Robert Paterson's Weblog

Network Mapping - Is this the best way to make the transformation to a Network?

We see that many traditional organizations are betting that Social Technology is the key agency for making the shift to being a network. Their hope is that if all the employees are socially connected that somehow everything will be different.

But, so far, there is no sign that all this investment in social technology has made any difference at all. There is no change in the top down controlling culture. There is no change in the silos and there is no change in the customer relationship.

Above all there is no change in the core business proposition.

Merely connecting people in the old context does not work.

What is missing? I think what is missing is any sense of what the journey really is. What is the starting point? Where is the goal? How do we get there? What is missing are the maps and the navigational tools. 

This story is about the power of Network Mapping. 

I offer you the story of the transfomation of a public TV station in St Louis, KETC, to the Nine Network. 

Of course while the maps are central, the real primary driver to this kind of transformation is leadership and situational context.

On the right in this picture, is the CEO Jack Galmiche and on the left is Amy Shaw SVP Community Engagement. Without them, none of this would have happened.

So let's go back to 2006 and the beginning of our story. For the context is important too. The core business model of the station and the economic viability of its market were fading. 

In 2006, KETC, Channel Nine, was one of the most viewed PBS stations in the system. But the station was in trouble. The traditional model of "Give us money because only here can you see good quality content" was losing its power. The core economic value of the station was losing its currency. So was the St Louis itself. Once one of the great cities in the US, St Louis was the mid west version of the rust belt. The city was losing its economic power.

Simply working the old model harder would not work. There had to be a new business model that did not rely on broadcast TV and something also had to be done to turn the economic corner in St Louis itself. 

In this context, the board looked for the person who had the experience and the courage to do something really new. 

They found the right candidate. A man who could do the novel but whose age and experience also meant that he generated trust as well. Jack was in his late fifties and had vast prior experience in TV and radio. He was also a known innovator. He was also a native son of St Louis. He would be coming home to his last job. This would be his legacy.

No CEO can do this kind of work without support from below. Unkown to him then, this person was waiting for just this opportunity. Amy Shaw was the Community Manager at the station. She was buried in middle management in a role that was seen as nice to have in most stations. "Engagement" was a go nowhere position then. But what this meant was that Amy knew everybody in St Louis and she knew how to get things done without relying on power. 

The work of transformation began with the Jack asking the right question.

In 2006, KETC was "Important" for St Louis. How could he make the station "Vital" for the city?

For "Important" was not going to be good enough for the station to survive and to thrive. What was the station equipped to do  that would make it "Vital" and so attract the support of ALL of St Louis both rich and poor?

To answer the question, he had to "See" St Louis with fresh eyes. We used the brilliant work of Valdis Krebs to visualize the situation. We used Krebs' Mapping Tools to Locate the core problem and the core opportunity. Here is the actual set of slides we used in 2006 to develop the strategy.

Krebs lived in Cleveland. A city much like St Louis that had once been great but was in decline as industry is everywhere. 

Krebs showed us the goal on the right. A critical feature of the success of Silicon Valley is how connected it is. It is alive! Krebs then shows us Cleveland on the left. The city had fractured. Trust and connection had been lost.

Jack saw that St Louis had suffered the same fate.

 

There were great communities still in St Louis. There were great institutions. But they had become disconnected. In decades of the downturn, trust and cohesion had been lost.

If they were connected up again in the right way, St Louis might become vital again. The agency that helped to make these connections would itself become VITAL.

But who could be this trust agent? Jack saw that KETC could be just that. It was already owned by the community. It was connected not only to the wealthy but also to the middle class and to the poor. To whites and to the African American Commnity.

If any organization could be the Trust Agent, it could be KETC.

From this one insight came the new idea behind the station. It was to use the trust that the station had gained over a generation of service and take on the role of a "CONNECTOR".

KETC was going to the a Connector that would reconnect St Louis to itself and then reconnect St Louis to the world outside.

Jack knew where he had to go. But now the problem was how to get there. How was he to change how everyone worked and also how everyone related to each other?

