Community, Collaboration, Social Networking and Me

My interest in this subject derives from an ah ha moment. I realized I was good at looking at foundations, and the whole house, before I looked at its parts.

I wondered why we/society were spending so much money treating problems, if we could look at the root "causes" instead. This is not usually a straight line, but made so much sense to me in terms of effectiveness and scope. I wanted to start spending the dollar once.

I'm a big picture person with a big imagination. In the last year, I've started looking at the convergence between offline social science with online community building, collaborative models and social networking. (For the moment, I'm not focused so much on Twitter or Facebook, although they hold great interest.)

Social Networking has become a natural and evolving tool to use in modern community building. It can make difficult work a little easier and helps me look at how we can work together, discover best practices, democratize our voices and create more thoughtful, result driven action, more quickly.

As I walk around inside the social networking framework and sort out, deconstruct and discover the myriad ways it can help organizations, agencies, public communities, etc., I have also discovered an evolving list of challenges and concerns.

1. Effective social networks take time to run. Way more time and energy than I ever thought possible. It can be a job.

2. Participation can be problematic, difficult and frustrating. It can mirror, to some extent, offline networks and groups, where people sign up for groups and the leadership is left to a few. If the group's purpose is compelling it's easier.

I am puzzled as to why so many people sign up for groups and then don't do anything. What does group leadership look like on a social network? What is the spark for getting growing groups moving? Who is responsible for these groups?

3. I can't figure out where all these "new experts" are coming from all of a sudden. Experts in social media, community, collaboration, on and on. How can so many people be experts in such a new medium? How do we distinguish between real expertise, a little or none at all.

The issue became personally apparent to me, when a well-known person wanted me to know they were an expert at "soc med". That's what they called it.

When I asked questions, the knowledge wasn't there, yet this person was starting a business for "soc med". They are probably well-known enough to get by. This bothered me a lot.

I don't have the guts to claim that kind of expertise.

4. Online communication has my attention, as does online conflict resolution, establishing and enforcing policies and procedures and using email as a primary vehicle for communication.

For years, I have been warned about how easy it is to misunderstand email communication. Now we rely on it in social networks. We are working with a handicap, without all our visual and communication cues.

No body language, no eye contact, no face to face dialog. How are we going to make it trustworthy and get over the inherent dangers?

Conflict can emerge instantly. Members can decide to email their friends when they are unhappy. I had one person get angry because they thought the "do-not-reply" message was my intention to not engage.

They did not understand it was a function of the software. That was hard.

5. Everything is Free. I am overwhelmed at the sense of entitlement regarding anything on the web. It's been hard to communicate about network costs, in time and money. Is it a business or a hobby?

Should we plan for this? Do we need more conversations on this subject. Almost everyday I hear on NPR about this chronic problem - how to monetize social networks and social media. I have found myself sometimes feeling resentful of my own network! That's weird.

6. I have everyday challenges in explaining the benefits of social networking, beyond the social. There is a clear need for access to credible, simple education and information. Information which cuts through the noise and break neck speed framing many of these new media ventures.

Who wants to feel stupid? Who wants to feel left behind? It can feel intimidating and create unnecessary barriers. People don't usually admit what they don't "get" in a public forum or meeting.

I've been told the idea of social networking in government isn't getting the necessary traction because people don't understand it. I'm not sure about that and want to do a better job of explaining the benefits.

If we want broader adoption and integration into our communities, which I do, I think we need to pay attention to capacity building. Always making it easier for people to be successful.

7. The generational differences of the people involved is interesting and very challenging. I never really thought about this until I felt an undercurrent of "who's in charge". I realized, much like being the oldest sibling, I never thought about those coming up behind me.

I was asked recently about diversity in the community and my opinion in relation to collaboration. I quickly added generational diversity to the continuum. They were surprised and hadn't really thought about it either. Yup.

As I think about building online communities, I have to ask, "who is this for?" What is the point? What are my expectations?

8. Online community leadership can be isolating. Big job to make things work and keep things safe. I think stopping my network would be hard for me and my members. It can be a dilemma. It has become a responsibility and identified in the niche and broader community as an entity.

It's also a ton of work. Then I think, yeah, but look at what you have learned, isn't that worth the price of admission?

Identifying the challenges and evolving problems is part of how I creatw a solid principles of practice model. I am very interested in what other people are experiencing as they develop their networks. I think this is a big opportunity to discover new knowledge.

I'd love some comments. Are these things true in your experience? What would you add to this list and what would you challenge or take away?

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