1. They write as if they are teaching you, and you need them to say everything for you to understand, rather than appreciating the wisdom of their readers.
2. They write very much as if what they say is the authority, without drawing from the authority of their readers.
3. They tell you what to do, rather than ask what their readers think could be done.
4. They broadcast out ideas, rather socially discuss ideas.
5. They tag on the social cop out, “what do you think?“, rather than really drawing out from you, “what do you think?”

I used to write very much like this. In fact the peice on Innovation Over Tradition had the same prose feel that I think goes along with the above. Normally here, we’re talking things through.

The trick to much of this is what I learnt from Robin Dickinson – “under bake the issue.” In fact, we had a great discussion about this a while ago.

What I Don’t Know

The thing is, Monday’s post was an interesting read that got quite a few retweets (as I get so few), and certainly, there is a place for explaining things and being an active authority. But I think that can still be done without talking down to someone. I’m not sure.

Your Leading Thoughts

1. Do you notice different tones of blogging? Can we categorise them a bit?
2. Which writing do you respond to? Are there some blogs that you notice this “talking down to” in?
3. Are there, conversely, some bloggers who you can’t respect because they don’t speak with enough authority.

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

I Don’t Talk Down To You

One particular thread was very insightful, along the lines of remembering people’s names. As I said, it’s something that Chris did really well, and I’m making sure I’m as good as I can be at. You can’t underestimate the power of knowing someone’s name. In fact, one person even said the most important word in the world to anyone is that person’s name.

I just wanted to pick out a few practical tips:

Malcolm Sleath wrote:

The technique is a variation of what Chris has described. I take a sheet of paper and draw a simple map of where everyone is sitting. As they introduce themselves, I pay attention and write their name in the right place on the plan, and then one or two words of what they have said. Like Chris, I look at the people when they are talking, and just focus on the content instead of making judgements about it.

Once I have my map, during the early part of the meeting, I let my eyes go round the room, saying the names of the people in my head as I look at them. In the first half an hour, I make sure I do this a few times. Then, I play a little game and look at people at random, to see if I can say their name in my head.

The result is that when I do speak, I can remember who has said what and relate my contribution to theirs so they feel included. I come across as a much better person than I really am (I’m just as self-obsessed as the next person.)

Chris Brogan wrote:

* I look directly into your eyes when getting your name… AND/OR
* if I’m meeting you in person for the first time, but know you from the web, I double-up on my memory of you by looking into your eyes and saying your name as I greet you.
* I I repeat your name a few times, and make sure that others around me have met you. This lets me repeat your name.
* I store the moment as best as I can by not allowing my head to be distracted with other details. I try to shut out all the “what next” bits.

Sy Taylor wrote:

One of the best techniques I ever found for remembering something is close deletions. So to remember that term I’d write “To remember things I use [...] deletions”

Then set that as a reminder for 3 days time. Just as you’re about to forget, something like that hitting your subconscious buries it in. Our brains are ‘use it or lose it’ lumps of elastic learning capability.

Alastair Banks wrote:

I’ve always focused on this too – remembering people’s names, their partners names and interests is incredibly important – as you say, it shows you care. Chris does this on a new level and has made a big impact on my life since meeting him at Likeminds earlier this year.

Me? I introduce the person I’ve just met to someone else. Saying their name out loud is better than saying it in your head, and I can then link your name to the memory I have of introducing you to someone too.

Your Leading Thoughts

• What practical tips can you share with us that you use to remember people’s names?

Photo courtesy of bemky

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

What’s In A Name?

A value based approach is about giving more of you to people and developing deeper relationships, rather than having your thumbs in 101 pies. By not giving lots of little, but less of more, you can build relationships that have a great yield – in pretty much whatever you do.

I wanted to show you some of the returns, the value if you will, of a value-based approach that I’ve experienced this week. I’ve had a shower of love and recognition from a range of people recently, all as a direct result of this value-based approach.

1. First of all, I received a much appreciated link from Like Minds Alum Joanne Jacobs writing about the trough of disillusionment for social media strategies. Joanne has spoken at the last two Like Minds events, and I was thrilled to hear from her that since her keynote in February, she has received continual work from people who have watched the video or referred someone based on watching it.

