Wandren PD

The current vogue in many practitioner organisations is for developing networks as part of their public diplomacy activity. After surveying the technological landscape and their options online, some organisations may seek to continue this network building in virtual worlds and social spaces. This presents a vast array of options - as such it requires an organisation to be clear on certain aspects of the programme and poses certain questions about working online.

Last week’s panel on Technology and Public Diplomacy during the symposium on Transformational Public Diplomacy; Shaping the Future of International Relations, provided an opportunity to discuss various questions about online engagement. This is a written up version of the notes I used.

Things about which to be clear:

1) The organisation should be clear what type of network it is building.

This means considering whether the network is centralised around the organisation (which creates the platform for engagement amongst network members in a walled garden). Alternatively it may take the form of decentralised or distributed / dispersed networks. Graphic representation of these networks can be found in On Distributed Communications published by RAND in 1964 (page 2)

Each type of network has specific characteristics which would need to be considered.

2) The organisation building the network needs to be clear why the potential participants or target audience are using particular online platforms and social spaces if it seeks to begin building a space in which it intends to develop a network.

For example, the organisation needs to be particularly clear what role cutting edge technology and coordination games are playing in the choice of platform or social space. There’s little point creating a social space with cutting edge technology if coordination games are already causing the participants to shun equally technologically advanced spaces, in favour of their chosen environment. The reverse is equally true; if users, particularly early adopters, will rapidly migrate from social space to social space in search of the latest tech, building a space based on 6 month old tech is unlikely to attract them. This needs to be established during product design.

3) An organisation probably needs to consider whether it is seeking to build a network through a single online platform / social space or whether it is going to adopt a multi-platform approach.

A single platform may be easier to conceive and plan, but a multi-platform approach has a stronger chance of engaging with individuals in the way the want to be engaged - and in the spaces which coordination games lead them to frequent.

Questions to consider:

1) If working online does the organisation need to revise its targeting criteria from that used in the physical world? Does for example, occupation or place of birth of equal importance in online network building?

2) Is network building online, intended to contact the same people in a new way or about engaging different participants?

3) Do we need to stop using the traditional ‘hierarchical’ language when considering online engagement?

i) Authority within online and social spaces does not necessarily come from position in the physical world. In most instances it has to be earned online. Many also equate high numbers (whether of views or of links) to demonstrating value or ‘authority’. Technorati’s measure of ‘authority‘ is a good example;

Technorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has.

This measure is distinct from the authority which traditional diplomats may be used to, and may require a mental shift when engaging in working online.

ii) To realise the true power of a distributed network online, an international actor must give up the image of hierarchical position so ingrained in the methodology of the traditional diplomat.

Some of these comments may seem an uncomfortable prospect for those not necessarily accustomed to using the technology and who do not necessarily understand the cultural or social expectations of the various social spaces. However, the good news is that within the organisation there’s likely to be members (probably in more junior positions) who already use this technology in their private life. One challenge is how to empower these individuals to make that knowledge part of their work life.

Attempts to achieve this may have to start by allowing or even encouraging the use of social spaces in work time.

Online developments have unleashed the power for the spreading of ideas from peer to peer, at low transactional cost, lowering or levelling barriers to entry. Clearly with the speed of current development some new technological developments will be truly revolutionary, while others will become a technological cul-de-sac adopted by only a few hardy fans. How can an organisation engaged in international communication begin to assess its options?

In thinking about the question of options within the technological landscape and how it can be used, three links present interesting perspectives.

John Hagel’s notes on his presentation at Community 2.0 provide an insight into the challenges in building virtual communities. He highlights 4 challenges; language, integrating diverse skill sets, shifting mindsets, and organisational barriers. He also offers some potential metrics to measure success.

While thinking about virtual communities, the recent production of From Fire Pit to the Forbidden City by Rita King of Dancing Ink Productions provides a view on the development of virtual worlds from the perspective of an outsider looking at IBM. It demonstrates the power of a truly collaborative platform and the story of a group of early adopters. Apart from the issues raised directly by From the Firepit to the Forbidden City, one question for those working for organisations engaged in international communication is how to empower the innovators within the organisation? How can those with an early adopter mentality be given the freedom to experiment?

The potential of virtual worlds is not just in marketing Real products in imaginary worlds, but in understanding the way people act. Edward Castronova’s work On the Research Value of Large Games: Natural Experiments in Norrath and Camelot suggests some uses of games to investigate the way people act in various situations. This suggestion is supported by the study published in the The Lancet Infectious Diseases of the spread of the corrupted blood disease in the game World of Warcraft, which demonstrated the way people acted during the outbreak and potential lessons which could be learned.

