There’s a convergence going on: some big social and business trends that have one thing in common – the word open.

Whether it’s open-source software, or enormous information repositories that are open to be accessed and sometimes even edited by anyone, or the growing requirements for transparency on the part of organizations and governments, your customers, supporters and audience are expecting you to be open to them.

Not just in the sense of open-minded… or having a contact form on your web site. But open in the sense that they know what you’re doing, how it affects them, and why. That your organization’s leadership is available and accountable. That they can engage with you and your brand as peers.

Books like Wikinomics and Tactical Transparency explain not only the forces driving the trend toward openness, but the real value that businesses and other organizations can gain when they let in some sunshine. Freeing some of your intellectual property, for instance, can allow your users to run with it – sometimes as brand ambassadors, other times as analysts who generate new and unexpected insights for you. And opening up internally, by creating a place for conversation that cuts across departmental walls, can give your organization new opportunities to collaborate.

Even the more intimidating aspects of openness, like the increased accountability it imposes, can be positive when it keeps organizations true to their mission and their brand values – and aligned with the communities they serve.

There’s more – a lot more – to openness than blogging, of course. But a blog can be the way your organization opens the windows a crack, sniffs the air outside and decides whether to go further.

Here’s how to start opening up:

• Nobody’s expecting you to run naked through the digital streets – and certainly not right off the bat. Get buy-in from your organization, start small, and open up gradually… validating what you’ve done at every step.
• Your first step can be a modest one: bringing in a manager as a guest blogger, for example, available to respond to reader comments and questions about their area of responsibility. A successful outing there can lead to more ambitious efforts later on.
• Focus your efforts on relevant openness – things that actually matter to your readers. And aim at first for the areas with the least controversy and risk, while you build up your organization’s comfort level (and your own knowledge of your community of readers and commenters.)
• Openness is as much about getting to know people as it is about hard facts and controversial issues. Introduce your readers to the behind-the-scenes folks who make things happen. If those people are willing, give your readers access to them with a Q & A or live chat on your blog.
• Let your readers in on what goes on backstage. Take them through the process of making that hot new product you’re selling, or walk them through the processing of a donation all the way to where it makes a difference out in the world.
• Share your challenges. Is the economic downturn causing breaks or bottlenecks in your supply chain that are causing delivery delays? Has heightened interest in your organization meant a slow web server or site outages? Be the first to tell that story to your readers, before they hear it from others or experience it themselves; they’ll appreciate the candor, and respond well to your lack of defensiveness.
• Anticipate the risks of openness: backlash, criticism and tough questions. Plan in advance for how you can deal with them, so a brief spark doesn’t have the time to flare into something more destructive.
• “Open” doesn’t mean “floodgates”. You probably have reams of data you could share on your blog, from the cafeteria’s daily specials to the new guidelines for office allocation. Be judicious, and choose the information that will mean the most to the people you want to reach.
• If you have an especially thorny problem, consider throwing it open to your readers. Be very clear about the kind of help you’d like, so you can focus their contributions and ideas where they’ll actually be useful.
• When the time comes to make a decision that affects your readers, use your blog as consult them
• See if you can make your organization’s logo and wordmark available for reuse (perhaps under a Creative Commons license), and post them to your blog. Invite your readers to use them, even to remix them, when they’re talking about your organization. Do the same with photos of your organization’s leadership, audio and video clips of products or services in action, and other digital assets that your readers can run with.
• Do at least as much listening as talking, and build the reflex of responding with access. If you’re seeing a lot of blog chatter or reading a lot of comments about a particular issue, find ways to open up around it – by exposing some of your internal conversations about the issue, for example, or inviting a conversation between your readers and some of your organization’s key people.
• Look for ways to bring people inside – not just virtually, but in the physical world. Hold a real-world meetup in your offices, for example, or a townhall with your organization’s key leaders. And complete the circle by linking it back to the online world – for instance, via a Twitter feed or liveblog of the conversation.