In 2006, KETC was a typical PBS station and it was a typical organization. It showed national programs from the network locally. It also made a few local magazine shows that talked about St Louis. It was organized traditionally. The CEO made all the calls. Each department was a silo. Inter departmental issues were decided by the CEO. It was operationally slow. It also knew next to nothing about the web or about social media.

Krebs showed us a process that could enable us to do this. This process is all based on a fundemental character of a natural system. They are all fractal. So the very small is a model of the very large. What this means in practice is that if you try out something very small that fits the network model, you have practised the eventual goal. If you then set up a series of projects that build on each fractal, over time the new becomes your new normal and you end up at your goal. 

So the process that you will see below, using Krebs' diagrams, is what we found to be the key to understanding the tactics of making the shift from a traditional organization to a network. We start with a tiny internal project that costs no money but that puts the key staff into the new framework. On a small scale, they learn by experience, like riding a bike, how the new works and what it feels like.

They learn by doing.

We then learn what we did wrong and make changes. And then we do it again but now with a larger project. We keep repeating this until the internal team now can do this naturally. We then start at the beginning again and add new partners. We take the fractal out of the internal to the outside. When this is normal, we take the model out to the national system. 

This was the process. This is now what we did.

We looked for a small project. The project would be a tiny fractal of all the change that we knew we had to have.

We found it in supporting Ken Burns' documentary - The War - We set up a small committee chaired by Amy Shaw that brought every department into the same room. We also added some very young interns who had all used social media and blogging. (The full story is here).

This team had to work across the silos and up and down the hierarchy. It was fun to watch the interns instruct the old film veterans in the skills of blogging and the use of the Flip camera. It was an eye opener that Jack refused to settle disputes and forced them back into the room. It was great to see Amy blossom in her role as facilitator.

We set out to ask St Louis to tell us their stories of the War and we created a site where we posted them and we created a physical space - like the Antiques Road Show - where we could collect them face to face. We wrapped the documentary with St Louis stories. We brought our audience INTO the story.

Along the way, KETC learned a few important lessons. How to use the web, use social media, how to use new editing tools, how to work accross silos and how to work without the CEO having to do it all. St Louis also saw KETC in a new light. They saw the station putting the public onto Public TV.

We had learned enough to go to Krebs' next stage. 

In late 2006 the Mortgage Crisis had hit St Louis hard. What we noticed was that it was all but impossible to find help that people could trust. Knowing what we had learned in The War, we asked ourselves, what if we could connect most of the helping agencies and set up a trusted resource that would help all St Louisans in this terrible time. Might this approach be seen as VITAL?

This is what the station did.

KETC was the Weaver that made the connections to the support agencies and helped weave them into a network. And as KETC wove, the nodes started to talk to each other in a new way. As we did this, people in St Louis started to see the station with new eyes. Most whom KETC helped were not our traditional viewers. As we did this, those with influence in St Louis also saw this new side to the station and wanted to help too. Most importantly for KETC, those in power in PBS and CPB backed the experiment. For they had the intuition that this role might be the right role for all of public media.

All the while, the culture was changing in the station. It was now becoming normal to work across the silos. It was becoming normal to use the web and new video editing tools. Social media was now normal. It was normal for an intern to be the lead on a project where she had the expertise. It was normal for people to have solid working relationships up and down the ladder of power. It was normal for the CEO to ask a junior person for advice.

None of this was driven by any social platform. What did take place was that all the key staff moved into one common bull pen. Everyone was face to face in their daily lives.

It was the work and it was the success of the work and how the work was felt in the city that helped staff accept the new. There is nothing like being stopped in the supermarket and having someone hug you for what you are doing to reinforce that this change is good. There is nothing like having a man walk in off the street and give Jack his medals as a token of his gratitude.

With this local success, the leadership of public TV asked KETC if they could take this Mortgage project nationwide. Over 26 cities with TV and Radio took part. And the same things started to happen there too both nationally and locally. The new work changed the people.

The Fractal effect works!

By this time at KETC, the new had become the normal. No one was going to go back to work in the old way. Emergance had taken place. Emergence is like when a small child connects enough words and can make all the right sounds and then one day just starts talking in sentences. 

