Robert Paterson's Weblog

Can a conventional organization become a network? A Case Study

I have been posting a lot recently about how networks work. My new book is all about why and how the Network model will take down all those that organize traditionally. So what to do?

You have a traditional organization. Can you change to become a network and so survive the revolution? I think in most cases the answer is no. But with the right leadership - FROM THE TOP - you can do it. This post is about the context of one organization that had had the right leadership and has made this transition.

It is The Nine Network for Public Media in St Louis - Formerly KETC Channel Nine.

TV as we know it is the typical traditional organization. You watch what we think is good when we choose and all you do is watch. Appointment media like that is dying. But The Nine Network of Public Media in St Louis is no longer that kind of station. Yes they still do TV but the choice is massive and you can watch it all on your terms and you can also participate. But this is still nothing.

The Nine Network is much more than a TV station that has taken advantage of the digital realm. It is doing more.

First of all it is becoming the local community convenor to deal with important local issues. It started by helping people tell their own stories such as what they did in the war. The breakthrough project was when Nine took on ther Mortgage Crisis at the outset. It called the meeting of all who could help and created the space to help the community help itself. This was so successful that CPB funded a national program where stations, radio and TV, in the worst hit parts of America became the local facilitator of the community. Now Nine is involved in Education and Healthcare.  Many other stations see this role as Connector as their future too. Here is Ideastream in Cleveland - another leader. 

Secondly it is putting the public into Public TV. It has a school that teaches the public how to tell stories on video. 

Thirdly it is connected to the St Louis Public Radio station. St Louis Public Radio. The two stations are physically linked in adajacent buildings and are building a Commons between them to enhance their role as Connectors of the Community.

Fourthly, 9 hosts the local online newspaper - The Beacon - that is full of journalists who could no longer work for a paper!

These local relationships are not one organization but are a real network. They are separate but together. They share resources. They look after each other.

So what was the context for this change? First of all there was the leadership issue. Jack Galamiche at then KETC was a man who saw what had to be done. Tim Eby, who had been chair of NPR, was the new leader at St Louis Public radio. He had sponosored the project that had all the stations in the NPR system look into the digital future. It is my experience that without the right kind of leadership at the top, traditional organizations have no chance.

The second was having the right kind of context. What would success look like? What could be the goal and so what then was the work to get there.

This was the context that we worked from. I think that any traditional organization can look at these slides and find a goal and so a path for themselves - provided that the leader wanted to do this AND could bring their board along too.

You will see that at the heart of this work is a shift in culture. There is no harder work. You will also see how, if you can agree to make this shift, how you then schedule work to help you make the transition. For we cannot change our culture by an act of will. We can only acquire new habits. We have to work our way into the new.

Culture map copy from Robert Paterson

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Soon major cuts to CBC - Have look at Nine Network in St Louis for a way to go

Soon the CBC will have to deal with their cuts. What will this mean? My bet is that it will mean a retreat to the Toronto Centralize Everything Bunker and to Broadcast TV. 

What might a stronger CBC look like? How could a stronger CBC work on a smaller budget? Could they take these cuts and come up with another model. What about the best of Public TV and Radio in the US?

I offer to you the example of my wonderful client The Nine Network for Public Media (KETC Channel 9) in St Louis MO. 

Nine, like all public stations in America, has a local board and is a self funding organization with only 5% of its budget coming from the Feds. The CBC depends mainly on its grant and on adverts for TV. It is a prisoner of who funds it. What if the CBC went local rather than concentrate further in Toronto?

The CBC is still a broadcaster who plays with social media as a marketing tool. 

Nine still does broadcast BUT uses the digital world to offer 4 distinct channels with very different programming. So Kids have their own channel. Those who like current affairs and drama have theirs and so on. PLUS many of the shows are accessible directly from the web. Nine is all about making choice easy and about offering content on the viewers terms.

Nine makes it easy to see all online content. Nine showcases  the networks web based shows that include many national shows but also many local shows that illuminate what is going on in St Louis.

All this is easy but the CBC has still not done this.

But most importantly, Nine sees itself as a Trusted Connector so that the community can meet safely and cope with pressing and complex problems. Nine sees a key role in engaging the local and the national community in getting beyond the sound bites to the real issues.

