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Twitter Story: Conferences

Posted on November 12, 2009 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 2 Comments

I am definitely not the first person – and I’m sure I won’t be the last – to have my Twitter epiphany at a conference. Mine came at Great Ideas 2009.

I seem to have developed a tradition of being a relatively late adopter of social media technologies, and then caving to peer pressure at the Tech Conference. My 2008 cave? Facebook and LinkedIn. My 2009 cave? Twitter. After being pestered to get with it for at least 6 months, I finally did. But I wasn’t quite Getting It until Great Ideas.

“I Get It!” #1 – I gave up on the Twitter interface and installed TweetDeck. If you’re still using the basic Twitter interface to try to manage things, don’t. Get TweetDeck or Hootsuite ASAP. Actually, there are lots of great apps that can help you manage (and have fun with) Twitter. But, if you do NOTHING else, at least upgrade your own user experience.

“I Get It!” #2 – Tweet the main points any speaker is making in any session you attend. Your own tweet history = instant session notes!

“I Get It!” #3 – I was tweeting away during a session given by Lindy Dreyer and Scott Briscoe using my shiny new TweetDeck install and I noticed that I had a new follower – @jeffhurt. And he was @ replying me a question for the presenters. And not only wasn’t he in the room, he wasn’t even at the conference. And I asked it and got an answer for him and @ replied back.

Now I know what you’re thinking: if everyone can get the content through Twitter, no one will come to my conference. Nope. Because they still miss the networking and hallway conversations. As a matter of fact, if *some* of the goodness of your conference gets out on Twitter, it could potentially increase attendance, as more people see what they’re missing.

I know what else you’re thinking: what if people don’t like the speakers and say mean things? And I’ll be honest – that could happen. But we’re back to the standard answer that’s always given to the “what if they say bad things about us?” question: they’re saying it anyway. Wouldn’t you rather know? The real problem with the feedback mechanism is that most presenters (I include myself) lack the ability to pay attention to the crowd in the room, keep the flow of the presentation going, and pay attention to the Twitter stream, which might tell us that we’re missing the mark before it’s too late and the presentation is over and we get back our evaluations weeks later and it turns out, people weren’t getting what they came for and if only we’d known we might have been able to make some adjustments. (Also, most of us save the really catty comments for direct messages 🙂

So how are you using Twitter to make your organization’s meetings better and/or enhance your own experience as an attendee or virtual attendee?

Twitter Story: Advocacy

Posted on November 10, 2009 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

One answer to the “why” of Twitter: advocacy campaigns.

This past spring, a little issue popped up. You may even have heard something about it. “Health care reform” ring any bells? Sure, we all knew it was on Obama’s agenda, but we didn’t realize it was FIRST on his agenda. We figured he’d be busy settling in and house training Bo for a while, but the man can multi-task. Another concern? Kids and kids’ needs were pretty much being ignored. Seeing as NACHRI is an association of children’s hospitals, you can see how we might be a little worried.

Grassroots campaign to the rescue!

Now normally, in a situation like this, you fire up the ZIP-targeted direct mail for key Congressional districts and blitz people with email action alerts. Only our members are the hospitals. And it’s not like we could start calling up members and asking, “Hey, we know you’re really busy and stuff, but could you possibly send us the names, emails and snail mail addresses for every patient and her/his family you’ve treated in the past 3 years? Kthxbai.”

So how else were we going to reach people? Power of social media, aka Speak Now For Kids.

Twitter has been primarily a broadcast mechanism for the campaign to date. We didn’t have any connection to the grassroots, but there are a lot of medical people, a lot of moms, and a lot of journalists on Twitter. The Speak Now Twitter account has served as a great way for us to bring attention any time a key vote or action is going on. We can’t send you an action alert asking you to contact your representatives, but we can tweet it. It’s also a great way for us to get the word out when new videos, pictures, and written testimonials are posted to the site or to our YouTube channel. It also allows us to share quotable information like the fact that 17,000 kids have died in the past 20 years from lack of health insurance.