How I built value: This is an instance right here of me getting to know someone and actually help someone who is greatly respected and I’d never think would be in the need of my need. It’s my honour and privilege to be associated with her – and it’s all because of value.

2. Secondly, there was quite a humbly moment for me when I discovered on this post from James Gordon that I am among the UK’s Top Marketing Blogs. I’ve been blogging now for a year, and to get that kind of recognition was really, really humbling – mostly because I haven’t focussed on getting blog recognition.

How I built value: I don’t focus on retweets and traffic but just engaging you wonderful people who spend time regularly commenting here. Together, we make ideas reality, and that is what is being recognised. To regularly get an average of 15 comments per post for a blog that might occasionally hit 200 uniques a day is pretty good engagement – and I’m only keen for it to become more!

3. Thirdly, I had a bittersweet moment when my latest intern Jonny Rose left the Aaron+Gould flock to fly to London’s shores to focus on his Masters. Jonny wrote this very loving peice on the time he spent with me, poetically entitled As Good As Gould. He is a person of unquestionable character, of sincere and genuine motives, and of incredible comic genius. I’m glad to say he’ll be blogging with Like Minds, so you can enjoy his unique style there and on his blog.

How I built value: Jonny has worked with us for the last two months, and it has been my pleasure to impart some of my experiences and insights to him. Every day that he worked, we talked about what he was learning, the bigger lessons, and about nurturing his skill set.

4. Finally, a fall-of-my-seat moment happened for me on Wednesday when Molly Flatt, James Whatley and my other friends at 1000heads named me as one of their 10 WoM Thought Leaders. To be recognised by my friends Molly and James (and I do mean friends) is a wonderful thing in itself – but then to see who I was named next to was just a whole other deal. Right next to friends and heros like Joe Pine, Chris Brogan, Joanne Jacobs, John Bell (who I’ve all met now!), as well as James Gilmore and Emanuel Rosen – I was ecstatic.

How I built value: Well, the whole story is here actually. All I did was give exposure to people I believed in, however small the exposure that I could give was.

Your Leading Thoughts

• I know you’re all building value relationships. I’m keen to know which ones. Tell me who you’re building value with.

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

The Value of a Value Approach

If you can’t see this video, click here, or watch on YouTube.

When we had Chris over for the Like Minds Conference in February, I had the pleasure of watching Chris operate and also spending some time with him too. I have no doubt that many cynical Brits were waiting to see if he’d walk the walk and be as social as he tells everyone to be. What I got to see was not only ‘Yes, he does!’, but also how he does this.

I haven’t shared this until now because I didn’t want to a fame monster, and I’m not writing this now for copious retweeting, but because there is one thing that he taught me above all else that has been of life changing value for me these last 4 months since February, and it will help you too. It’s changed my relationships, my business, my church and my marriage.

At the end of Saturday night at the Summit at Bovey Castle, I had been so impressed with how Chris had valued each person so highly, remembered everybody’s names, professions, details, and engaged in such valuable and meaningful discussion with so many people.

Now I’m good with connecting people, but Chris did it at a level that I’ve never seen before. People who he met once on Friday morning, he remembered the names and details of and called them by name Friday evening.

When I asked Chris how he did this, he looked at me and just said “I genuinely just love people.”

In two words, Chris Brogan taught and modeled for me this: love people.

How?

I learned from Chris to love people by valuing the person in front of you over playing on your phone. (He didn’t use his to tweet, not once, and there was kick ass wifi.)

I learned from Chris to love people by closing your laptop when someone walks in the room, and focussing my attention on them. (He did this to every person when he was working.)

I learned from Chris to love people by remembering their names and life details without fail. (He didn’t get a name wrong.)

I learned from Chris to love people by giving them your attention – all of it – no matter who is in the room. (He never excused himself from a conversation)

And finally, I learned from Chris to love people by valuing people equalling and forgetting about the power plays and games that stroke our egos. (He never ended a conversation so he could speak with someone else.)

Your Leading Thoughts

• I’m sure you’ve learned similar things from someone in your life – who? How did they model this to you?