These articles suggest the power of virtual worlds for research. They also demonstrate that one of the key considerations when engaging online will be the reason people have chosen to huddle around a particular area in a game / virtual world, or a particular platform or social space out of the many available online. To paraphrase; do they choose the place because they believe that site is technologically the best, or is it because they believe the people they want to contact will be there? After all if you want to contact people there’s no point having the most high-tech site and nobody to talk to…

Hagel, King and Castronova, collectively highlight the importance of

• considering the challenges of organising online engagement within a bureaucracy,

• defining what exactly the engagement online is for,

• understanding why the potential participants huddle in certain areas, what keeps them there and as a result whether an organisation should engage them around their chosen node or attempt to tempt them to a new, or purpose built, environment for engagement.

Success in the virtual community business hinges not on technology-driven differentiation but on strategies designed to accelerate member acquisition and to create deep understanding of the needs of those members.

This accurate comment comes from Net gain; expanding markets through virtual communities. Arguments for greater engagement with political groups around the world have appeared in Watching America among many other places and exist alongside the vogue for the development of broadly defined networks that has appeared in the study and practice of public diplomacy. In this vein I want to take lessons from John Hagel’s work on new technology and building Virtual Communities.

The specifics of virtual communities and social networks are an issue I will return to another day, for today a very useful perspective on engaging with Virtual Communities was produced by John Hagel for Community 2.0 in Las Vegas.

For today I want to focus on a particular aspect of engagement, specifically to suggest a vital part of developing networks is recognising the ‘cost per member added’ to a network as one metric to use when analysing and planning networked engagement.

This will encourage the development of thought about:

• Efficiency
• High value targets
• Clarity about retention and ongoing communication.

Efficiency; producing a basic calculation of the number of people added to a network and the cost will demonstrate simply how efficient various methods are in developing networks, in terms of size. Clearly size must be considered along side value, as some members of the network will have higher value than others. However, starting with cost per member provides a means to start the discussion about value.

High value targets; Demonstrating that some people required high cost methods to attract to a network because of their value to the network poses the question why are they so valuable? Value may be considered in any number of ways for example;

Persuasion value – their ability to persuade others of a specific point, issue or promote a message. Print journalists, bloggers, or public speakers may fall into this category.

Decision value – Their ability to actually make a decision which changes or influences policy within a country. Attracting them to the network may provide a means to influence policy or for the individual to find greater support for a policy which they already wish to enact.

Network value – The individual on traditional measurements offers neither persuasion nor decision value, however, they have the ability to act as a gatekeeper to a large number of potential network members. In effect they are a new node within the network through which to contact an array of new members.

In each of these cases incurring greater cost to attract the member could be justified on the basis of their value to the network or the initiative.

Clarity about retention or communication; the purpose and particularly the intended longevity of the network is also drawn into focus by analysing the cost per member added.

If the network is being constructed for a specific short term goal, perhaps to influence a specific policy position then the cost of the network is weighed against the value of this particular success. However, if this is to be a long term network, for the purpose of relationship building or to stimulate a virtual community, longevity of engagement is a key factor. Cost per member added and retained becomes an important point for analysis. Retention rate over a certain period is important to understand when considering the success of the network.

A low retention rate would pose certain questions, for example;

Does the issue on which the network is based resonate with the target group, or at least do the terms in which it is expressed need modification?

Is there a competing and possibly more effective group with which an partnership rather than competition would be more fruitful?

Is coordination function having an impact; are people expecting to find or contact their peers through an alternative means (or on an alternative platform) from the one on which the network is based. Edward Castronova’s work on the online games – EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot provides a good account of the impact of coordination effects.

Retention rate within a network also leads to the question of waste at the end of the life of a network building exercise. If the purpose of the exercise was to create a self-sustaining network or Virtual Community to function separately from the organisation, the continuing development of the network on its own terms is not waste but success.

However, networks developed by an organisation that have not become self-sustaining will collapse when organisational funding / stimulus is cut. Allowing these people to drift away may be considered waste, and doubly so if they are then going to be re-recruited later to another network. Equally after developing enthusiasm and encouraging them to give up their time to be involved just cutting the programme is likely to generate a degree of negative feeling. At its worst this will result in a negative rather than positive impact from the programme.

Knowing how much it cost to attract someone to a network is likely to emphasise the importance of continuing an individual’s engagement. This can be done either by directing them toward another initiative / network being run by the organisation or toward a self-sustaining network that was originally set up by the organisation. This continues their journey and maintains engagement with issues of importance to the organisation. In many cases losing contact with members of a network will be considered a resource wasted.

