Hopper Analytical - Key Concept

Moving this Site to keithhopper.com

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:21:56 -0400

This website and blog have moved to keithhopper.com.

Please move your links and feeds as appropriate.

All news, posts, and essays will appear there from now on.

Collective Intelligence Book Arrives

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:40:45 -0400

Today, the book Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace arrived on my doorstep. I am fortunate enough to be a contributing author. My chapter is entitled Empowering Individuals Towards Collective Online Production, and focuses on the paradoxical notion of the importance of individual motivation in effective online collaboration. Works from several of my personal heroes appear in this compendium, including Yochai Benkler, Doug Engelbart, Pierre Levy, Thomas Malone, Howard Rheingold, and David Weinberger. I simultaneously feel incredibly fortunate and remarkably unworthy of sharing a book jacket with the likes of these folks, but here it is.

Online Participation Headed Towards Democratic Utopia or Civic Demise?

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:59:06 -0400

On Thursday, the MIT Center for Future Civic Media as part of the MIT Communications Forum and Civic Media Series hosted a talk between Yochai Benkler and Cass Sunstein, moderated by Henry Jenkins and entitled "Our World Digitized: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly." The premise, of which I was skeptical, was to get Cass and Yochai to duke it out over whether internet participation was headed anywhere good. I was dubious of MIT staging a scholarly drama, but Benkler, Sunstein, and Jenkins have written three of the (arguably) most important recent works on the participatory internet, and for that fact alone, attendance was mandatory.

Many great arguments were articulated, all of which can be heard here. To nutshell it, Sunstein stayed true to his books stating that pervasive individual self-selection on the internet is leading to insulation and a lack of diversity. He paraded out the tired old The Daily Me argument and the so-called echo chamber effect. He suggests that democracy itself is at risk, as it requires diverse input, the exchange of unshared knowledge, and serendipitous encounters to function effectively.

Benkler refused to outright disagree with Sunstein, but instead focused on the positive effect of empowering individuals to participate online. He argued that individuals who perceive they can influence society's agenda become more engaged in civic discourse and behave more responsibly in this context. I took this to mean that individuals who feel they can make a difference are more likely to be engaged (vs. detached), develop meaningful arguments (vs. complain), and try to make a productive difference (vs. passivity).

While I agree with Sunstein's desire for diversity and serendipity and with Benkler's excitement over individual feelings of empowerment, I was disappointed that neither questioned the tired and quaint notion of the web being nothing more than a series of echo chambers. I wonder if either looks outside their inboxes to see what's really going on. Here is where Jenkins should have jumped in and schooled them on growing participation across diverse online communities, the wildly serendipitous (if not downright chaotic) information exchange found on Twitter, and individual interest (and subsequent sharing) expanding outward across every category of long tail media and knowledge. I would go farther to argue that emerging social norms in online interactions encourage diverse information dissemenation and punish the types of insular behavior that Sunstein and Benkler seem to accept as universal.

Undoubtedly, there are specific examples where echo chambers do exist, and link analysis shows narrow patterns of interaction in, for example, select political blogs, but I would argue that the internet is just a wee bit more than link spam littering the bottom of inflammatory blog posts.

I live-twittered the event. Here are some selected Tweets
(These are not direct quotes but rather real-time paraphrasing what I took each speaker to mean. Greatness is theirs. Mistakes are mine):

Benkler: What happens instead of a few elite that can set the agenda, we now have 3 million who believe they can affect their society
Yochai suggests that traditional mass media is more polarizing (fox news, radio talk shows) than the web's perceived echo chamber effect
Sunstein: How much serendipity we embrace depends on what we're regularly exposed to
Show of hands: 3/4 of the Bartos Theater audience have edited Wikipedia
We need a new model for understanding human behavior that builds in imperfection to allow for the possibility of true collaboration
Benkler: If you feel you have the ability to influence the cultural agenda, your concerns migrate from complaints to considered positional arguments
Sunstein, in response to what web tools should come to be: Stimulate curiosity. Once curiosity is triggered, it is very hard to resist
Triggering participatory activity requires, in part, for individuals to feel their efforts are needed and wanted
1st order diversity = range within our group (different people); 2nd order diversity = range across groups (different groups)
Sunstein: 4 probs in deliberation: amplify individual bias, polarization, early words initiate cascade, shared knowledge crowds out unshared