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

What I Learned From Chris Brogan

I spent Monday working with a local publishing house carrying out a mix of consultation-via-workshop, in which by teaching my frameworks and case studies, we workshop the content and create a strategy for the company. It’s very much the same as what we did with the Finland Tourist Board at the Like Minds Summit last month.

True to form, the day is full of my hype oneliners. One of the main ones that I drill is “don’t target everyone, target the right ones”, which of course is about correctly understanding your community, and who the influencers within that community are.

What really irritates me is when I ask this question and then have to start from scratch trying to understand my community. That’s why I create models and frameworks: for my own use and my own sanity! However yesterday I realised that I haven’t really shared how useful this model below (The 7 Levels of Participation) has been for me with understanding communities.

For me, Social Media is about social, which is about relationship, which is about participation. Relationship is participation with one another. The deeper the relationship, the more participation we have with each other. Therefore I like to understand a community based on their varying levels of participation. If a community has higher levels, my strategy will fundamentally be different than if my community had low levels of participation.

So, here is how I profile participation and then implement next actions based on that profiling:

1. Get My Stats

Obvious I know, but I have to get data in the door. I can’t just go on instinct or on the tidbits of feedback I have. It’s funny sometimes how one bit of customer feedback can change an entire decision, normally because we swell every bit of quantitive feedback we have in significance, because it’s often the only bit of feedback we get!

I make sure I have qualitative and quantitative data on my community, and many times you can use tools like TweetReports, Facebook Insights and PostRank (affiliate link) to get a good deal of your quantitative data and also seed feedback requests for your qualitative data.

Just the act of getting your numbers helps you get better perspective.

2. Generalise On My Stats

I use Forrester’s Groundswell Profile Tool which I enter the ages, genders and locations of my community into to get their generic profile types back. These types are linked to the 8 types on Forrester’s Groundswell Ladder.

The groups that this tool returns (Contributors, Collectors, Spectators, etc) don’t map exactly to my model, which is fine. The point is, it gives me a very good general direction. This also raises the question of why you’d even use my model instead of Forrester’s. My reason is that the Levels of Participation is built specifically with participation actions in mind. So, as per my model, Comment, Consume, Compete, Create, etc are all actions that have pretty obvious tools connected to them.

3. Analyse My Stats To Actions

Now that I have profiles from Forrester linked to my stats, I begin to see where certain demographics will lie on my Participation Model. So, I know that my 18 – 24s, for instance, are more likely to be ‘Critics’ than my 55+ age group. However, the generalisms of this data aren’t always correct and don’t take my influencers into account either.

My next job is to analysis my stats, using the profiles from Forrester as a helping guide, and then link them to actions from the Participation Model. Here is where it becomes, hopefully, clearer as to why I have created this model.

If someone falls into Forrester’s ‘Critic’ field, what action is attached to that? We scratch our heads and begin to think. “Well, they could comment… they could rate something… they could like something… they could write a review.” And I know that around the world so, so many people are doing this – starting from scratch. The trouble here is that there is a vast difference between ‘liking’ and ‘rating’ and ‘commenting’, but Forrester’s tool doesn’t make that distinction for you (which of course it can’t.)

What I need to do is have a sliding scale of Social Media actions – going from the least participatory to the most participatory – with clear strategies and tactics linked to each of those levels. And that’s what my model does for me.

So now what I do is see how many operate at these levels:

1. Consultation. How many are just looking? (Google Analytics mainly)
2. Consumption. How many are regular readers and might have subscribed? (Returning Visitors in Analytics, Feedburner)
3. Connection. How many follow, have created accounts, and joined a newsletter? (Profile followings, signups, newsletter stats)
4. Competition. How many ‘like’, share, rank, rate and play any competitions or games that I have created? (Facebook, custom built stuff)
5. Commenting. How many comment, @reply, use a #hashtag, retweet and share with additions, on what I’ve created? (Postrank, Facebook insights, Tweetreports)
6. Creation. How many write about us? (Google blogsearch)
7. Curation. How many are pulling this data together for me and joining my dots for me? (Relationship, and pretty much relationship alone)

4. Next Actions

Now that I know what the community is doing and how they participate, I can help them do more of it, seek to fill the gaps, better enable them, etc.