There are a few exceptions to this logic, particularly those programmes that create a high impact engagement with individuals early in their career on the basis of their likely career path. An investment that may pay off 10 years in the future, for example some exchange programmes, may actually argue for a lack of contact over that 10 year period to emphasise that contact is only made on really important initiatives. This would avoid the possibility of a form of engagement fatigue – typified by the sentiment - what do they want this time?

For engagement to be successful, it must consider

• The most efficient methods of attracting members,
• The relative value of different members of the network,
• How ongoing engagement is to be achieved.

Rather than write something myself this week I’ll recommend a presentation I came across recently and which has the potential to be useful whichever form of international communication you are considering.

The presentation was given by Dr Bob Deutsch to the AAAA. You’ll know his work, if not the name; he provided the insight for Apple “Think Different”, Budweiser “Whassup?”, Compaq “Better Questions” and worked for Japanese clients as they tried to fight US tariffs.

In the presentation he discusses the importance of finding patterns in the behaviour when looking at people, and the need to be personal, particular and primal, when seeking to communicate with an audience. I won’t labour the point as he’s vastly better at it than me.

Finally, as I discussed in an earlier post we have to be prepared to challenge the ideas on which international communication is based – for those who ‘know’ marketing is about talking to consumers – Dr Bob wants you to throw out that idea; its about people.

The presentation is in available as audio or video.

While we are considering people, this recent LA Times article on Gallup polling in America and majority Muslim countries provides some interesting perspectives for those considering public diplomacy, developing habits of engagement or cultural relations. Muslim true/false

Following the last post a few people asked me how I’d define, international communication, public diplomacy or cultural relations. The frame of reference for the blog is to look for ideas which influence the way foreign populations act. This in Christopher Ross’s phrase is a “multidimensional enterprise”. In this enterprise Wandren PD is channel neutral to slightly mis-use a phrase from marketing communication.

Wandren PD is open to the influences of all dimensions of international communication, both human and mediated, whether from PR, PD, Cultural Relations or elsewhere. A good example of this cross fertilization of ideas comes from Kathy Fitzpartrick’s recent work which shows the possible benefits of applying PR methods to public diplomacy.

The possibilities for international communication exist in degrees of emphasis on a spectrum between listening and telling. This spectrum is discussed in detail in chapter 3 of the recent book Options for Influence.

Listening exercises

For this post I’ll focus on the sometimes overlooked potential of a listening exercise to influence the way people act; if it is done consciously, genuinely and publicly. Listening can sometimes achieve more in changing people’s behaviour than talking to them. This may seem unappealing in a world where getting the message out, has become a dominant mentality; an environment in which listening does not appear to have much of a role.

However, a message can be transmitted in more ways than the sound bite. Showing a willingness to listen can open up new territory for negotiation or collective action.

Clearly, there is a danger that listening exercises will not be credible, if they are perceived as an act, and that a pre-ordained action will be taken regardless of what is said. Instead it is crucially important that organisations engaging in listening exercises are willing to put in the appropriate time, effort, and, most importantly openness to the comments they may hear.

Can’t we just use polling data?

What makes a listening exercise different from the use of polling, echo chambers and focus groups is that it changes the power relationship between the groups involved. Ok, focus groups and echo chambers allow a broader range of response than polling. However, there is still a dynamic in which the respondents are required to engage in answering on certain issues which will have been determined by the host as part of the preparation process.

The recent Canadian eDiscussions represent a positive development in using online engagement as part of the planning process. However, they “request that your responses to the eDiscussion be directly related to these questions”. So no straying off into putting your views on other issues! (there is a moderator). In structuring the engagement in this way it maintains a hierarchy where participants are only allowed to talk about what they are asked to talk about.

Anyone that has taken part in a poll will recognise this hierarchy and will have experienced being required to put your mark in a predefined box (either actually or metaphorically) in response to predetermined questions on a topic chosen by the polling organisation (or their client). Occasionally when agonising over the answers, none of which express your opinion, there is a desire to create a new box, in which to write your actual opinion.

What can listening exercises do about this?

Listening exercises provide a method of engagement through which both sides can change the perspective from which they view the other.

Listening exercises are initiatives which consciously focus on inverting the hierarchy to engage with participants on their terms. Rather than asking for information on specific issues, participants are asked what questions an international actor should be asking if they want to have a better understanding of who the participants are, what they think and why they think it.