This work started with the Mortgage Crisis where Nine hosted a St Louis Alliance from the community where St Lousisans helped each other cope with the trauma of the housing crisis. This then became a national process where TV and Radio stations in 70 markets worked with each other and locally on this issue.

The point being that the CBC could play a huge role is helping Canadians get together locally and nationally to work on our problems with each other. Currently Nine is doing this on the topic of the dismal high school situation in America and will be launching a national debate on the toxic issue of immigration.

Imagine CBC helping us get to grips with the health care crisis or with the stalled economy and work issues?

The problems that face Canadians today are complex and all that the media allow for are shouting matches. The CBC is no better. But if the CBC saw their role as the trusted host, what could we do?

Th CBC is all over social media - but in the most crass way. It uses social media to promote itself.

Nine goes further and puts the Public into TV and Social Media. Nine trains the public to become great advocates and gives the best a showcase.

Making a good movie is not as easy as pointing an iPhone and recording. To tell a story we need how to tell a story! Nine runs a school to teach the public how to make great films - The Nine Academy. This is open to the public and to organizations - for we all need to be film literate these days.

Nine goes further. It is no good knowing how to make a good film if there is no showcase for it. yes, you can just post it. But Nine offers a showcase for locally made films about St Louis as well.

There is a lot for us to learn here. If the CBC allowed the public to come in locally, we could make the CBC ever more meaningful in Canadian life and we could take away the tension that it has with any government. We could have a national network of truly local hubs.

Here is a picture of how all this fits in St Louis - Oh yes and the local Public Radio station moves into premises next door later this year.

 

So I ask that the CBC consider changing its structure into that of a real network - similar but better that in America.

A national network of local stations that join together to do national things such as program or deal with issues. But where the centre of the system is always the local market. A local market with its own board.

Where the trusted brand of the CBC is used to create the ability to engage the community in dealing with the issues that concern it the most.

Where the bias is to the web where the costs can be kept low and where the public can play the best part. Where Canadian content is defined as being from the Canadian public. Bandwidth is all but limitless. Every local game of hockey can be available shot by the public. Every local band will have a place. All points of view will have a place. We can have TED like aggregation of the best. 

What do you think? Would you like to be part of such a CBC?

Great ideas manifest - great people come together #KWMU #KETC

It's a big day when the dreams come true - many don't but this one has.

 

Community Engagement - What is it? Future of #Pubmedia!

 

Just as NPR are getting Pub Media from an Audio perspective - so NineNetwork is the exemplar in Pub TV.

They are also getting a sense of humour!

Putting the Public Into Pub TV

NPR still ahead - Challenge to the Stations! #pubmedia

What kind of shape is NPR in?

Back in 2005/6 NPR and its stations went through an Imagining Process (Called New Realities) where all the leadership in the entire system and 200 plus staff, the executive and the board of NPR - worked from this slide to imagine what life would be like in 2009/10.

Of course we have all been overwhelmed by the politcal aspects of NPR recently but how have they done in solving the paradox set for them above? How is NPR doing in both expanding its traditional audience and also being a factor on the web?

Here is the answer:

"Amid all that creative destruction, there was a one large traditional news organization that added audience, reporters and revenue. That unlikely juggernaut was NPR.

According to the State of the Media report, NPR’s overall audience grew 3 percent in 2010, to 27.2 million weekly listeners, up 58 percent overall since 2000. In the last year, total staff grew 8 percent, and its Web site, npr.org, drew an average of 15.7 million unique monthly visitors, up more than five million visitors. Its foreign bureaus and global footprint continue to grow while other broadcasters slink home.

And while NPR receives a small portion of its operating budget through government money, millions of people also think that its journalism is worthy enough to pay for through contributions, a trick that the rest of news media have had trouble figuring out, to say the least."

As we expected the web was goingto the the place to win or lose in by 2009. NPR are there and also stand out in the Social Media aspect.

"In a survey of more than 10,000 respondents, NPR found that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as NPR’s website, podcasts, mobile apps and more.

NPR has more than one Twitter account; its survey found that most respondents followed between two and five NPR accounts, including topical account, show-specific accounts and on-air staff accounts.