The big benefit is that if the community does a lot of consumption, but not much creation, then I know I shouldn’t spend all my resources on trying to get them from a level 2 to level 6. But I see people make this mistake all the time – the overestimation of participation – where they expect hundreds of people to just ‘send in photos’ or ‘write comments’ without knowing if and how these guys participate.

So if the majority of my community are consuming, then I might want to find ways to get others to consume through their consumption (share buttons, for instance.) If I want to up their level of participation, I need to find a way to convert their consumption into a connection. If I can get them to like my Facebook page, then all their friends will see they’ve liked it, so that’s a useful connection to make.

This is more meaningful than just trying to ‘get them to comment and share their photos’, which whilst young people are more readily prepared to do, most won’t for a brand (they’ll just do it for themselves), and most over 34s aren’t to keen on it either.

Your Leading Thoughts

Here is where the hard work begins because we then have to implement our strategies and ideas. I also have further things to share on where I take it from here, but until then, I’m keen to get your feedback and hear your leading thoughts.

• I don’t expect you’ve used this model – but what models have / do you use for profiling?
• Is participation the main thing that you want to measure? It is for me, but am I being idealistic here?
• Can you go away and use this approach tomorrow? If not, why?

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

How I Profile A Community’s Participation To Inform Next Actions

To be a king maker, you have to know your kings. The strongest teams are those who know each other inside out, and can maximise each other’s strengths and minimise each other’s weaknesses. This is why Robin’s share words are so important, because they help us know each other.

Knowing you, and you knowing me, means that we don’t compete with each other but we complete each other:

• When anyone asks me who to speak to about digital publishing, I tell them it’s Andrew Davies and Ed Barrow at Idio.
• If anyone needs measurement and integration consultancy with Social Media, I tell them they need to speak to Olivier Blanchard and attend Red Chair in London later this month.
• Anyone who is overloaded I tell to read Robin Dickinson’s blog immediately and start developing diamond-focus.
• Those who want Social Media advice and are in Bristol or Cheltenham I tell to speak to Chris Hall and attend Media140 in Bristol this month.
• Any person who wants to really impact on a social scale I hook up with Stephanie Rudat and the exceptional work she is doing, or point to Jeff Hurt and Dave Lutz to learn how to improve learning.
• For those wanting to take their organisations beyond marketing, I refer them to Ann Holman.

And likewise, these people are plugging people into me who need the strengths that I have.

The Multiplying Effect of People-to-People

When we talk people-to-people like this, we encounter a multiplying effect. A scripture in the bible that confounded me for years was “One can put a thousand to flight, two can put ten thousand to flight.” I never understood how 1+1 could equal 10, but then I began to realise that if I spend my day doing what I am best at, and let others do what they are best at, then I no longer have to waste my time and neither do they. My day becomes more productive, and our combined productivity equals a 10.

The big question of course is “do you know me?” – or rather – “do I know you?” The volume-based game that most are playing online booms with a resounding “No” because everyone is too busy building their own super personal ego brand, complete with logo and 30 day programme, that they don’t have the time nor the inclination to get to know you.

However people-to-people is not a volume but value play and we must know each other – and know each other well. Without this, we do not understand each other’s strengths and therefore don’t achieve this multiplication of strengths.

The answer then is plain: know me, and enable me get to know you.

Note: this is an active pursuit, and the one of a leader. Followers not necessary.

Your Leading Thoughts

• How do you get to really know people, practically?
• How are you managing those relationships successfully and ensuring that you build deep, value-based relationships rather than getting sucked into the volume game that most people play?

P.S. If you have no idea what that photo above is about, watch this.

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

Building The Kingdom: Knowing Me, Knowing You

It’s far more rewarding, effective and exciting to be the king-maker, than trying to put yourself on the throne all the time. Ego is hard work, and trying to make yourself king is tiring. I’ve tried it before, and not only did I find it exhausting, but I found I wasn’t helping anyone else but myself.