The Customer Wants a Divorce

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:32:45 -0400

"The Break Up" video has been around for about a year, but it's so relevant to what we've been working on with Project VRM, I couldn't resist posting it. Produced by Microsoft (of all people) along with ad agency openhere.be, the short video is a brilliant slam on how the traditional approach to customer outreach is woefully out of touch. It basically runs like an ad for The Cluetrain Manifesto.

The video is by Geert Desager and originally posted at bringtheloveback.com.

Big Week for Shoutouts

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:45:58 -0400

Seeing as I get "the mention" about once a year, and usually by accident, I figured I’d strut out the fact that I got two (2) unsolicited plugs this week on not totally obscure media outlets.

The first was from none other than the Cluetrain man himself, Doc Searls. During a Newsgang podcast from Steve Gillmore with Steven Hill, and the Interim CEO of NPR, Dennis Haarsager, Doc mentioned our work together on Project VRM at the Berkman Center. The future of public broadcasting discussion that ensues is an interesting insider view and a worthwhile listen.

The next one was great fun and truly a historic moment in our little sphere of nerds-who-work-in-public-broadcasting. Thursday’s Up to Date call-in show on KCUR (Kansas City) was sagely dedicated to the future of Public Broadcasting and its interesting and evolving relationship with the web and social technology.

Rob Patterson, Andy Carvin, and Todd Mundt then spent the next hour trying their damnest to not talk constantly about Twitter (and pretty much failed). In a particularly self-referential moment, Andy mentioned that I was livetwittering a bunch of twittering broadcasters as they broadcast twitter's impact on broadcasting. I’m not sure that last sentence was grammatically correct or even remotely what Andy said, but whatever. Listen to it yourself.

Making Experts: The Future of Audience Engagement

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:00:04 -0400

How might media organizations better engage their audiences online?

Over the past year, I teamed up with several public broadcasters to try and answer this question. We collected lessons while rolling out online participation software at NPR’s Car Talk, KQED, Oregon Public Broadcasting, PRI’s The World and a dozen others. We are learning that the future of media engagement goes beyond invitations for listener comments. The leading examples involve much higher expectations from the "audience"; specifically, their partnership in delivering on more collaborative projects.

Take WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show, who in late 2007 asked their listeners to share price inequities they found at local grocery stores. The results made national news, and not just for the novel use of crowdsourced journalism (turns out that the state regulates milk prices, and not everyone was playing by the rules). As the demand for richer and more compelling media experiences increase, you’ll likely see less "Come join the discussion" and more "Let’s solve a problem together".

Most important here is the word "together". What participants want is a team-oriented experience that is open, inclusive, and aims to produce valuable outcomes where they can benefit. While these co-directed endeavors can be challenging to conceive and manage, they can drive significantly more participation and yield real, lasting online value (they now have a nice map of beer prices across Manhattan). Successful initiatives give the opportunity for all to be involved, and for many to play the role of expert – whether as an authoritative voice, a creative problem-solver, a data gatherer, or even a tackler of basic tasks. The very best solutions have participants as co-creators, co-directors, and even co-owners of the produced results. In this more collaborative environment, the notion of "the audience" begins to dissolve.

These collaborative projects can involve varying levels of commitment from participants. The following list identifies a spectrum of media-driven initiatives, from those with the least individual involvement to the most.

Opinion & Preference – Extract localized knowledge and insight from your audience in the form of polls, aggregated estimates or prediction markets.