Sure, we’ve made some mistakes. First of all, the Twitter handle is probably too long – takes up too many characters in re-tweets and via and @ replies. Early on, we weren’t remembering to include the http:// on our URLs, with the result that they generally weren’t clickable. And we weren’t using URL shorteners to make our tweets easy to share. And we were using #speaknowforkids as the campaign hash tag (that’s been shortened to #hcr). It’s still mostly broadcast rather than conversation. But we’re learning and fixing things as we go. And Twitter had allowed us to reach 2200 people we otherwise wouldn’t have had access to and ask them to raise their voices in support of kids’ health.

How is your organization using social media to support your advocacy efforts?

Forget the “How” – Worry about the “Why”

Posted on November 9, 2009 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 7 Comments

Leslie White and I did a two hour (well, actually 1:15 after you took out the breaks and the fact that the predecessor session went long) session on Twitter at ASAE’s social media workshop last week. We had planned to talk a little about the mechanics and a lot about what associations are actually doing with Twitter. But we got bogged down in the how – how do I set up an account, how to I protect/unprotect my tweets, how do I use re-tweet, @ messages, via messages, direct messages, URL shorteners, etc. I was not thrilled at the time, and upon reflection, I’m even more dismayed that we got so sidetracked, not least of which because I’m sure a certain percentage of participants were totally bored.

The biggest problem is that, if you lack a solid answer to “why,” no matter how easy the “how” is, it’s too hard. And if you have a good answer to “why,” you’ll figure out the “how.”

When I asked how many participants had Twitter accounts, probably 75% of the room raised their hands. When I asked how many had tweeted within the last month, maybe 25% still had their hands up. When I got to how many had tweeted within the last day or hour, it was pretty much down to just the presenters.

Now why is that? Is it that it’s SOOOOOO hard to go to www.twitter.com, compose a 140 character message, and hit “return”? No.

But if you haven’t a good answer to “why am I doing this?” ANY “how do I do it?” is too hard. Because you know what’s easier 100% of the time? Doing nothing. You need a reason to move. And without that, any “how” is too much trouble.

And the thing is, the “how” of Twitter is really, really simple. (And yes, I know I’m techno-friendly, but I’m definitely not a bleeding edge early adopter type. And I’m not a rocket scientist, by any stretch of the imagination. Which means that if I can figure it out, so can you.)

Step 1: Sign up for account.

Step 2: (recommended but not required) Set yourself up one of the management platforms.

Step 3: It’s a cocktail party.

You wouldn’t charge into a party where you don’t know anyone and start making loud declarative statements, would you? (I hope not.) You’d start by listening to what’s happening, getting a feel for the room, and then joining a conversation that sounds interesting. Twitter’s the same way, only online and in 140 character bursts.

Oh – and all those “cool kids” comments? While there are some genuine social media rockstars (and no, I don’t mean Ashton Kucher or Oprah), I’ll tell you the secret to becoming one of the “cool kids” (and I won’t even make you pinkie swear that you won’t tell anyone): get on the social media platforms (blogs, wikis, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.), talk to people, and say interesting things. That’s it. It’s a total meritocracy.

See? Easy how.

So what’s the why? You have to answer that for yourself, but I’m going to try to help you, by relating some stories of ways I’ve used – or seen others using – Twitter to engage people and benefit their associations over the next few weeks.

Setting Technology Policies That Make Sense in a Web 2.0 World

Posted on September 11, 2008 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

On Tuesday, September 9, I had the opportunity to speak to the Potomac Employers Roundtable. A group of about 30 people, largely senior HR and Administration professionals from a wide range of organizations (PR consultancies, HR consultancies, nonprofits, and for profits) gathered in the board room of Williams & Mullen bright and early to discuss the role web 2.0 technologies can play in our organizations, and what implications they might have for office policy.