Since then KETC and many stations have taken this idea as the Trusted Local Community Connector as the core of the work to make Public TV vital.

Health such as in epidemics and also how to navigate Obamacare. Education and even Immigration (And Here) have all been featured in national and local projects.

Nine have even set up a school to help people learn how to make videos. Really helping the community to have its own voice. Nine also incubated the Beacon - a network of Journalists who now work at St Louis Public Radio. And talking of St Louis Public Radio, traditionally public TV and Radio do not get in well. But in St Louis both stations now work next door to each other and share a "Commons" between them - a public space for shows and exhibits. (More here)

KETC has transcended just being a TV station. The transformation had taken less than 3 years.

Here in an article run by The Current - the trade Newspaper - is how KETC was seen by its peers by 2009. 

KETC/Channel 9 to become Nine Network of Public Media

CPB President Pat Harrison will be in St. Louis on Oct. 12 as KETC/Channel 9 unveils its new brand identity as the Nine Network of Public Media, the station announced today (Oct. 5). It's part of the celebration for the opening of its new digital facility, the Nine Center for Public Engagement. There'll be six interactive demonstration stations in the new building: nineVoices, a website where community members post videos with solutions to local problems; Homeland, an immigration initiative; nineAcademy, digital video storytelling; the Public Insight Network, a site where participants serve as resources for pubmedia news gatherers; and interactive experiences with Nine on Twitter and Facebook. The staff of KETC's news partner St. Louis Beacon, located in the new center, will also be there to discuss their work as a nonprofit online publication (Current, March 30, 2009).

Of course Downton Abbey is still important. But that is nice. It is this role as the Trusted Facilitator that can help communities tackle very complex problems that is where the public support is coming from. This role is making Public Media vital.

But without the ability to "See" the work, I do not think that any of this could have been imagined or done. For if you cannot "see" where you are or where you need to go, or how to get there, you must surely be lost.

And here we owe Valdis Krebs our thanks.

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

Related articles

How real networks grow - Emergence not Moses! Rule #4

Hacker/Navigator? The Missing Role in Organizations?

Public Media and Sandy - Shameful Coverage #sandy #pubmedia

Here is what Doc Searls - a huge fan of Pub Media - discovered about Pub Media's pathetic efforts to cover Sandy in his area.

"12:48pm: In a crisis like #Sandy, one of the great failures of public television is exposed: there is almost no live local coverage of anything, despite a boundless abundance of presumably willing helpers in the Long Tail.

Public TV’s connection with What’s Actually Happening is astoundingly low, and ironic given its name.

Scheduled programs throb through the calendar with metronomic precision. About the only times they ever go live is during pledge breaks, which always give the impression of being the main form of programming.

If they were as good at actual journalism as they are at asking for money*, they would kick ass. I’ve included local public stations in my list here. None of them are go-to sites for the public. I just scanned through them, and here’s the rundown:

• Maryland Public Television displays no evidence that a hurricane is going on.
• WHYY Philadelphia-Wilmington: Pointage to Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, which ran from 10-Noon today. The top Special Announcement is “Visit NewsWorks.org or follow @NewsWorksWHYY on Twitter for continuing coverage of Hurricane Sandy.”
• WNET in New York is itself almost inert. But it does have links to its three broadcast outlet pages. thirteen.org in Metro Focus has a scary visual of likely flooding in New York, last updated at 7:38pm Sunday. WLIW, another of its stations, has the same pointage. That’s about it. Its NJTV site is a bit more current. They post this: “Committed to serving Garden State residents during what is predicted to be an exceptional storm in Hurricane Sandy, NJTV will provide updates throughout the day plus Gov. Chris Christie’s next press conference. Monday night, join Managing Editor Mike Schneider for full storm analysis during live NJ Today broadcasts at 6 pm, 7:30 and 11 pm. Residents can also expect ongoing weather-related news updates on the network’s Facebook andTwitter sites. NJTV is also planning a joint broadcast with WNET’s MetroFocus news program on Tuesday night at 9:30 pm, to assess the effect of the storm on the Tri-State area.” Can’t wait.
• WETA in Washington, D.C. has exactly nothing. WHUT appears to be down.
• CPBN, the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, has nothing.
• WGBH in Boston points to a show about the great hurricane of ’38. Almost helpful, that."

