Few stations are well funded. Few stations have a long bench of 2.0 guys on the payroll. Few stations have a board that understands what the real situation is. Most stations are worried about what to do.
So if you and your station fit this profile, I think that this second part of my interview with Susan Meyer at WOSU may help.
In part 1, Susan hit the nail on the head for me by coming to the conclusion that it's not about the money, technology or readiness it is about the relationships that the station creates with the people. In particular, can the station be a catalyst to help people find those few people who will make them whole. In particular, can the station use its content and its trusted brand as a starting point for such a process?
Public Radio and TV can be the "University" kind of place where we can safely find people that are a match and then deepen the match into friendship and then love.
In part 1 - we discussed a context that I think has great power. That what we really need as people is to be connected to a small group of people that accept us for whom we really are.
That this is the most compelling offer possible and that if a station could fulfill this offer, it would always have a future. Susan deepened this idea of wholeness by suggesting that each one of us has several domains of our life that need fulfilling.
- We have our intellectual needs
- We have our emotional needs
- We have our physical needs
- We have our spiritual needs
- We have our values
In this context, the web is the critical factor. It enables us to expand our pool of potential matches beyond the local to the world. That what we know now is that those of us who use the social web, can and are finding connections to people in the larger world that have this match for us. That what we know now is that as the web expands, the chance of finding these vital people is reduced. Just as the ability to find good content is reduced for the same reason.
Both the content we want and the other people that are a match for us - live out here in the Long Tail. The only place we can find them is on the web. The only way we can find easily them is via a trusted channel.
The value proposition is to make it easy to find both and of course both are related. For it is when we share and discuss content today that makes it into something special. Hugh call this a "Social Object"
The thing to remember is, Human beings do not socialize in a completely random way. There’s a tangible reason for us being together, that ties us together. Again, that reason is called the Social Object. Social Networks form around Social Objects, not the other way around.
Another thing to remember is the world of Social Objects can have many layers. As with any complex creature, there can be more than one reason for us to be together. So anybody currently dating a cute girl who’s into not just Saul Bellow, but also into bowling and cellphones and Star Wars and swish Charity Balls as well, will know what I mean.
The final thing to remember is that, Social Objects by themselves don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it’s nice hanging out with Lee talking about Star Wars. But if Star Wars had never existed, you’d probably still enjoy each other’s company for other reasons, if they happened to present themselves. Human beings matter. Being with other human beings matter. And since the dawn of time until the end of time, we use whatever tools we have at hand to make it happen.
Susan and I wondered if Public radio and TV itself could be a Social Object. Many personal ads as well as talking about age, weight, hair color etc also add an important label that tells everyone a lot about who the person is:
I am an NPR Listener
Listening to Public Radio or Watching Public TV - means something. (See this story on MY Source For) Might being a member be a place to start? There are 22,000 NPR Facebook members. But I get ahead of myself.
Let's now go back to the practical beginning of Susan's work at WOSU (ably supported by the way by Tim Eby)
So you have no spare cash. What do you do?
What Susan did was to first accept that there are lots of folks out there in Columbus that are very experienced in the web 2.0 world - the local bloggers - and that maybe some of them might have a close values match to Public Radio and TV. She wondered if she asked them nicely, might some show up and help. What a concept! Here is what she sent out into the blogosphere:
We at WOSU (www.wosu.org) and COSI (www.cosi.org) have been wondering how we could do more to help our community cope with some challenging issues. We asked ourselves: What if we—your local public broadcaster and science museum—and those of you who are the local blogging experts got together and learned how to use Social Media to bring back that great American tradition of the community taking charge of its own problems?
Here’s what we’re wondering: Could we use social media and our many talents and resources to breakthrough the bureaucratic barriers that seem to block so much local reform? Could we gain enough support and understanding to shift our education system so that our children are equipped to face the sometime harsh realities of the world? Could we start to make sense of what our aging population, our health care system and even our food system may mean to us? What other issues should we be discussing with an eye toward change?
Many local bloggers, such as you, have deep subject knowledge and are also part of existing communities that also care and know a lot. We have a big megaphone—radio and web site—and some great resources—a centrally located facility with cutting-edge technology (studios and a mediaLab) that we could add to the mix. Can you imagine what we might be able to do together?
Interested? We would like to invite you to a "Town Hall" Open Space Meeting (http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/wiki.cgi?AboutOpenSpace) on Thursday, November 15, 6:30pm, to see if we can find an agenda that we can all get excited about and to see what will emerge if we get together. (The meeting will take place at [email protected], 333 West Broad Street. Since it’s around dinner time, we’ll provide the pizza and soft drinks!)