I opened the session by sharing the stories of some of my recent experiencesaround this topic and then talking about what differentiates Web 1.0 from Web 2.0 (short version: collaboration!), and some of the things Web 2.0 allows users to do:

Build their own sophisticated web content quickly and easily
Pull the information they want to themselves in the way they want it
Enjoy a more dynamic, collaborative online experience

We then had a spirited conversation about various Web 2.0 technologies – blogs, microblogs (aka Twitter), wikis, RSS, and SocNets (aka Facebook and LinkedIn) – with attendees weighing in with their own experiences, personal and professional, using them.

The focus then turned to the topic of the day: policy setting. A recent survey undertaken by FaceTime and New Diligence clearly illustrates the extent to which social networks have become embedded in the business environment. Over 93% of organizations have some level of social networking use on their network.

HR professionals have two major areas of policy concern: one, what restrictions, if any, do you place on your publics/audiences in using Web 2.0 technologies, and two, what restrictions, if any, do you place on your staff in using Web 2.0 technologies?

Externally, there is the persistent concern that someone will post something nutty and the organization will be sued. The best (and easiest) three techniques to ameliorate this risk are:

Work with your attorney to write a strong disclaimer
Let anyone read, but make people identify themselves before contributing
Let the community police itself

Another major concern is the issue of voice, or authenticity. Before you start thinking that your organization should launch a CEO blog, because, “Hey, everyone (aka “our competition”) is doing it, right? And we don’t want to be left behind!” think about who’s actually going to write it and what the process is going to be. Sure, if your CEO is going to commit to posting frequently, and she is going to write her posts herself, and she has something to say, go for it. If your “CEO” blog is actually going to be written by your marketing department, then run through PR, then vetted by your attorney, and THEN posted, forget it. People’s BS detectors are particularly strong online these days. Don’t forget – authenticity is the new black.

Organizations also worry about a loss of control – of their image, of their information, of their brand, of the conversation. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but control is an illusion. Your image, your brand, your conversation is ALREADY shaped by your audience – you just don’t know about it. And until Web 2.0 brought that process out of people’s living rooms and onto the Internet, you had no way of participating, either. Now your constituents can participate in the creation of knowledge and you can participate authentically in their communities.

So let’s say someone does say something bad about your organization in a public (Internet) forum. Hey, he was already thinking it, and probably saying it to people he knows personally. But now you have the opportunity, as an authentic participant in that community, to address it publicly – politely, truthfully, gently, but publicly. You have the opportunity to stop misinformation before it spreads and to address someone’s problems or issues with your organization. You know what you call someone who has a problem with an organization that’s resolved quickly and well? A convert – an evangelist.

Internally, from the purely geek side, because these technologies run (with a few exceptions, i.e., IM and Twitter) completely on the web, organizations aren’t adding network security risk, although there is certainly a risk of bandwidth overload. Yes, you might have to increase your pipe. Or prohibit streaming audio and video. But there’s a lot of really useful stuff on YouTube and other vodcast sites these days, in addition to the monkey races, so you probably want to think pretty carefully before you block them.

But in the end, doesn’t it all come down to a fear that our staff members are going to waste time IMing their friends and updating their Facebook status, rather than working hard at their assigned tasks? Sure, but that’s a management issue, not a technology issue. If Bob is bored and unmotivated in his job, he’s going to goof off whether he has access to IM or not.

You always want to have a reason and a goal for launching into any of these technologies, not least of which because there are so many options people are already starting to experience social networking fatigue. But assuming you had a good business reason for permitting access to Facebook in the first place (and if you don’t, I can give you one – do a search for your company name or profession and see how many items turn up), don’t ban it just because Bob’s manager is doing a poor job. Don’t make technology a scapegoat for a management problem. And by the way? If you block Facebook, Bob’s just going to spend 20 out of every 60 minutes on a coffee break.

The thing is, the world is changing. The young people who are coming into our organizations as employees or customers have different experiences of and expectations about technology. The sharp distinctions many of us have made between work life and personal life, between “professional” me and “real” me, are collapsing. You want to attract and retain Millennials? Then you have to meet them where they live, and it’s not on fax machines and email.