You’ll know that openness is starting to pay off when:

• Your research and monitoring show an increase in public perception and description of your organization as open, accessible and accountable.
• Ideas from your blog’s readers start getting discussed in your organization, and taken seriously.
• Your organization steps back from the brink of a bad decision because of concern over how it will be received in the community. And your organization takes a courageous good decision for exactly the same reason.
• Internal collaboration starts to cut across silos, as the culture of openness soaks in.
• People in your organization start to approach you with things they’d like to ask or share with your readers.

  Read more...

There’s a convergence going on: some big social and business trends that have one thing in common – the word open.

Whether it’s open-source software, or enormous information repositories that are open to be accessed and sometimes even edited by anyone, or the growing requirements for transparency on the part of organizations and governments, your customers, supporters and audience are expecting you to be open to them.

Not just in the sense of open-minded… or having a contact form on your web site. But open in the sense that they know what you’re doing, how it affects them, and why. That your organization’s leadership is available and accountable. That they can engage with you and your brand as peers.

Books like Wikinomics and Tactical Transparency explain not only the forces driving the trend toward openness, but the real value that businesses and other organizations can gain when they let in some sunshine. Freeing some of your intellectual property, for instance, can allow your users to run with it – sometimes as brand ambassadors, other times as analysts who generate new and unexpected insights for you. And opening up internally, by creating a place for conversation that cuts across departmental walls, can give your organization new opportunities to collaborate.

Even the more intimidating aspects of openness, like the increased accountability it imposes, can be positive when it keeps organizations true to their mission and their brand values – and aligned with the communities they serve.

There’s more – a lot more – to openness than blogging, of course. But a blog can be the way your organization opens the windows a crack, sniffs the air outside and decides whether to go further.

Here’s how to start opening up:

• Nobody’s expecting you to run naked through the digital streets – and certainly not right off the bat. Get buy-in from your organization, start small, and open up gradually… validating what you’ve done at every step.
• Your first step can be a modest one: bringing in a manager as a guest blogger, for example, available to respond to reader comments and questions about their area of responsibility. A successful outing there can lead to more ambitious efforts later on.
• Focus your efforts on relevant openness – things that actually matter to your readers. And aim at first for the areas with the least controversy and risk, while you build up your organization’s comfort level (and your own knowledge of your community of readers and commenters.)
• Openness is as much about getting to know people as it is about hard facts and controversial issues. Introduce your readers to the behind-the-scenes folks who make things happen. If those people are willing, give your readers access to them with a Q & A or live chat on your blog.
• Let your readers in on what goes on backstage. Take them through the process of making that hot new product you’re selling, or walk them through the processing of a donation all the way to where it makes a difference out in the world.
• Share your challenges. Is the economic downturn causing breaks or bottlenecks in your supply chain that are causing delivery delays? Has heightened interest in your organization meant a slow web server or site outages? Be the first to tell that story to your readers, before they hear it from others or experience it themselves; they’ll appreciate the candor, and respond well to your lack of defensiveness.
• Anticipate the risks of openness: backlash, criticism and tough questions. Plan in advance for how you can deal with them, so a brief spark doesn’t have the time to flare into something more destructive.
• “Open” doesn’t mean “floodgates”. You probably have reams of data you could share on your blog, from the cafeteria’s daily specials to the new guidelines for office allocation. Be judicious, and choose the information that will mean the most to the people you want to reach.
• If you have an especially thorny problem, consider throwing it open to your readers. Be very clear about the kind of help you’d like, so you can focus their contributions and ideas where they’ll actually be useful.
• When the time comes to make a decision that affects your readers, use your blog as consult them
• See if you can make your organization’s logo and wordmark available for reuse (perhaps under a Creative Commons license), and post them to your blog. Invite your readers to use them, even to remix them, when they’re talking about your organization. Do the same with photos of your organization’s leadership, audio and video clips of products or services in action, and other digital assets that your readers can run with.
• Do at least as much listening as talking, and build the reflex of responding with access. If you’re seeing a lot of blog chatter or reading a lot of comments about a particular issue, find ways to open up around it – by exposing some of your internal conversations about the issue, for example, or inviting a conversation between your readers and some of your organization’s key people.
• Look for ways to bring people inside – not just virtually, but in the physical world. Hold a real-world meetup in your offices, for example, or a townhall with your organization’s key leaders. And complete the circle by linking it back to the online world – for instance, via a Twitter feed or liveblog of the conversation.