The data on age is hardly surprising. The median age of an NPR Twitter follower is 35 — around 15 years younger than the average NPR radio listener. This lines up with data we recently found about other traditional news media; the average Facebook user reading and “liking” content on a news website is two decades younger than the average print newspaper subscriber.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the future of news media lies in successful integration of social media to get the attention (and click-throughs) of a younger generation — a generation whose news needs are vastly different than those of the generations that preceded it.

Of NPR’s Twitter followers, the majority (67%) still do listen to NPR on the radio. But the other ways they access NPR’s content are indicative of a growing trend:"

 

Here is the relative position:

 

This is surely a strong base?

When we did the groundwork back in 2005/6 that created the conditions for this shift, we did all talk about the "Elephant in the Room" - the relationship between NPR and the Stations.

As the folks from the 300 stations went through the process - one thing became clear. They could not continue merely to be a repeater for the big magazines. They had to discover a local value that was distinct from relying on NPR.

In the public TV world, KETC has been working assiduously to do this. KETC is defining for many what "Putting the Public into Public TV" will be as NPR is doing for radio. 

BUT have the bulk of the stations done the same in the last 5 years? Have they also made the break in culture and in operations to offer their community vital value?

You judge?

My intuition tells me that the public funding that the local stations rely on will be cut. There is so much momentum. 

I think that NPR will in the end be fine - because they have built the direct bridge. They have realized the dream of the New Realities process - NPR have created the "Have it Your Way" reality.

They had to do this and all the stations have known this. The "Secret Plan" has been no secret. (Here are some station folks singing "Have it your way" in front of Ken Stern in St Louis in 2006.)

The tools that we could not have imagined back in 2005/6 that can aggregate and curate content from the public are all here now. Look at how the events in North Africa and Japan are being covered using these tools!

Time for the local stations to think about how this approach, these tools, and this culture can radically change their role, impact and costs.

What my work is all about - Using social media to help with big issues - Immigration in this case

4 years of work with KETC Channel 9 now known as the Nine Network for Public Meda now stands here - where the station is full of people of all cultures and the locals finding out how they can work toogther to create a better place for all. What a difference from all the yelling and posturing that is the norm!

Now it is becoming normal to put the public into public TV and to use the trust of the system to create a safe enough place where tough issues can be worked on.

This is not what many want. What about you?

 

What I think is really at stake if CPB and Pub Media is Defunded

On the surface the attack on Pub Media is based on the idea that the state should not be in the broadcasting business and that this is especially true if the broadcaster is aligned to one point of view.

There is a point to this. Imagine my fellow Pub Media fans if Fox was to now get government funding - you too might go nuts!

But I think that the reason for this attack now is deeper than that.

And I think that the attack is based on the most human of responses. When something new and true and so dangerous arrives on the scene - we laugh at it. But as the new and the true and so the threat to the status quo gets its feet, the power people in the status quo get an insight. 

They can tell at a cellular level that this new thing could be their doom. And their response?

Please let me explain what I think that THEY see and why THEY have started the Inquisition to root out Pub Media.

In the last 5 years, Public Radio and Public TV have started to find a new role for themselves and it is this new role that scares THEM.

This role of course is a Public Service Media organization that gives people who have no voice a voice in the issues that concern them.

CPB is funding a number of experiments that are having results in this key area of informing more than the news cycle and giving people a say. None of this is done in commercial media.

For instance NPR is running a project called Argo - that has picked a number of issues that mean a lot to us the public and created nodes that roll up into a national network - so for instance WBUR in Boston is hosting a local/national conversation about health and healthcare. Or KPBS in San Diego is convening a discussion about the issues of being a military base Town. Or KPCC in southern CA is doing this on Immigration. 

All of this is largely web based - so the stations are also learning how to expand their horizon beyond the "air" and broadcasting.

There are 12 stations involved and the point is to find out how best to do this - to become a rich centre of information outside the news cycle that can be both local and a national resource. Where the public can find the best information and the best conversation about things that concern them. AND SO be truly informed and SO have a real say.