ASAE AM Conversation: The Lunchtable Twilight Zone

Posted on August 26, 2008 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment

As you’ll note if you read Confessions of a Justified Meeting Attendee, I mostly avoided the ASAE Exhibit Hall. However, one day, I made the mistake of having lunch. No it wasn’t the food – I mean, it was typical conference food, but it was edible. And I wasn’t assaulted by exhibitors pushing troll bobble heads or anything.

But I had two of the strangest conversations of the entire meeting in the space of 10 minutes.

And I hang out with the YAPstars, so my standards for what constitutes a strange conversation are pretty forgiving.

After collecting my pasta and Diet Coke, I sat down at a table occupied by a couple health care association execs. Now, for those of you who didn’t see me, I was rockin’ the badge flare: CAE pin, Future Leaders pin, Decision To pin, ASAE Volunteer pin, and about a mile of badge ribbons, including “I Wiki” and “I Blog.” So these execs proceeded to tell me that their organizations had decided that they weren’t going to do online education because they “believe in face-to-face networking.” First of all, I hadn’t said anything more than, “May I join you?” and “I’m Elizabeth. And you are?” But whatever. What I don’t understand is why it has to be one or the other. Why can’t you have some face to face events for people who like that, can afford it, and can get time away from their other responsibilities, supplemented by some online events for people who prefer that method of learning and interacting? I think it’s pretty unlikely that these execs had done a survey of their entire universe of constituents (because non-members take advantage of our educational programs, too), gotten a 100% response rate, and not had a single person indicate any interest in virtual events. But I could be wrong. I also don’t understand what it was about my very existence that caused them to attack the idea of online ed so energetically, but maybe I put out a subtle pro-virtual education vibe.

But the really weird conversation happened about 5 minutes later.

A prominent speaker and ASAE meeting perennial joined us next. Without even introducing himself (because of course I would know who he was) or asking my name (probably because he didn’t consider it important), he asked, “Are you attending my session tomorrow?”

“That depends – when is it?”

“8:30 am.”

“Sorry, no, I’ll be presenting on wikis in the Social Media Lab then.”

“Oh, you mean that Facebook stuff.”

“Well, the Social Media Lab has had sessions on a variety of technologies – blogs, Twitter, virtual worlds, social networking tools. My session is on wikis.”

“I was on a conference call, and I asked if anyone had generated any business from Linkedin. Silence. Not a word. Heh-heh-heh.”

“Um, that’s not really the point. I’m a consultant, and I wouldn’t expect someone to want to hire me just because she saw my profile on Linkedin. It’s about keeping track of people you know professionally, and, increasingly, about getting work-related questions answered.”

“Oh, so you can use it to launch your Amway business by annoying people you worked with 10 years ago? That’s my profound thought for the day.”

And then he split.

WTF?

(And keep in mind, this guy has spoken at every ASAE conference I’ve attended for at least the last 8 years.)

But that’s not the point. The point is this: what do they have in common? Narrow vision. Thinking inside the box. Refusing to look at things differently, even if someone else does the heavy lifting for you. Lack of innovation. Lack of willingness to explore potential. Fear. Of change, of the unknown, of not being in control.

BloggerCon and BloggerUnCon

Posted on August 25, 2008 | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 4 Comments

This year was my first BloggerCon. It was also the first year that BloggerCon was part of the official program. So it was kind of a mixed group: long time bloggers about associations like Jeff, Mads, BMart, and JNott (aka McLovin), new bloggers about associations like, well, your truly, and lots of people whose organizations are blogging or thinking about starting blogs about the profession, industry, or issue they represent. So it was a pretty mixed bag.