Basic Task Completion – Why not crowdsource a simple electronic task? Well, for starters, coming up with a compelling outcome and building a system to do it efficiently are two likely reasons not to. There are a few good examples of ones that seem to be working, although tying it effectively to media might be a different story.

Shared Experience – Collect narratives around unique themes. Inviting in stories effectively involves finding unexpected, yet invariably human common ground.

Unique Expertise – If you have a big enough audience, track down the needle in the haystack by seeking unique expertise. Proven ideas include troubleshooting car problems, soliciting peace corps volunteers, or getting hot tips on possible stories.

Research Data & Analysis – You don’t need rare skills to roll your sleeves and do some primary research or apply a critical eye. Audience members have proven their ability at spotting celebrities, measuring a city’s SUV density, and helping slog through the JFK files for conspiracy clues.

Creative Content – Accumulating creative submissions around a common theme is a time-tested method for getting media junkies engaged. Consider offering incentives and showcasing the best. Examples are endless: photos, top-10 lists, t-shirt ideas, show names, fan fiction, and full-on radio stations to name but a handful.

Ideas & Solutions – "Given enough eyeballs, all [problems] are shallow." Arguably the oldest crowdsourcing endeavor was the British government trying to solve the longitude problem. And since then, pumping your community for insights to address specific issues has inspired everything from the online suggestion box to trying to find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease.

True Collaboration – Bringing a community together, deploying varied skills over time in a dynamic and massively productive process is the holy grail for online participation. It's like applying the complexities of open source software development to the media industry. Three noble efforts in this regard include spurring organized community action, collaborative story coverage, and, of course, cataloging the World's knowledge.

What Motivates Online Social Participation?

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 11:02:36 -0500

Can the motivations that drive individual behavior towards online collaborative production be explained entirely by enlightened self-interest?

Clay Shirky Speaks about His New Book: "Here Comes Everybody"

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:38:17 -0500

I had the good fortune to hear Clay Shirky speak last night at Harvard Law School. The event was hosted by Harvard’s Berkman Center as a lead-up to their 10 year anniversary celebration. The event also coincided with the release of Clay’s new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Clay spent the majority of the discussion outlining the book. He began by pointing out that the book is not necessarily targeted to just the folks in the room (various flavors of webophile), but rather to a wider and more generalized audience. His argument for this was that "the web is no longer a decoration on society, but a challenge to it," meaning that usage and adoption of the Internet has become ubiquitious and integrated into how we do things to the level that for many of us, the Internet has become "the dashboard for our lives". So, theoretically, the book should have more universal readership.

I attempted to Twitter the presentation. I tried to capture his sound bites and cogent points, but Clay is a veritable font of wisdom and one-liners. I ended up with a serious case of twitterrhea. Below is a slightly cleaned up transcript of my tweats over the course of about an hour. Shirky direct quotes are in quotes. Everything else that isn’t labeled as my own thoughts [Ed:] can be attributed to Clay Shirky.

From Clay Shirky website: "If I had to describe what I write about, it would be "systems where vested interests lose out to innovation."

Historically, media innovations that allow two way communications produce active groups. Broadcast technology... not so good at this.

If Clay had to boil the book down to one bullet point = "Group Action Just Got Easier"

"Groups get complex faster than they get large" [Ed: i.e. the network effect, Reed’s Law, etc.]

The Internet acts as a prosthetic for existing group activity.

New social tools on the Internet make group connections ridiculously easy to form

Email was an afterthought of the Internet

"Reply all" was the Internet's first social feature

Curiously, once the technology gets boring, the social effects get interesting [Ed: by this, he means once the technology gets out of the way, becomes commonplace, and slides beneath the radar of awkward attention, then it becomes integrated into how we function as social creatures and the most interesting social effects of a technology begin to emerge]

"Me First Collaboration" = social effects that emerge from self-serving behavior, e.g. del.icio.us lets me store my bookmarks, but ultimately becomes useful to all [Ed: Or Google extracting social relevance from individually created links]

The annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade is an example where amateur photographers leveraged ad hoc online sharing (via flickr)

HDR photography as an example of using a flickr group to accelerate innovation through a community of practice (what used to take 8 years for a technology/process to emerge from lead users to professional process to documented practice to trade magazines to amateurs to shared understanding now takes weeks)

"every URL is a latent community"

"Sharing + conversation leaves a residue of instruction"

A comparison of a Buffy discussion board moving to a new platform is like a hermit crab changing its shell

Sharing -> Conversation -> Collaboration -> Collective Action are things that require increasing amounts of synchronization of group action.