The new is full of music labels complaining. Not only about piracy but of the tight grip just a few large outlets have on what gets played and the costs of getting air. Well guess which media outlet gives the Indie labels the best opportunity for air at the least cost? NPR Music! Here is how the Hollywood Reporter ran this story.  This idea came directly out of the work done back in 2005/6 by all the stations to find a starting point for offering the music audience a place based on their taste and their time rather than simply playing what the station wanted. The music audience and the musician's interests are well served here. Both sides win. This does not happen on commercial media where the interests of the station those that own it rule.

CPB has also backed TV stations like KETC in St Louis who have been exploring how to put the public onto TV and how to offer the public a safe place to have the conversations that are otherwise impossible in America today.

Now known as the Nine Network for Public Media, KETC has a media school, the Nine Academy,  that is turning out hundreds of citizen videographers,. Giving the people the tools to have a voice of their own. 

In 2009 KETC hosted a national project involving more than 30 markets worst hit by the housing crisis to learn how each local TV and Radio stations could work together to offer people help that they could trust. In each market the stations worked to bring together w ide ranges of resources into local networks of trusted help. This is all but impossible for a commercial station. 

In 2010 KETC has been experimenting in how to host a year long "Conversation" about an explosive topic that normally collapses into rhetoric - Immigration. Most of the content is local and much of it made by grads of KETC's school. KETC is learning how to offer people a civil place to hod string views and how to switch the power from the station to the people. Impossible for a commercial station. 

This year KETC is co managing a project that will also be nation and is highly controversial - On how we might improve our schools. 

What THEY fear the most is that this kind of new role for Public Radio and TV may end up with 

• You being better informed - you will have escaped the sound bite world and in music the play list that THEY want
• You will be better engaged - because you will have the real opportunity to have your voice heard and you will have learned the skills to do this well 
• You and your local community will have more power to change things

THIS is what THEY fear.

We may feel that we could and should have made more progress - but THEY can see it.

They care not about Morning Edition, Car Talk or Masterpiece Theatre.

They do care that you may become more informed and more empowered. Public Media is on track to pull this of and so must be stopped. 

I don't see this as a Left or Right Issue. It is do you want to be part of the solution or be passive?

And who are THEY? Follow the money.

Social Business - How do you get there really

Harold nails this for me. I have been struggling to understand the blockage that keeps so many from understanding.

Might it be that we are so used to dealing with "problems" that have known and rational "answers"? That is what school is. "Robert" 2 x 2 what is the answer?" This is how we learned what a "Problem" was. We also knew that there was a Known answer or a Known Algorithm that would produce the answer, We also knew that the best people knew the answers and the algorithms. They were at the top of the class and now are at the top of the organizations. They "Know".

But as we all explore the shift from machine to network, we may know the theory but actually how this plays out in practice cannot be known in advance. Just as Columbus could "Know" that if he sailed west he would find land but he could not know when or what it would be like or how to get there in detail.

Columbus had to explore and feel his way there.

Crossing America in 1805 was to truly explore. Off go Lewis and Clark into the truly unknown and unknowable. They could only explore and use trial and error. They did know that the Pacific was west, as Columbus knew that some kind of land was west. But that was all. They did know to take the "right" people with them. They selected the best back woods men. They also had a special person - "Sacagawea". She was an Indian woman with a baby.

What did she bring? They knew that they would be in Indian country all the way. She had two powerful things to add to the strength of the party. She knew many languages and the culture - she could connect the explorers to the locals and vice versa.

But maybe even more important, she was a woman and she had a baby.

This sent out a signal to the system that this party was NOT a war party. For without that, even if they had had a male Indian who could be the cultural connector, they would have all been killed before the meeting!

So what do traditional organizations need to "cross the chasm"?

I think that they need to stop thinking that is is a problem that can be resolved by finding a known answer. That the top person can know.

The top person can give herself a break. She cannot know but she can fund the expedition as Queen Isabella did.

So there is the theory - here are some examples from recent history that I know a lot about because I have lived them.

When I worked with NPR back in 2005 the question was "How will social media affect us and what should we do?"

The great thing then was that No One could know the answer to that question. And if by chance one of us did, no one else would just accept that answer.

So what we did was to set up a process of discovery where it was agreed at the outset that no one knew.

We then set off, nearly 1,000 people, on a number of test journeys where groups "Played" with creating stories about what the future might be.