You know how it is when someone is trying to be king – the ego casts a shadow a mile long, right? Not always. It can be very subtle. In fact, I find pretty much the whole of the Twitter community are trying to be kings. There’s nothing wrong with that, but doesn’t all this ‘share’ talk annoy you when the ones who shout ‘share’ really mean ‘share me?’

Those who are trying to be kings are always:

• Trying to get attention, rather than give it
• Trying to get traffic, than send it
• Trying to get comments, rather than give them
• Trying to sell, rather than buying
• Trying to build the house, rather than build the hostel

The difference between these people, and king-makers, is that king-makers get attention, by giving it, and so on.

Of course some people are kings. But the best kings were king-makers first - and will always be king-makers – because these are the ones that better the country they lead.

Your Leading Thoughts

Every regular at this blog that comments aren’t self proclaimed – I know you all. So my question is:

• Are you a king-maker. If yes, or if no, why?
• If you’re not, shouldn’t you be?

Image courtesy of Timothy K Hamilton.

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

Are You A King, Or A King-Maker?

The above model is something I’ve been thinking about for a while – and would love to now think through with you – that aims to present some guide and scale for participation, with the goal of helping us know what level of participation to pitch for our communities or projects.

My basic assumption is that as the level of participation increases, the number of people who participate decreases. A lot of the successes, and failures, that I see not only within Social Media but community engagement in general are linked to pitching at the right level of participation:

• Failure generally happens where the amount of participation is overestimated, and only a high level is provided
• Successes generally happen where multiple levels of participation are provided, meaning lower and higher levels happen

Whether you’re building a social network, running a blog, doing an online campaign, cultivating a community, and so on, you must consider your levels of participation.

Let’s quickly talk about each level of participation:

1. Consult

This is when the mass market looks at your content, accessing it most likely through a search. In the same way we consult a brochure for information, people consult websites for information. This person is not part of your community and not a regular reader or participant.

This is important to clarify, as most blogs are designed and written for those who consume their content on a regular basis. I’ll be quite honest – if the above, non-regular mass market person visited my website, it would not be so easy to get around. I need to sort that out and make it ‘consult friendly.’

To provide a consult level of participation, you must focus on making it findable, and useable to first time visitors.

2. Consume

In the same way we regularly consume food, this is where we enter some form of regular readership. Regular is the key word here. For early adopters, this is easy – we get our readers to plug the feed into their reader. But for the majority, we have to think of simpler ways to deliver regular content to their door step. (Remember: the door step might not be email, or even Facebook for some people.)

The distinction between consult and consume is frequency. Consultations are few and far between, based on need. Consumption is regular, first based on interest and then based on ongoing usefulness and a certain degree of loyalty and trust.

To provide a consume level of participation, you must provide regular content (whatever your content is) and make return visits easy by delivering to the door step.

3. Connect

This is formalising a relationship by securing some kind of connection – creating an account, joining a newsletter, ‘liking’ a Facebook page or joining a group, using Twitter of Facebook to sign into a website. Less people do this than consume your content. I have about 3,000 unique visitors a month who consult or consume my content (50% are new visitors), but only 200 subscribers through connect Feedburner, of which 50 get my blog emailed daily.

Connect is really about an exchange. I give you this, you give me that. This doesn’t have to be an email. It could be that I give you some of my photos, and in return, you showcase them on your website. I win because my work is online, you win because I tell all my friends to look at it. The trick is to make a win-win scenario.

To provide a connect level of participation, provide ways for buy-in and exchange of data and other social connections, and demonstrate how they create a ‘win’ for the end user.

4. Compete

One of the pillars of participation is competition. Since the beginning of time, the lure of competing (and winning) has generated the most participation – siblings know this well!

On one level this is about building games – FarmVille‘s participation base is currently 20% of all Facebook’s users! Max Control is a competition that merges online and offline activity (disclaimer: they were a client.) Alder And Alder’s Advent Quiz competition was a great low-buy in game for busy people.

On the other hand, this is about creating competition in things that aren’t games. The main motivation for getting Facebook friends a few years ago was a competition (“who has the most Facebook friends?”) In fact, Facebook used to even number your wall posts, so you could compete on who has had the most wall posts.