"Thinking is for doing" [Ed: by this, he means that the purpose for human thought is so that we can then take action; quote attributed to someone I’ve forgotten] => "Publishing is for acting"

"Flashmobs are the Flagpole sitting of 2003"

"Nothing says dictatorship like arresting people for eating ice cream"

Ridiculously easy group-forming improves sharing, conversation, collaboration, and collective action

Behavioral economics states that social behavior online is more than just enlightened self-interest, for example, see the ultimatum game and the self-defeating individual act of punishing defectors

Irrational individual behavior spent towards generating social cohesion cannot justifiably be explained away by enlightened self-interest

Social technology can be used for more than just good… case in point, YM magazine shutting down their discussion boards because pro-anorexic girls were swapping practical tips

What’s the future of investigative journalism and its impact on smaller cities that can’t afford newspapers who have historically played this role? "I don't yet see a way that blogs can create sustained observation that stops civic corruption"

There are no good examples of long-term collective action - institutionalization becomes a problem over time

What works with collective action right now [to stimulate participation and worldwide attention] are surprises... but they are a wasting asset

Where individuals change their behavior BECAUSE they're members of the group is the key definer of collective action

"Immersive games get us out of the hell of continuous partial attention"

Shifting Tolerance in a Hybrid Economy

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 15:34:45 -0500

In a neighborhood near my home, there is a school playground with an enormous three story chain link fence along one side – presumably as a barrier for errant basketballs. The fence is constructed inches away from an adjacent home. I thought to myself "that would suck - I would probably rather have broken windows than live behind that huge fence". Then I thought of all sorts of examples of aggressive organizational behavior in our society that is tolerated, even though their behavior could easily be perceived as unfair or intrusive. I'm not suggesting that all business behavior is universally tolerated, but rather that their fundamental commercial presence is often quietly accepted. For example, we forgive the school's fence because we deem urban play areas for children are worth the tradeoffs. We also forgive Apple's fierce closedness, Google's ads, and Nike's ubiquitous branding. What's most interesting to me, however, is that we don't have a single standard for what is tolerated. There are some interesting nuances here. For example, I doubt my neighborhood would have tolerated a condo developer building a fence like that, and ubiquitous branding around your religion’s holiday is generally frowned upon.

Looking carefully at our culture's relationship to commerce, every business in some way lives on an unspoken agreement by the community to tolerate an incursive aspect of its existence (I'm presupposing that of course businesses provide meaningful value to customers ahead of their potentially invasive aspects).

Now consider our emerging hybrid economy. An organization operating in this new hybrid economy sits between the commercial economy of financial transactions and the sharing economy that thrives on free and open distribution of value (think of sharing as found within Wikipedia and Open Source Software). Take Google - a business operating in the hybrid economy with, among other things, YouTube. They rely on people openly sharing video content while they generate revenue from the accumulated eyeballs.

The emerging hybrid economy now shines the spotlight more brightly on a business’s tolerated behavior. If people don't embrace all aspects of a business, individuals might not just stop buying their products, they might stop sharing, which is an altogether new and potentially more disastrous fate. Rejection of a business would mean defection from its associated shared commons – to the detriment of society, not just specific product consumers.

The obvious question becomes then, how do you construct a business that leverages a hybrid economy without poisoning the sharing and good will? Where can these businesses carve out a profit and advantage around commercial behavior that is culturally tolerated? What specific aspects of hybrid businesses are required to facilitate social tolerance?