So when is Pub Media going to go to the public and crowd source important events? Andy Carvin was covering Sandy from his appartment - it's not even hard to do. So what is the reason that most stations don't do this?

 

 

True Health - Part 3 - The Rules of the New World#2 - The revolution of our time

This post is written in July of 2011 - The Murdoch New Empire, the Police in the UK and the Tories in the UK are being rocked.

I think that we are living through a period where the Network is destroying the Hierarchical power of the establishment.

We can see now that this revolution began in the Arab world but now, this July, we are seeing that the Network is a real threat to the most powerful in the west as well.

I think that history will show that power is shifting from the Machine Institution to the Network.

This will be a real revolution unlike 1917 that merely replaced one top down regime for another. 

This is more like 10,000 years ago when a new food system changed everything about how humans lived and their place in the world. 

I think that the forces that will take us there are now in motion. Not the least that millions of people have been cast out by the old system. That many of these millions are well educated and have the personal power to act. These are the kind of people that drove the French and the American Revolutions that in their own day also cast down the old power system.

They are likely people just like you my dear readers. We are the immigrants in the brand new world that we will make for ourselves  - not in a new place but in a new "Space" that we create ourselves.

Without knowing it, you have just left Ellis Island and you are in this strange New World.

How strange this all is. 

Fortunately the pioneers have been here for some time and this post will show you what the new rules are and how best to get around in this new place and to realize its potential. 

In essence - people here in the New New World - or New World#2 - live the lives of the Hunter Gatherers - they live lives much like all hominids and Humans have lived for millions of years. But with a difference, now we know how all of this works. We know the science and we have tools that empower us to be this old way anew.

So let's wander around NW#2 and see how they live and work. Let's see the models they use. 

And by the way - all of this exists for real today - just in a very small and scattered form. It just needs organization to come to life.

Home and Work - Home is that old fashioned Home where we all live and work.

For in NW#2 we mainly work from home for ourselves or in tribal groups - some partners are next door but some are the other side of the world. 

We don't just do one thing either - the bigger cash generating deals are like a hunter bringing home an elk and get paid in cash by the larger system. But we do a lot of gathering for no money. We trade services with each other - I do some work on your site, you give me veggies. We offer up our place for rent and move in with our sister who lives down the road and we split the money.  

We don't just sell services either. With our network of 3D printers and jigs we can make almost anything locally. Hey we even make cars using the Wiki Car Company - an open source design for cars that uses a series of chassis's that we then adapt to create unique one off cars. For less cost than a mega car plant - we don't have their fixed costs.

More than 50% of the things we need - we make locally. All are built using Open Source designs.

The result is that there is work here for all. 

What were hobbies become "Livings". Your weaving, your knitting, your soap making, your talent for music or knowledge of astronomy, your mechanical genius, your coding, your cooking, your green thumb, your strong back, your relationship with children - your real skills - the real you.

No one gets super rich but all can be very comfortable and secure. Secure because no outsider can take away your living. For we are so interconnected. The gap between producer and consumer has been closed. We are always both.

Our children grow up in the middle of all of this. They see what their parents do to make a Living. They participate early too - either to help the family or to play their own role. Many children have their own Living. The gap between helpless child hood and being a participant is tiny. 

For the kids too are not shunted off into a world separate from life called school or youth.

Nor are our babies and infants given away to strangers. In our physical community we help each other a lot with the little kids. We spend very little money on daycare or nannies. We have family close, we have other families in the same boat - we have a good system. The kids also have access to tremendous resources from all over the world. They have lots of mums and dads - as kids always used to have. There are lots of Eyes on the Street in our place.

Our teachers are very different too. They are not "professionals". They are largely us.

Our older kids meet in study groups and use materials from the web. If they have a question that they cannot solve themselves - they can access the local learning network for advice. This local Network extends all over the world. Our kids can talk to the best teachers in the world and they do. 

We used to pay a lot of money to educate our kids for not very good results. We now pay a fraction of this and our kids have learned to learn and they mix with really talented people. They don't need a piece of paper to show what they have learned. They have a reputation that has been earned.