When Ashton Kutcher reached 1 million Twitter followers, that was a competition. Even now, people compete over Twitter followers – if not with one another, then certainly with themselves!

Gowalla, Foursquare and other location apps are competitions - “who is the mayor?” “how many items do you have?” “how many checkins have you made?” – the whole drive that makes Foursquare bigger than Gowalla in my opinion is that they made it more of a competition that Gowalla did.

Even tagging, sharing and bookmarking can be a game. It’s a competition that you play against yourself.

To provide a compete level of participation, just show a scoreboard and rank your users. That’ll create competition immediately.

5. Comment

Most early adopters are in the habit of commenting, but if you think back to the first time you did, you’ll get an idea of where the early majority are. I remember thinking “why bother?”, which is what most of the early majority feel about this level of participation, which is why most don’t make it here. It’s a motivation issue.

Commenting has reached a higher level of adoption inside Facebook, but even then it is done less, and by fewer people, than all the other levels.

The reason why this is, is because commenting represents the shift from getting more to giving more. The other levels often give up front (consult and consume), or they give back immediately (connect and compete). Commenting however does not immediately give back, so the motivation has to come from a deeper level of investment and involvement.

One of the issues here is that when someone wants to comment, they think that 1. they have nothing to add, and/or 2. there’s already conversation that they find intimidating and hard to break into.

Example: Those who you see commenting in your Facebook stream are probably the same group of 50. In fact, those who comment on this blog are mostly the same people, who give very insightful and intelligible comments from a place of knowing me outside of this blog. It’s hard for a newbie to break into that!

To provide a comment level of participation, provide a way for users to add their angle to the content (review, share, rate, etc) and attach getting to their giving – the more immediate and visible, the better.

6. Create

The user generate content realm is actually touched upon with compete and comment, because every action generates some kind of content as a by-product, however the create level is distinguished because the content is being intentionally and specifically created by the user.

Forums are a memorable example for me – I used to write a wealth of information in then. Guest blogging, custom reviews, crowd-sourcing all tend to fall into this category.

The motivation to participate at this level, I have found, is usually because of the benefit of identity the user gets by being associated. This has to be compelling in order for people to take time out and custom make content for you.

To provide a create level of participation, show the identity benefits of association with your organisation, with examples of others who have done it.

7. Curate

The highest level of participation goes beyond creating content to curating it, similar to the difference between a writer and an editor. The curator / editor knows the bigger picture well, and now nurtures the participants under them on behalf of the organisation.

I’m drifting a little into metaphor and tech speak here, so let me paint a community example. With Like Minds, there are a number of people who help us at a very high level with bringing the event together. They not only have ‘ideas’ (which are a dime a dozen), but they talk closely with us and work through the kinks, whilst bringing the best of the ideas out there to our attention. I met one of these curators this week, where we spent an hour talking through the concepts and bigger picture repercussions of our next events.

Key for me here is that these people are builders, not bulldozers. Curators build with you – the benefits of which are the intimacy they share with you, and the self actualisation they get.

When I think of this level, I think of people like Robert Scoble who live and breathe the industry they are in and shape it by virtue of their grasp of the bigger picture, and being at the elbow of every conversation. These people are thermostats, not thermometers. They set the temperature and create culture.

To provide a curate level of participation, be open and provide whatever they need to curate. They will rise to the top and show themselves to you as long as you do this.

Your Leading Thoughts

As you know, I value your input and building this with you. Here’s what I think we can do together on this peice:

• Pick one level, and use examples to agree or disagree.

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

Model: The 7 Levels of Participation

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdRbDXf8Hxk

If you can’t see the video above, click here, or watch it directly on YouTube.

I got an email last week from Sally Douglas from Agenda21Digital.com asking me to say something about Christian Aid Week which runs all this week to raise awareness and finances for some core social justice issues around the world.

Why am I posting it? First of all, I believe in it.

Secondly, it’s not hard to imagine they targeted UK bloggers based on keywords like “Christian” and “Pastor” -- but the fact that they did that, that not only an agency did it, but a charity like Christian Aid also went with it, deserves some respect.