Introducing the Google Infamy Coefficient

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:25:43 -0500

What's the smallest portion of a person's name that can be typed into Google before the Suggest feature returns their full name? To allow for meaningful analysis and comparison, I propose the Google Infamy Coefficient (GIC).

GIC = (# successive characters entered into Google Suggest before the full name is revealed) / (# characters in the full name)

The results on the way to my own name are graphed below (The GIC of Keith Hopper = .727). The most infamous Keiths appear to be Keith Richards and Keith Olberman, tying at GIC's of .23. Anyone know what name might have the lowest GIC? Blog props and bragging rights to anyone who figures it out and lets me know.

Hat tip to uber-geek Randall Munroe (.385) for the inspiration.

Has News Innovation Stalled?

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:55:09 -0400

Has news innovation stalled? The last decade has seen significant shifts in how news is created and delivered: grassroots publishing and online news aggregators for example have resulted in shifting advertising dollars and widespread panic in traditional mass media outlets. However, fresh approaches both in traditional media and in new media exploration has felt scarce as of late. Most of the recent thinking around news delivery involves slapping the latest social technology idea or delivery device onto a news outlet and calling it innovation. Or worse, a retreat into potential profitability through a focus on niche or hyperlocal audiences. Of course, some exceptions exist, but there is too much opportunity tied up in new technology and the shifting demands of the public to slow down the exploration of new ideas.

I think this lack of exploration is due to limitations in our assumptions about where to innovate. For example, participatory media means more than just tapping first-hand knowledge and citizen footage. Why can’t low-cost production tools be utilized by professional journalists as well as regular citizens? And what about the content itself - why do we assume short-form written articles or anchor-delivered video segments are the only relevant news vehicles? As the lines between producers and consumers of news blurs, can we forge partnerships based less on clearly defined roles and more on where creativity and power surround a specific story? Perhaps this requires organizational innovation and cooperative production that is merely enabled by emerging communications technology. Please stop with the same old approach repackaged on twitter from mobile phones via facebook. It's time to get original again folks.

Why VRM is Good for Business

Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:28:51 -0400

Conversations around VRM often include impassioned demands for more customer control. We live in an increasingly decentralized world with more customer choice, yet vendors continue to fiercely collect and control customer data and exploit the opportunities therein. It is no surprise that VRM can serve as a rallying cry of sorts for frustrated customers wanting to take back control from vendor lock-in, offensive communications, and privacy and security concerns in a world of mishandled personal data.

However, rooting the VRM opportunity in us vs. them, emotionally-driven arguments is an unlikely way to pave a path towards better relationships between customers and vendors, and I believe better relationships is ultimately the goal of VRM. The more I learn about VRM, the more I hear about the importance of benefits for both the buyer and the seller.

The big question that remains then is, how is VRM good for business? As we consider and construct tools that put the customer in control of their data, how will existing businesses be convinced this is a good thing? And what opportunities are in store for new businesses that can leverage VRM models? In short, how will companies make (more) money in a VRM world?

Here are some initial thoughts. I look forward to fleshing this out if others have input.

Customers share the burden of storing and protecting the data
Vendors face growing privacy concerns from consumers, liability for breaches in security, increased compliance and awareness around the risks of data sharing, and just the plain old cost of data storage and management. Might there be an opportunity to reduce the risks and costs for certain businesses by offloading responsibility to consumers in exchange for their increased control? I suspect there are certain businesses, such as those in the healthcare industry, whose costs here are significant and may benefit from a fresh approach.

New opportunities for vendors who are unwilling or unable to benefit from CRM
Implementing CRM systems and making them useful can be expensive and time-consuming. CRM is a particularly difficult sell for new, small businesses that don’t yet have significant value tied up in their customer data or the capability to extract value from it. Additionally, the increasing prevalence of niche businesses in a long-tail marketplace suggests many vendors might be less interested in the benefits of mainstream marketing methods deployed through CRM. Instead, ideas like the personal RFP showcase the value of customer data that is not centrally managed by one-size-fits-all vendors. There are likely many unexplored opportunities here with the potential to reduce costs and create new opportunity for vendors while increasing choice and control for customers.