Food

So where did all the teachers go? Where did all the people with non jobs go?

In the old country almost no one did any work to get or prepare food. In the NW#2 food and energy is where most of the work is done. Everybody contributes here. In 2000, less than 5% of people worked to produce food and most of them were no more than slaves.

Now 85% of us participate in one way or another in food and energy.

About 30% of the food we eat is grown locally - and we are in Montreal. There are gardens on roofs - front yards - back yards in public spaces. Small animals too - chickens are everywhere and there are goats and sheep in town.

Nearly everyone spends time on growing and preparing food - we grow a lot on our own or in local groups in the community and we also help out in the country.

The rail service to the surrounding farm land is working well again and 50% of our food comes in from the direct hinterland. Many also go out there and help work for food. We help with the cultivating and harvest - for the Community Ag Model that we use, integrates the customer into the producer. That way we we keep the costs down for all. No immigrant slaves here - we belong to farm groups as helper/consumers. CSA on steroids.

Consequently, we pay very little money for food. But food growers do well. We all benefit from the Network Effect.

Farming itself is very different too. We also work WITH nature and not against her. She does more and more of the work as a result.

Farms tend to be small - about 100 acres and worked by a family and by the neigbours.

Those growing veggies mainly use Permaculture that needs no external inputs and that has yields that rise every year and where the work also falls. In many of these mini farms, the main work of the year is harvest.

Almost no machines are required. Almost no external inputs and certainly no agri chemicals.

Those with animals use a pasture system made famous by Polyface farms where grass and woodland provide the base and we rotate animals on the grass thus building up the base year by year.

In our food system, vitality grows every year. The natural capital increases and our need for external energy reduces.

We used to have no time and so had to pay cash for everything - now we have time we don't need as much cash. THIS is the central big idea in New World#2.

Like Open Source Software we trade goods and services a lot for no money - we do have an exchange now - so the Ledger can be converted into currency of needed. This was how the old country store used to operate. 

Energy/Travel - You cannot replace oil as a convenient source of energy - but oil is very expensive in the New World#2. So how do we still have a great life? We have redesigned how we live to reduce the need for oil.

This is why the home and the local community has become the centre. We had to go far away every day to work and school and to get anything. Now most of those routine trips in the car are not essential any more. The need to drive everywhere has been designed out of the system.

Some of us do go to face to face distant meetings now and then - it is always vital to meet face to face. But these occasions tend to be rare and are often largely social - the point is to bond again.

When we travel we mainly take some time and we tend to stay with each other or rent a place from a person. Co Working places are ubiquitous. Few have offices that are exclusively theirs except at home. Why would you pay to have an office all for yourself?

The Global Co Working Network also allows you to have an office in any town, city our country. 

Energy/Climate

Heat in the winter up north and cooling in the summer in the south demand significant energy. Here design has helped too.

Much of the sunbelt, short of water and boiling hot has lost much of its population. Those that remain have gone back to building design that fits this climate. Adobe is common again. Even here permaculture works and, as was tested in the desert in Israel, is able to produce food and this practice is gaining ground on the desert itself.

Here up north in Montreal, the typical co-housing of Montreal East was designed with winter in mind. With neighbours alongside and above and below, heating demand has been reduced further by insulation.

Community heat and stoves using waste fibre are common.

Large scale and long Distance Energy

The truck is no longer the centre of the system. Most things are made locally - much is recycled locally - even steel. We trade things we can't grow or make.

As back in time - water is the way that really heavy goods are carried. The seaboards and river and canal systems are the new/old highways for heavy goods. 

We have time now so we too use the trains and ships. 

Health

Big Industrial food no longer makes sense with very expensive oil. In the old country we used to spend a fortune on health. But now we eat so much better, we are so much more active, so much less stressed, we are naturally mainly very healthy and fit.

Grains depend on factory farms, serfs or slaves. Oil is too expensive and no one wants to be a slave anymore. So very little grain is grown anymore. We eat meat, that is grass fed, veggies fruit and nuts. This was and is our ideal diet.