I also love the way Sally went about doing it. She gave me very clear points, posted three bit.ly links (so as to not cram my screen), and then kindly asked me to post a link to them. It was easy for me to write this post - all the research was done for me. The tools were complete.

The campaign is actually pretty cool. You can do things like “donate your Facebook status” (on this page here), which is a very low participatory way to help spread the message that is also new and not just the regular retweet button or host of share buttons that no one ever uses.

The site reminds me a little of the Child’s i Foundation and their Get Involved Page, where you can give “time”, “love” or “money” -- another exceptional way to allow a low participatory buy in, and also appreciate that for some people, their time is more beneficial than the amount of money they can give. (That last point takes me right back to our discussions on People vs Parts.)

Having spoken to Lucy Buck who runs the foundation, she says that this people-to-people approach has been very successful, in both increasing participation, reducing waste (particularly with time), and in turn, has reduced costs.

What can we learn here?

There are a few lessons here for charities using Social Media, and for community in general:

• Find advocates who are stake holders. The people that give most to charities are the ones that have benefited by them.
• Create complete tools to help people share. Don’t make people have to work to share you. (Watch this video for more.)
• Have multiple levels of participation, with the lowest being just a click.
• Value more than money -- and make it clear you do. Because to make anything work, you need more than money -- you need people.

I know today might be too late for you to get massively involved with Christian Aid Week, but what you can do at least is donate your status. I’ll be doing it.

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

4 Things Charities Can Learn From Christian Aid Week

Last Friday I posted a video about the gripe I have with bloggers who tag “What do you think?” onto the end of blog posts in order to make them social. What followed was a really great discussion in the comments section that I want to highlight and then add some more ideas to mixing pot.

I have four issues that I’ve drawn from the comments you made, and bolded the main points, as this has turned out to be a longer post than usual.

Why Comments Matter

They matter because that’s when blogging becomes social. When I look at where I’ve come in the last year, I can direct much of it to the comments on this blog, and the follow discussions on Skype and face to face. I always say that connections trump community, that is, a connection with someone who is engaging two-way with you is far more valuable than someone in the community that just blindly ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ your stuff on Facebook or Twitter (and the offline equivilents of such tokenism.)

Forget about audiences, attendance and readership. It’s about participation. (The first words are one way, participation is two way.)

Comments matter because that’s where ideas are shared and adapted, and then those adaptions are documented online. I’m not into getting comments for vanity and ego. I’m in it because I want participation in order for us to ACT and DO.

Someone that I respect who doesn’t ask “What do you think?” only to not respond to the comments is Seth Godin. People have been up in arms about Seth’s no comment policy (he has them switched off), but there is a refreshing authenticity to this: he doesn’t want them and therefore doesn’t allow them. I can handle that.

The Issues

For me, there are two angles on my gripe. The first is the poor question of “What do you think?” and the following poor comment engagement. The second is the poor comments from readers such as “great post” and “I agree”, which are mindless responses to generally what was a mindless question (“What do you think?”). Based on Friday’s comments, here are the issues that we discussed:

1 – Readers don’t know what to comment

Chris Hall said in the comments:

“I think that for many people comments on blogs are actually quite intimidating. I suppose what I’m saying is that we all have to aim our parting remarks as we conclude our posts at the relevant audience or debate.”

The thing here is that the readers don’t know how to comment, often because there is no direction on how to do so. We read loads of blog posts about writing better blog posts and getting more comments, but who is writing about being a better commenter? (Will get to that a moment)

Chris answers his question in the same sentence – we need to help commenters with what to comment. Randy Dunning agreed with that the answer to the fear of commenting is “all the more reason to ask focused question” which leads us to the second issue:

2 – Bloggers don’t know what questions to ask

For all our talk of community and curation, I think the skills of facilitation are really absent in a lot of bloggers and on a lot of blogs.

This is what Josh Chandler brought up, and I agree with him:

“I find myself getting to the end of an article and finding I’ve constructed my side of the opinion, but not exactly formulated primers to get people thinking as they read through the post.”