You’ll know that openness is starting to pay off when:

• Your research and monitoring show an increase in public perception and description of your organization as open, accessible and accountable.
• Ideas from your blog’s readers start getting discussed in your organization, and taken seriously.
• Your organization steps back from the brink of a bad decision because of concern over how it will be received in the community. And your organization takes a courageous good decision for exactly the same reason.
• Internal collaboration starts to cut across silos, as the culture of openness soaks in.
• People in your organization start to approach you with things they’d like to ask or share with your readers.

  Read more...

Turns out it really is better to give than receive! We just handed Julie Ovenell-Carter, a.k.a. @sfuwoodwards, her brand new Flip MinoHD video camera, her prize in Social Signal’s first Twitter contest.

First a word about the Flip: We’re in love with these little beasts. The quality is great, the cameras are tiny, and they put affordable video into the hands of lots more people than ever before… while making it easier than ever to share with the world. What’s not to love – especially since they take the creative self-expression one step further, letting you customize your Flip with your own design?

We asked Julie if she’d mind if we slapped our logo on there, and she very kindly agreed, and we think it looks chic as all hell.

And second, a word about the Julie and the SFU/Woodward’s project.

The Woodward’s development is a fantastically innovative housing, business, social and cultural development in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, built on the site of a former department store. And a big part of it will be the relocated Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts.

That relocation is documented on the SFU Woodwards blog… but because you want the very latest updates, and enjoy one of Twitter’s more engaging and lively voices, you’ll want to check out the project’s Twitter feed… the one that Julie writes.

(Did we mention she’s an award-winning writer? She’s an award-winning writer. Crikey.)

We couldn’t be happier that this particular Flip is going to go to work recording one of the most important, ground-breaking initiatives in the history of Canadian urban development. But we also hope Julie (who’s also a travel blogger) gets to have some fun with it, too!

Congratulations, Julie, and thanks to everyone who entered!

(woman to a dog in her lap) Fine, you can have an account. But if you wind up with more followers than I have, I’m deleting your furry ass.

I’d been looking forward to catching the session on metrics that Beth Kanter was going to facilitate at NTEN/NTC, and it didn’t disappoint.

Participants Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation, Qui Diaz of Livingston Communications, Sarah Granger from PublicEdge and Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross tackled the tricky question of just how you measure social media (or, more to the point, participation in and impact of social media).

Beth started by quoting David Armano‘s prescription for using social media metrics: “Listen, learn, adapt.” From there, the wide-ranging conversation touched on sentiment analysis, the resources you should put into social media monitoring, tools and how best to apply them, and some practical stories from the field.

I’m working on my routine for tonight’s after show, so I won’t try to capture it all. Instead, for whatever they’re worth, my notes from the panel:

Here Comes Everybody author Clay Shirky manages to jam in more ideas, pithy quotes and gripping stories in one half-hour keynote than some speakers could manage in a week… but still ties it all together in a compelling narrative.

His presentation this morning at the NTEN Non-profit Technology Conference looked at how the web has broken the monopoly that organizations used to have on organized activity… and how profound the resulting change can be.

One particularly memorable bit came when he explained how moving to New York City from the midwest changed his perspective, because of the idea of a population large enough that you could sell pizza by the slice… which meant pizzas were being made before knowing who they were for.

I can’t do it justice in a single blog post. But maybe my notes can give you just a bit of the flavour of his presentation. (That one doodle doesn’t look a thing like him, by the way.)