Increased access to information about customers
In a world where customers might extend access to their own data, there can be direct benefits to the customer to share more data rather than less. For example, customers may share information around the nuances of their needs and wants. With the ability to enforce anonymity and protection from solicitation, it is likely the customer might be willing to share even more about themselves (e.g. information about purchases across multiple vendors). Customers might share more because they know that this information could result in not only the resolution of a specific request, but also overall increased choice, improved products and services, and more efficiency in the overall marketplace.

Implied in all this data sharing is the possibility for vendors to access more information, learn more about shifting demand, and respond more effectively in the market. It becomes less about who can control the customer, and more about who can respond better to customer demand with better products and services. In this universe, everyone that brings real value to the table wins.

New opportunities for those who can leverage customer-controlled data to create value
Perhaps the most valuable area for opportunity is in unexplored, new services that stem directly from previously unavailable access to customer data. Opportunities exist for leveraging customer data to create entirely new types of value that go beyond mere adjustments to existing products and services. Imagine, for example, if individually-managed medical data was made available in support of massive research initiatives. Additionally, sharing personal data could provide specific value back to the individual. For example, what’s my increased risk to specific ailments based on my medical history as mapped to that of my family, my neighbors, and the world?

Vendors treat their customers like cattle and blast us with unwelcome messaging because it’s what they know how to do and frankly, it works. It’s unlikely that many vendors will stop this practice. But it’s also unlikely they will adopt new ways of relating to customers unless we provide them with methods that reduce cost and increase opportunity while satisfying the customer’s need for greater control.

Managing the Public Media Relationship

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:46:47 -0400

How can a public radio listener take greater control of their relationship with public media?

This was (more or less) the question posed to a public media-savvy group last week at Harvard’s Berkman Center. Led by Doc Searls, our ad hoc team explored how to equip the public media audience with a VRM tool to better drive their relationship with existing broadcasters, distributors, and shows.

Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is the reciprocal to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). VRM explores the idea that individuals could create more value if they had better control over their vendor relationships rather than the other way around (my definition). The rise of participatory culture and its subsequent impact on vendors suggests an environment where this is not only possible, but highly desirable for everyone. Perhaps the long-term outcome of VRM will be to facilitate the dissolution of traditional consumer and vendor roles. Identity will be managed by the individual, but value production will happen across a spectrum of participants in a variety of capacities. In this environment, it will be difficult to define the meaningful boundaries of an organization, and what exactly constitutes an employee, vendor, consumer or producer.

A whole new generation of creative consumer has the potential to rediscover public broadcasting and co-opt it for its potential

But why public media?
Well, it feels like a good testing ground for something like VRM. If you are exploring the boundaries between organizations and the public, what better environment than one that is mission-driven to engage and serve the public?

There also seems to be a compelling overlap between what’s going on in participatory culture and what already exists surrounding public broadcasting. A whole new generation of creative consumer has the potential to rediscover public broadcasting and co-opt it for its potential as a non-commercial, open network designed explicitly to serve the public. I would ask, how can we encourage this?

...triggering more questions on engaging with public media in a participatory environment:

If we were to reinvent public radio in an end-to-end environment like the internet, what would it look like? How would it compare to what exists, and what important differences might emerge? What can we do to fill those gaps?
What does the long tail of public media look like? What are the democratized production tools, potential aggregators, and filters that drive demand down the tail?
As a creative consumer, what is it that I want to do with public media? What are my Lego building blocks, and what would motivate me to play?

