Influence - Entries from April 2006

Can you really afford to ignore bloggers?

Wednesday, April 19. 2006

A new report suggests that you ignore bloggers at your own peril. Bloggers, despite making up a tiny proporation of all Internet users, have a disproportionate measure of influence because they are actively engaged.

More than half of the internet users on the continent are passive and do not contribute to the web at all, while a further 23% only respond when prompted. But the remainder who do engage with the net - through messageboards, websites and blogs - are helping change the national conversation, say researchers.

How can policy or issue-focused organizations use blogs? (And scare their Communications Director?)

Setup a single blog and get key staff, particularly those working on specific issues, to write articles for a blog. They could write these as emails that the blog editor later puts online. As your blog grows, you can spin off more focused blogs

Find bloggers who share your interests and goals and do everything you can to support them. Make yourself available as a resource for interviews and provide publications or other materials that the bloggers can use. Promote their blog on your own site.

Comment on blogs related to the issues you work on, participate in these online conversations. Use them to link back to relevant resources on your own site.

Posted by Oscar Merida at 14:33 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Wiki-based Collaboration - "33 Wikis"

Wednesday, April 19. 2006

The folks at Eastwick Communications are running a series of blog posts about wiki-based collaboration, called 33 Wikis.

33 Wikis: Each day -- for 33 days -- we look at one wiki and briefly describe what the wiki is for, why we like it, and what we all can learn from it. If you want to nominate a wiki, please let us know. On day 34 we will post a public wiki featuring info on all nominees.

They're reviewed some interesting applications - tech developers, political organizing, autism resources, legal resources, product user communities and others. These examples demonstrate a lot about how wikis can be valuable.

Posted by Chris Wolz in Collaboration at 09:09 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

And everything old is new again

Tuesday, April 4. 2006

The Washington Post's article on the growth of traffic to community websites sent me to the bookshelf to dust off my copy of net gain by Hagel and Armstrong. It was published in 1997, a year after we started Forum One. net gain helped inspire many online community tools and services including ours, the "Forum One Index," a search engine for web forums. The Index didn't survive the bursting bubble, but Forum One did.

Now it is blogs and RSS instead of forums and "push" but the rationale is much the same -- the power of people. We're very excited to see the market catch up with the ideas and applaud the success of the new generation of community sites.

Oh, and Hagel's books is still worth reading....

Posted by Dave Witzel in Collaboration at 09:45 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Important international health research publications available - and well-promoted online

Monday, April 3. 2006

Among the better health care deals around is this: a "once-a-year treatment to rid rural African children of intestinal worms" which costs $3 per year of disability saved. This and other high-impact international healthcare initiatives are highlighted in an article in the Washington Post on a new publication, Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, Second Edition, the results of a multiyear effort of the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP). The article also notes similar good values that emerged in Millions Saved, a publication put out last year by the Center for Global Development. Together, both volumes offer excellent direction to healthcare stakeholders in the developing world for how to efficiently direct resources for the greatest health gain.

Both projects are also notable for their solid use of online services as a dissemination vehicle. Forum One was proud to lead strategy and site design efforts for the website accompanying the Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, Second Edition and two related publications. We also designed and built the site for Millions Saved. Both sites provide solid examples of effective online dissemination strategies for major publications:

Don't just put the book up online for download - Both sites make a download available, but they wrap it in other services that augment and enhance the value of the book, including blog posts, access to data, and related events listings.

Break up the book for online access - People are often only interested in specific chunks of a large publication, so make it very easy to access just those pieces. This means either breaking the content into chapters and sub-chapters with independent metadata or presenting online summaries of key content.

The book launch should just be the beginning - Creating an online service around a book lets the book live on, in particular because you can add addtional content over time. The project should build an editorial calendar of additional events and publications that are topically aligned and keep drawing users back. Ongoing online events or other kinds of author/expert interaction would also be valuable in this regard.

Posted by Tim Shaw in Communication at 11:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

When collaboration goes bad (II)

Sunday, April 2. 2006

Oscar responded to the last post saying "The power of online collaboration is how much you can get back by giving up control" -- a really good point. The distinction I want to make is between "giving up control" and "sharing control (and responsibility)". Many groups that should seriously consider collaborative approaches are afraid of what might happen to them and their message if things go bad.

These fears must be taken seriously. We've seen a couple of examples where collaboration has gone so bad that sponsors probably regret their initiative. Two cases in point:

the Bush/Cheney "sloganator" in 2004. Here is a wonderful memorial to that very funny campaign.

the LA Times 'Wikitorials' experiment which was quickly shut down.

I'm not sure how Chevy will assess the net results of their marketing effort. I expect that it will be determined by how well and how quickly the anti-SUV community organizes around this opportunity. The potential certainly exists for wide distribution of many off-message ads. (This gets back to my suggestion that a good directory to the funniest ads is needed quickly. In the mean time, check out Sustainablog, Climate Change Action, and Grist for some examples.)

In all these cases, the problem wasn't the idea of collaborating online, but that necessary elements of how to share responsibility and control were poorly thought out or implemented.

Posted by Dave Witzel in Collaboration at 12:42 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (2)

When collaboration goes bad

Saturday, April 1. 2006

There is huge potential in letting internet users help you to achieve your mission. Whether it is writing powerful software like Linux or delivering knowledge around the world like Wikipedia, the internet community has resources and skills to contribute. However, because you let people contribute doesn't mean you'll get what you want...

The most recent example of collaboration gone bad (well, at least from the sponsor's perspective) is Chevy and The Apprentice marketing a new SUV by asking users to create commercials. Turns out that fancy prizes (a summer vacation, NASCAR races, and country music) weren't enough to keep all participants on message.

A lot of the contributions, some egged on by an anti-SUV environmental community, while creative, were probably not what Chevy and The Donald were looking for. Here's a few examples:

Some things you just should know

Don't be a sheep

What lessons can we draw?

It is hard to run a collaborative exercise without either careful moderation or carefully implemented community control.

Users can tell when you are being too self-serving and prizes (even expensive ones) won't be enough to seduce all participants.

This is a nice interface for a roll-your-own video tool. Discovery Education, are you watching?

Probably the most important lesson? -- It is darned hard to find a listing of the best spoof commercials. We clearly need someone to roll out a "rank the commercials" site quickly!

Posted by Dave Witzel in Collaboration at 12:15 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

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Influence covers innovations in communication, Internet technology and strategy to generate influence on important public policy issues. Chris Wolz manages this blog with the help of his colleagues at Forum One Communications, a web strategy/technology firm in the Washington DC area.