So Big Pharma has little place here either. We are all working hard at breeding better animals and seeds that fit our local enviroment.  We share this knowledge around the world. Big Ag has no place in this vast cooperative effort - for if we fail here, we starve. The IP issue has gone away for the system that could enforce it has collapsed.

Most research now uses an Open Source Model - for we all benefit.

So what about the  Medical professionals?

Of course, if you have an accident, we use the Dr's. Specialists operate all over the world too. Even a small community hospital can have a world class surgeon operate - for she is in her community and telemedicine is the norm now.

But there are not that many doctors - and the ones we have are oustanding. But we don't need a lot of them, because so few of us are ill. 

The frontline healthcare system is now run by Health Facilitors who help us in groups work out how to get control of our health back. We pay them to keep us healthy. Health is all about matching our lives to our design.

Media

We get our news and information from each other. The old highly centralized media system was show to be what is was a shill for ther old system. They were largely made irrelevant as their role was exposed. And then their costs brought them down.

Most people have a voice now. A profound shift in human consciousness.

There is still an entertainment business but it is more of an aggregator. We don't need as much distraction as we used to. With a more full real life, we need to depend less on a fantasy life.

So how did we get here?

No social engineering brought this about. Much of the pioneer work was done in the 1990's. But it will be desparation that takes us here. Cities that can go no lower such as Detroit are along the path now. 

We will get here because the people who were cleared by the landlords will have no choice. We have to eat. We have to have work. We have to raise our kids. We have to have our health. In the old world all of these things are provided by the institutions. They are shutting us out. We either cannot afford them - such as healthcare or what they offer - such as public school - is rotten.

So we will do what we have to and create an alternative world alongside the old world.

In this new world, by using the network effect and open systems we will dramatically undercut the sunk costs and rigidities of the old world. We will drive them out of existence.

This weekend as I write this - we can see this process in action. The Bastille has been stormed. It's early days but we can feel our power and sense the weakness of the regime.

BUT they will not go quietly and the attacks we see on local food systems and the massive effort to protect IP in things such as seeds is a sign of their fear.

In my next post - The Inquisition and how to defeat it.

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.

Preventing the defunding of Pub Media - get Real Folks - A Polemic

Those that wish to defund us do not see us as neutral. They see us as the enemy.

They could not care about how little we cost. They care not what we do that is good. They see only that we are the heretic.

To plead relevance and value in the face of this hatred is naive in the extreme. It is to be a Jew in Germany in 1932 who thinks that simply because you had the Iron Cross in the last war and had been German for hundreds of years was going to save you. We will not win this by facts, good arguments or by appeasement. 

This is a fight to the death. We have to be clever at how we fight. Plan to fight a guerilla war. A war that we can win. 

We look to me now like the Brits and the French in 1939 and 1940. We have won the previous engagments so we think we can coast along, bomb with leaflets and we will win this one. I don't think so.

I think that France will fall and we will be grievously wonded. We must also be prepared to be hurt and to find a way of being effective and of serving the community even if we are wounded badly.

There is no time to be lost in taking out much of our own costs.

What Andy has done in global news is an example of how even with tiny resources but with the brand we can have power.

We have to plan to fight back. No with ranting but how all successful popular wars are won. We must do the one thing we can do that they never can or will - we must serve the people.

Our future is not in showing Nova. 

Our future is in mobilizing people to solve their own problems. Who else can help people find their way to a new economy? Who else can find another way we can be healthy that does not rely on the system? Who else can help us get to grips with the mess that is our education? Who else can take on Big Food or Big Pharma and all the other "Bigs"?

Please have faith in your selves. This is one fight where the good can win.

You have real power. Use it. Get Real. Get on the right side of history.

The picture above is of Horatius defending Rome with two companions while the bridge was cut down behind them - thus saving Rome from a massive force. MacAulay writes this is how Horatius took up the challenge:

Then out spake brave Horatius,
          The Captain of the Gate:
     "To every man upon this earth
          Death cometh soon or late.
     And how can man die better
          Than facing fearful odds,
     For the ashes of his fathers,
          And the temples of his gods

 

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

 

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