In trying to answer these questions, one particularly promising idea that emerged was a model for a new type of public radio station - one that is not centered on broadcast. Such a station could have many of the traits of a participatory, web-based environment while leveraging the existing broadcast audience and media. In this way, we would have a transitional strategy of sorts – understood and embraced by traditional participants (both the audience and infrastructure), but able to transcend boundaries by reinventing itself from scratch, online, and with the public itself to steer its direction. These unique characteristics would drive important differences on how to fund, program, create, and manage its media. Without too much wild-eyed thinking, you could imagine an encouraging and experimental mix of user and collaboratively-programmed media, integrated online conversation, multiple device support, and a breadth of media types, alternative funding methods, etc.

Rethinking public media from a new, more participatory direction reveals an opportunity to redefine people-oriented broadcasting. And what’s more people-oriented than public media?

How the Media is Embracing User Participation

Mon, 5 Feb 2007 09:35:26 -0500

This blog entry is Part 1 in a Multi-part series investigating the continued adoption of user participation by the media industry. Read Part 2.

Increasing explorations into online user participation by traditional media organizations is perhaps more revolutionary than the growing trend of participatory media itself. A year or two ago, inviting in the audience was akin to cavorting with the enemy. Media pundits were predicting the ultimate demise of traditional media at the hands of, well, everyone else. Dwindling audiences, widespread file-sharing, shrinking advertising revenues, and the rise of amateur content production and distribution seemed ominous, and the industry took protective action. Panicked responses ranged from corporate consolidation to highly visible copyright protection actions.

The new take might look a little different, and be more like what Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, is calling a convergence culture. Much like when other disruptive communication technologies have been introduced historically, traditional content and channels will likely not disappear or be replaced, but rather will find their place, coexist, and even work in conjunction with newer methods. Jenkins calls this

"…a move from medium-specific content toward content that flows across multiple media channels, toward the increased interdependence of communications systems, toward multiple ways of accessing media content, and toward ever more complex relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture."

This translates into a strategy of "if you can’t beat them, join them" for traditional media organizations. The $1.6 Billion purchase of upstart YouTube along with a series of successful, (yet less-visible) participatory media efforts is triggering a reversal in the strategy of media producers and distribution channels towards embracing the use of the Internet rather than admonishing it. There is sudden recognition of the value in taking advantage of "free" user-generated content, highly engaged online audiences, and unexplored methods for fresh ideas to integrate across media.

As media organizations get cozy to the idea of audience involvement, there are some immediately recognized benefits. While these perceived benefits may be mildly misguided, they can provide the initial motivation to begin experimenting and better understanding the participatory media landscape.

Some initial realizations might include:

The web is a cheap distribution channel – this means that more people can consume our stuff, and more eyeballs are better, right?
This online audience seems to share stuff a lot. Thought of in the right way, that’s just free marketing. Let’s get viral!
The Internet as rolodex: someone out there might know more about this subject than we do (and maybe they’ll tell us).
Content production is woefully expensive. Let’s take the best audience content in exchange for a little fame (production quality may be lacking, but we’ll just blame that on them).
If we let them have a conversation, they’ll be more engaged. Increased engagement yields stronger brand-affinity and increased customer lifetime value. ROI!
If we don’t own the community, someone else will. Landgrab!
Maybe there’s a way to make money online. I know we tried before with our (fill in the blank) business model in the '90s, but there are new opportunities with this user participation stuff.
If we don’t control the conversation, they could start bad-mouthing us.

As media organizations gain experience working together with individuals, there is growing acceptance in getting beyond these perceived benefits. For example, successful engagement of online communities includes lowering corporate barriers, increasing transparency, and releasing control over the conversation. These learnings lead to different ways of interacting with online communities, and I will investigate these in part two of this essay: The Media’s Evolutionary Adoption of user participation.

Defining Community

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:33:38 -0400

So the nagging thing about community is… what exactly is it? I feel compelled to ask, since the term gets tossed around quite a bit in the blogosphere and elsewhere. The term “social networking” was great back in 2002, but community seems to better capture the current ethos of getting together to do something meaningful. Or when referring to an online community, at least complaining about something meaningful.