After 6 months a number of pictures of the future emerged that were consistent. All that you now see as being normal for the new media was nailed by these people back in 2006. It was all novel then and no one had done any of this. But this 1,000 people had invented the key principles and had invented stories about how this all worked in the day to day lives of people. They had discovered the world of social media as it might apply to radio.

I thought, wrongly, that most would then rush off and enact them. But this did not happen. Fear still held many back.

But ALL now had a common picture of what was important. A picture that ALL had co created. So while fear may have stopped many from changing, no one doubted the principles of what they had discovered.

The results? There is no doubt in my mind that, while NPR may now have the political fight of its life on its hands, it knows better than any other traditional media organization how to use Social Media. It has also delivered on them as no other media organization has.

Why? In the project we included over 250 NPR staff so the sense of having discovered the truth was well spread. Most of the key facilitators for the project were the senior executives and members of the board too - so there was no need to "sell" up or down. The majority of NPR had done the exploring themselves and could trust their own experience.

The other organization that has really "got it" is KETC - Now the Nine Network for Social Media - Jack Galmiche, the President was an active player in the NPR project and when he got his new job running KETC in St Louis, he also had the experience of creating the future and so the courage to go for it in TV.

KETC has been through many voyages of discovery. All the staff now have experienced the new. Many are now highly adept. They have discovered this for themselves. No one taught them!

KETC is now the acknowledged leader in the use if social media to augment TV.

KETC is now also a viral infector of the public system.

As KETC trail-blazes, it has worked with other stations. In the Facing the Mortgage Crisis project with about 60 across the nation. They too "experienced the new". The best of them then went for it too and now a critical mass of stations have enough practical exploration under their belt to go for it.

They are about to launch a new nation wide project that will cause the infection to spread further.

I think that this idea of a voyage of discovery is much more helpful that the idea of problem solving.

So selfishly how do you do this? Is there a book or a formula? Is there a snappy consultant who will show you how to do this?

No, I think that what has been shown to work best is to hire a "Sacawagea".

The issue is culture and fear of the unknown. There are no snappy answers. As John Seely Brown says in Harolds post - you have to "Marinate" in the situation.

So if you want to be successful, please think of hiring someone who knows the other native people out there and the new culture. Who is a native of the world that you aspire to go to. Who is less of a guide than a trusted friend. Who you can talk to quietly in the evening around the fire and have her hear you out. Someone who risks as much as you do on the journey - or even more than you. Someone who is safe and who helps you feel safe as you take risks.

I think a know a few of these people!

Amplify’d from www.jarche.com

Social business is about a shift in how we do work, moving from hierarchies to networks. The highest value work today is the more complex stuff, or the type of work that cannot be automated or outsourced. It’s work that requires creativity and passion. Doing complex work in networks means that information, knowledge and power no longer flow up and down. They flow in all directions. As John Seely Brown said, you can only understand complex systems by marinating in them. This requires social learning. Complex work is not linear. Social business is giving up centralized control and harnessing the power of networks. It is as radical as was Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management in 1911. The potential of social business is organizational survival. Enterprises must be able to share knowledge quicker than before.  This requires a shift toward something like a starfish framework that not only allows for independent action but also distributes knowledge through all the parts. Social learning is how organizational knowledge gets distributed. Social businesses can learn quicker. The main barriers to social business are cultural. People in charge of most organizations today got there by doing things the traditional way of the MBA mindset. They feel they do not need to change and few are willing to give up power and authority, even if it is for the good of the organization. Read more at www.jarche.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmrhb

via Amplify.com

The "Sanity Rally" what was it like to go there - be there and - come home

Margy and Kate set off a week ago on a bus from St Louis on a 28 hour bus ride - there and back - to Washington to attend the "Sanity" rally. 

This is part of KETC's Homeland Series - where we explore Immigration to see of we can find a better way of using Media

You may have seen the official video that showed you Jon Stewart and the size of the crowd. These 3 videos take you there. I felt the excitement as they started - the wonder of the rally - and the exhaustion and the hope as they went home. Margy and Kate took me along with them.

Here is why this bus load went:

 

Here is what they experienced in DC.

 

Here is what they learned:

 

There is still hope - On the Bus to Washington #KETC

 

Many here feel as I did - that they are alone - how wonderful to see them!

What an indictment of the media as it is!

More at KETC here