Some of my fondest memories involve wilderness – whether it’s a campfire with my parents, a hike with Alex to a glacial lake, or watching my children gape in awe at a sunflower sea star in a Cortes Island tidal pool.

Now wonder, then, that one of our favourite projects in quite a while is The Big Wild: an online community where people can share stories, photos and video of their wilderness experiences, connect with others who share their passion for Canada’s big wild spaces, and take action to preserve those places for future generations.

It’s a partnership between the Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. That marriage that makes a lot of sense: Canada’s premiere retailer of gear for enjoying the wilderness (and a huge membership-based organization), together with one of the country’s leading voices for protecting it.

MEC and CPAWS brought us in because, while the site was winning them a lot of praise and attention, it wasn’t getting the participation they knew it could.

We helped them simplify and clarify the workflow on the site, and put the focus squarely on community-contributed content by giving it pride of place on the front page. The Big Wild’s team upgraded the site late this winter, with FCV Technologies moving them to Drupal (and adding or improving some welcome features like RSS feeds, full-site search and tagging). It’s still early days, but things are definitely picking up.

We’d love to know what you think. If you enjoy getting out into the wilderness, then take a short hike over to The Big Wild. Add your voice to support the Big Wild vision of protecting at least half of Canada’s public spaces as wilderness forever. And while you’re at it, join the Big Wild Facebook page.

And then why not enter The Big Wild’s latest contest? You could win a truly amazing Gore-Tex jacket by sharing your story of a rain-soaked wilderness excursion.

Asked on LinkedIn: “Blogs are a very good tool for consumers to evaluate prospective product or service providers. However, how can a business use blogs to its commercial advantage (i.e. gain valuable insight into customer behavior and satisfaction levels) while minimizing the risk of being unduly smeared by a minority of disgruntled customers or even competitor attacks?”

First, draw a line in your own mind between smears and legitimate criticism – and err on the side of generosity. A big part of the power of blogging comes from conversations and the relationships that flow from them… and those conversations can’t happen if your readers don’t feel they can be honest about you, warts and all.

In that vein, recognize that the commercial advantage of blogging isn’t exclusively, or even primarily, the window it gives you into your customers’ heads. It’s your ability to engage with your audience. Blogging’s ROI comes in many other forms: as a crisis communications channel, a way to tell stories that don’t work in other media, a training platform and more. (I’m up to part 8 of a series on blogging ROI you might find useful.)

All of that said, how do you reduce the risk of actual smears? Here are a few ways:

• First, set out your expectations clearly and explicitly in an introductory blog post, and on your blog’s About page. Explain your intentions (and motives – transparency counts), and let people know how they can contribute. And make it clear what is and isn’t in-bounds, and why (that is, because you want to have an open and productive conversation).
• Second, solicit the kind of contributions you want to see. Ask questions in blog posts that focus the conversation. Join relevant conversations on other blogs – either in their comment fields, or via trackback – to encourage more participation on yours.
• Third, respond to the comments people leave. Most of your conversation should be with the folks leaving productive comments. If you do get comments that verge on flames, remind the commenters of the purpose of the blog – but address whatever good-faith points they’ve made.
• Fourth, welcome your supporters… but also your critics. The fact that your blog includes voices that clash with yours lends the ring of authenticity to the conversation – especially when your supporters jump into the fray, as they will. You may find that your biggest challenge isn’t to deal with critics, but to moderate the vehemence of your allies.
• Fifth, know when to cut and run from a bad conversation. It doesn’t serve you or your readers for you to be getting into a slanging match with someone who doesn’t want to hear you. There’s nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree (even if the “agreement” is purely unilateral).
• And sixth, remember that what you think of as smearing, a disgruntled customer – and *their* audience – may well think of as a legitimate point. There are ways of engaging even harsh critics in ways that defuse conflict and dampen down the flames. David Eaves has some superb advice on dealing with conflict in blogging, and it’s well worth checking out.