Here is the link to a Blog we created for another purpose (http://www.ohiowarstories.org/); we intend to create another such Blog for use to support this meeting and anything that comes out of it.
Please email us here with your phone number and blog, and we will call you back and talk more
She got a great response.
The group has built in energy and has jelled. Here is a link to a Ning site where you can see more of what is going on. Here is a link to the blog site that has been taken over by the local bloggers to work through how they can help.
The bottom line is that WOSU who had no resources in 2.0 now has lots and very committed ones at that. This group is working on how best to connect the 2.0 world to the broadcast world.
Both sides have found an attraction to each other. WOSU knows that this is their future, the bloggers know that somehow the right connection between the "sphere and Public Media will help them and the larger community that is Columbus. Both sides have expertise and resources that the other needs. Both are united in sharing the same values. Public Media itself is a social object!
So WOSU is using the power of the Wikinomics model to build a human platform as the foundation of any technology. Here is how Wikipedia defines this process:
According to Tapscott, Wikinomics is based on four ideas: Openness, Peering, Sharing, and Acting Globally. The use of mass collaboration in a business environment, in recent history, can be seen as an extension of the trend in business to outsource: externalize formerly internal business functions to other business entities. The difference however is that instead of an organized business body brought into being specifically for a unique function, mass collaboration relies on free individual agents to come together and cooperate to improve a given operation or solve a problem.
This kind of outsourcing is also referred to as crowdsourcing, to reflect this difference. This can be incentivized by a reward system, though it is not required.
I asked her how she is feeling now. "I feel invigorated by the partnership" is Susan's response. "Now we are inviting in the local non profits..... More are joining.... We have great leadership from the community.... It is becoming a new habit for us.... A new way of thinking that as it works becomes no longer a slogan but how we are.... Becomes a very inclusive...We start looking for help in ways that we never had thought about before.... I feel more alive again...I am engaged again!"
So with no money WOSU is building a large and expanding body of support to help them find their way. From a small inner group of bloggers, the web is expanding to find many who want to make Columbus a better place. Columbus is attaching itself to WOSU and the Bloggers as a Social Object.
It's early days of course. But watch this space - great things are on their way. In the follow on you can see the emerging agenda.
- A central site, which is a user friendly, serves as a clearing house for blogs, websites, podcasts, videocasts, and etc., that are about and/or created in Central Ohio.
- This site would provide information about all things Columbus. The site would provide a means for people to communicate and comment on issues in the City and/or their community (a community can be a place, a concept, an issue, or a demographic – Short North, Food, Public Transportation, Green issues, Mommy blogging, etc)
- There would be a “loop” of communication. Content on WOSU – radio, TV, or other media might be on the site or vice versa, a topic on the site may become topic for WOSU. So instead of traditional “push” media – the outcome is “conversational media” which allows people to communicate on a topic using many types of media in an interactive manner.
- All the voices in Columbus would have a home here.
- A toolbox of links would be provided so a person could find resources on blogging, podcasting, etc. Additional tools and resources would be provided through the site, which would allow someone without access to technology to add their voice, by alternate means, such as a telephone.
- Some members of the group would do outreach in the community – especially under represented communities with the tools needed to help people add their voices to this forum. For example – going to a nursing home and helping someone add their “2 cents” via a voice recorder to post on the site.
- Creating a site and doing outreach are launching points - there is much for this group to do.
Outreach and training to the Community on the skills needed to add more voices from the community – this may be a workshop at COSI, a library or elsewhere.
Ongoing meetings by the group as a whole and as smaller groups to continue to grow improve and expand on the ideas the group has discussed.
A potential short term goal is a booth at Comfest (Columbus’ Community Festival…place where you can “kick back for a few hours or three full days, soaking up the vibe of an enviable exercise in participatory democracy.”June 24, 28, and 29) which would share the mission of the Social Media Café to the community and possibility be the first time we use Social Media for the community to tell their stories about Comfest and more.
After the March 18th meeting – there were the questions the group wants to explore and answer over the next month and beyond. Feel free to post here and share your ideas.
- What should the name of the site be?
(Two possibilities so far – NextVoices, Voices of Columbus)
- What is our mission – what is our mission statement to guide the group and give the public a quick idea of what we want to accomplish?
- What are the collective values for the projects the Social Media Cafe works on and promotes? One common value was the need for inclusion for all communities
- Who are we missing? (We need more people from every segment of our community – all are welcome but we do not know how to find some of you and get you to the Media Cafe Meetings.)
- What smaller groups do we want to form?
(A group to create the central site, a group to locate missing content/voices, a training cadre, etc.)
