Twitter’s a fad] because everybody’s doing it. Ashton Kutcher and CNN have a steady supply of fans who want to know what they do. People like us, people with a job to do, every so often we do something of interest to the general public [but] we don’t have that steady supply of stuff that the public is interested in.”

I think this viewpoint spotlights how professionals are struggling to overcome the old focus on how to speak to the masses. If you can’t speak to as many people as possible, then the effort is futile. You see this every time someone uses generalized words like “public”; in this case, Hirschfeld is concerned there’s just not a “steady supply of stuff that the public is interested in.” I’ll submit that aiming for the masses is no longer an efficient or productive action. The individuals and organizations who will succeed in the new world of business will be the ones who know their power niches and can communicate with them in a personally relevant way.

2. Broadcasting might not be dying, but it’s no longer the sole answer.
With that said, I don’t believe that broadcasting is dying. There’s still a place for it as a communications vehicle. Websites such as CNN, BBC News, ESPN, etc. still serve up broadcasted information. But the critical difference is that broadcasting is no longer the only mechanism for communicating with your audience. Most of the better sites understand this and allow visitors to personalize their delivery (see BBC News for a good example).

Other sites build around smaller, more interest-focused communities, which takes the micro to deeper level (see what Sony has done with their Backstage 101 or what DadLabs.com is doing with fathers). Someone tied to the old ways of viewing business might see this as a negative fracturing of their audience base. They’re liking thinking, “Crap, now I have to have multiple talking points for all these different audiences.” And again, that thinking exposes the mass approach that is no longer viable.

But rather than freaking out and seeing this as yet another sign of the apocalypse, consider what incredible advantages the micro-level offers to business. Rather than taking the shotgun approach that tries to hit as many people as possible (with the inherent dilution of overall message), communicators can approach each community and audience niche as a tailor-made occasion to develop messages that are relevant to the individual.

3. The future will require changes to your business thinking and operations.
We’re in the midst of a huge shift away from one way communication (at both mass and micro levels) and toward multi-vocal dialogue. And yes…this will require some changes to the way organizations think and operate, as well as to the way they communicate internally and with customers. As Josh McColough, a communicator at Sherman Health, notes: “The trick is to keep information coming and conversation active.”

Effective business is going to be about building relationships and personally-relevant dialogue rather than continuing the old trick of blindly bludgeoning a public with broadcasted communications. The only question is: Which side of this divide do you want to find yourself on?

The Fallacy Of The "Don't Be Stupid" Policy

by on May 26, 2009 in Communication

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.

Great Presentations Are Multimedia

by on May 22, 2009 in Communication

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.

The Power Of A…So Close Yet So Very Far Away

by on May 2, 2009 in Communication

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