The solution here is to practice – and this isn’t something you can read a blog post on Mashable for. Get good at offline engagement and then transfer it. Start valuing people – I mean really valuing people – individual people. Look at what you’re writing and then ask what you’re very smart, informed, expertised readers can add to the thoughts you’ve started, and then get specific about it.

3 – The community focusses on Blog Posts, not Blog Comments

I can tell you right now that every Social Media update newsletter, feedburner feed, retweet, Facebook share and the rest are all for Blog Posts, not Blog Comments. On one hand that’s fine because that’s what we lead with, but seriously, when was the last time you really engaged in a comments section and were retweeting it because of the comments? Like I said, my comments have made me and taken me to where I am at the moment – I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Robin Dickinson pointed to the undervaluing of people being part of the cause with this:

“As you say – it’s all about people. And the secret to really honoring people is to truly engage with questions rather than lecture with opinions. Yes, have a balance – but online the balance seems to have weighed very much in favour of ‘me-cast first’, and then ask a token question.”

Totally. Anybody who is any good at hosting dinner parties knows this. You put others first, rather than inviting people over to your house to talk about yourself the whole time.

Sy Taylor then brought up the point of using technology to stay in touch with comments. I’ve actually done you a diservice in not explaining that I use Disqus because you can subscribe to comments using it. When it comes to taking your community and developing connections out of it, I know of few better ways online.

I think the fact that we emphasise the blog post first, and then the comments are our second ‘tag on’, cannot just be left to “well thats the way that the technology was developed.” I think it is because:

4 – We don’t understand Social

Social is all about people and relating with them (not to them). The word comes from the Latin for companion. Dictionary.com posts 12 definitions of the adjective of Social, the first 8 being:

1. pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations: a social club.
2. seeking or enjoying the companionship of others; friendly; sociable; gregarious.
3. of, pertaining to, connected with, or suited to polite or fashionable society: a social event.
4. living or disposed to live in companionship with others or in a community, rather than in isolation: People are social beings.
5. of or pertaining to human society, esp. as a body divided into classes according to status: social rank.
6. involved in many social activities: We’re so busy working, we have to be a little less social now.
7. of or pertaining to the life, welfare, and relations of human beings in a community: social problems.
8. noting or pertaining to activities designed to remedy or alleviate certain unfavorable conditions of life in a community, esp. among the poor.

Where is that on most blogs?

The whole thing about Social Media was that it is relational and in its simplest form, is two way. So what happened to two way when blogs are just one way – the author broadcasting?

I hate to promote myself at this point, but the Social / Broadcast Matrix helps tidy so much of this up and provides a clear way to understand what is social and what is not. I really do wish SmartBrief or Mashable would break out of their usual rubbish and post that framework because I really think it would help clarify a whole bunch of mess and make us realise just how unsocial a lot of ‘social media’ is.

Social Media, once again, are tools built around relationship. Wikipedia:

“Social media is a term used to describe the type of media that is based on conversation and interaction between people online.”

I’m just going to go and ahead and say it: in my opinion, any blogger that invites comments but 1. doesn’t ask meaningful questions, and 2. doesn’t engage with meaningful responses, 1. just doesn’t value their readers, and 2. is an anti-social blogger.

Bloggers like this are reproducing more and more egotistical megalomaniacs who are blogging for fame under the guise of Social. A note to them: either be like Seth and others like him and be straight about it and tell us what you’re here for, or stop using the community that I love so much and put so much into for your selfish gains.

The Main Point

Blogs that don’t ask meaningful, thought through questions and don’t engage in meaningful responses don’t value their readers and are anti-social.

Your Leading Thoughts

I need to wrap here before I launch into other things I have to say, but let me finish with this:

My friend Chris Brogan uses the analogy of a blog being like a house, that you invite people back to when you meet them on Twitter or Facebook. At your house, you have your content, etc.

My question for you is:

• Do you invite people to your house to then just talk about yourself, and reply to nothing your guests have to say?

Photo courtesy of Benjamin Ellis, at Like Minds 2010

This thought comes from Scott Gould's thinking blog for thinking people. Scott is also on Twitter and Facebook.

4 Issues With Comments, And Why Most Blogs Are Anti-Social