Understanding someone’s opinion is not always a matter of getting them to answer a question structured through your reference points, assumptions and ways of understanding. Truly understanding the answer comes through listening to answers structured through the participants’ social and cultural assumptions or language. That means engaging in discussion on the participants’ terms and within their frameworks of understanding.

This sounds like a whole lot more effort - why bother?

Can’t polls and focus groups be refined to put them into the social and cultural language of the audience? Yes, largely (and to be clear I’m not saying that polls are no use – merely that there are times when listening exercises may be a useful alternative). However, polls and focus groups will defined by the international actor and always have a hierarchical producer and participant structure.

The power of genuine listening exercise is that it is on the terms defined by the participants. By inverting the traditional power relationship it is possible to demonstrate that an actor is genuinely open to others views.

The answers in a listening exercise have the potential to be richer, as the questions:

1) Resonate with the participants, as they are expressed within their own frameworks of understanding.

2) Will provide answers that are more likely to be on issues which matter to the participants, as it covers the areas they decided mattered.

3) Provide an opportunity for participants to express themselves in their own terms rather than be confined by those of the ‘host’ or pollster.

In addition, while polling and focus groups are largely information gathering endeavours, listening exercises provide the potential to build habits of engagement – creating an opening for an ongoing dialogue.

For example, if an international actor has a reputation for being arrogant, dogmatic and unwilling to consider other viewpoints, this can create tension. If such an actor merely informs the target audience that they have the wrong perception, such an approach is unlikely to be successful. This is because the message mimics and reinforces the very impression it is trying to counter. Polls and focus groups may provide information about the causes of this tension. However, a listening exercise can do more than just gather information; it can challenge the underlying assumptions through being a working model of openness. As such, there is potential for participants to view the international actor in a different way and to act differently in response.

In line with the current vogue is for talking about two-way communication, (though many still put less effort into actually doing it) a listening exercise provides the potential that in understanding the views of participants, when expressed in their terms, an international actor may even find new ways to act differently and to engage more effectively.

As such the three potential benefits of a listening exercise can be summarised as

1) Richer information on which to base future action

2) A demonstration of a genuine desire to listen – creating the potential for habits of engagement to develop

3) The listening exercise may uncover alternative ways of engaging, that questions predefined by the international actor may not.

(An earlier and shorter version of this can be found in Ali Fisher and Aurélie Bröckerhoff, Options for Influence: Global campaigns of persuasion in the new worlds of public diplomacy )

Take international communication off the grid

Grab the dominant ideas about how international communications should be conducted and take them off line.

If after looking at it, it is a good idea, feel free to put it back online – after all, some ideas have stood the test of time purely because they are effective. But make the idea earn its place, as you would any new idea. Don’t just leave it online because it was on when you walked in the room.

Going off the grid

OK, if you’re comfortable with online / offline, what about going further and living off the grid? Put another way, Wandren PD should be about finding new ideas and re-evaluating the ways we use old or currently redundant ideas.

“Off grid living”, whether you consider it in terms of accessing utilities or avoiding industrial-scale collection of personal data, requires a different way of thinking to find ideas which produce alternative solutions. Consider energy supply: photovoltaic cells are an example of a new alternative to getting electricity from the grid, while wind and water power are adaptations of old ideas which were once largely considered redundant within “developed” societies.

“Off grid living” can also be the reframing of how a problem is considered, thinking of it as a “group” rather than “individual” issue. To take a basic example from those trying to put a little less of themselves on the grid: if you think you are giving away too much data about yourself and your lifestyle habits because you use a loyalty card at your local supermarket, you could protect that data simply by throwing your loyalty card in the bin

But what if you love your loyalty card but don’t want the supermarket to know what you are buying regularly? As an individual, you’re in a straightforward dilemma – use it and give up information or don’t use it and lose benefits.

If this is presented as a group concern, however, there might be another alternative, provided you’re willing to put in some effort to organise and possible some extra time to execute. Get some friends involved, preferably friends who spend about the same amount as you do but buy different items. Simply keep passing the loyalty cards between you, preferably not in a regularly repeating sequence. Assuming you’re all spending similar amounts and buying different things, the data will be a satisfying mess but the points on your cards will be roughly the same.

I’m not particularly interested in debating whether loyalty cards are a fantastic idea or the evil spawn of data-obsessed corporations. What’s vastly more interesting is this: are there situations in which these alternatives can give us ideas that are more powerful than some of our current approaches to communication?

The development of technology has provided us with numerous new opportunities and new challenges. How we are able to adapt and adopt, how we seek out new possibilities, even in the most unlikely of places will be important – along with knowing when the old way is still probably the best way.