A few thoughts:

This session really demonstrated to me the importance of the social aspects of social media.
The typical question about moderating came up. Andy couldn’t be there, since he was giving his own session at that time, so I represented and brought up his/RIMS‘s practice of allowing members to self–moderate through “mark as inappropriate.” The truth about moderating is that pretty much any level of control from absolute to wild west free-for-all can be appropriate, as long as you’re consistent and have a reason for choosing what you choose. (But personally, I’m in favor of writing a strong disclaimer and then letting the chips fall where they may.)
I kind of feel like we should be past the “what is all this stuff?” questions at this point. But as was demonstrated in all the social media sessions (including many of the Social Media Labs), we’re not. Educate yourselves people!
Participants also asked if an organizational blog won’t result in diluting attention and interest in the organization’s other properties. And the answer is really no. Different audiences are going to want to get information in different formats. If you, as you should, think of at least 3 ways to use anything you write/produce, this is just one more method to get the word out. And it can provide nice cross-promotional opportunities.
Voice is key. (This came up in my Social Media Lab session, too.) Your CEO/ED doesn’t need a blog just to have a blog. Only start one if you can make the commitment to write frequently and authentically. Having your PR firm write pieces “from your CEO” is going to come off as fake. Sometimes it’s more useful to see what’s already out there – like maybe some fab member blogs on your profession or industry – and link to them rather than trying to force the creation of community where it doesn’t naturally exist.
And it’s OK to mix up format of your posts. It’s not the same as writing articles. Some posts can be be long, some can be short, some can be links, whatevs. They key is QUALITY CONTENT. If you can make it good, everything else is icing.

BloggerUnCon was a completely different experience. It wasn’t part of the official program, and it took place in the out-of-the-way CAE Lounge at the end of the program day on Monday. The information was only in the association blogosphere, too, so it was mostly the people doing the heavy lifting of association blogging. I definitely got the sense that this session was more like previous years’ BloggerCons.

Bob Wolfe kicked us off with a really great question: Why do we blog?

The answers were fascinating.

Ben talked about starting his blog to help him when he was studying for the CAE in 2004. Then he realized that he was helping other people, too, and just kept going. And helping people.
Matt spoke about how much he enjoyed hearing about other young association execs’ experiences and wanting to contribute to the conversation.
Jeff launched his blog as the original Principled Innovation website, after he’d been running the business for over a year, in order to “initiate the converation I wanted to have with the association community about innovation.”
Jamie indicated that blogs are better than resumes for getting a sense of who a person really is, as the cleverly named Get Me Jamie Notter would attest.
Bob himself pointed out that “thought leaders blog.”

In fact, several people mentioned the importance of blogging in creating a personal brand as an association professional and as a source of professional opportunity. It’s about creating a personal body of work.

Shifting employment patterns means that there are increasing opportunities for those thought leaders who work in or with associations to create and market personal expertise and a personal brand while still keeping their day jobs.

That was a huge driver for me in starting T4P. When I found out with 3 weeks notice that I was going to be laid off this spring, I considered – briefly – kicking off my own consulting firm. And I realized that I wasn’t known in the association community, at least not well enough to start consulting on my own without having to KILL myself to get clients. It was a real eye opener. (Also, I really, really love to write. And have for a long time.)

The conversation then shifted to the idea of voice, audience, and focus. What are you writing about and for whom? The participants had a variety of focuses (focii?) within the association space, but the common theme was the idea of the conversation, and participating in it.

We then drifted into a discussion of some of the technical details of the newly-launched A List Bloggers, in preparation for our plans for (association) world domination, before talking about what role we can – and should – play in convincing The Powers That Be of the power of social media.

The problem is, we aren’t where they are, and we’re not speaking with them in ways they understand. Which I think is a really valuable lesson in member engagement. You can’t expect people (CEOs/EDs or members) to come to you, and you can’t expect them to speak your language.

We have to learn to use terms that are meaningful to the people we want to convince – things like “engagement,” “community,” “collaboration,” and “attracting younger members.”

Even the medium of a Social Media Lab or socnet sessions may be the wrong way to go about this. What we need is to get social media experts on panel sessions about board relations and advocacy and creating vital educational experiences and recruiting and engaging members. Which is why every social media session ends up being a 101 session on “this is a blog, this a wiki, this is a social network” and it’s really, REALLY hard to focus the conversation on the “so what?” We have to get out of the social media ghetto and into the executive suites, the membership departments, the publications areas, the meetings teams.

As Ben put it, “It’s a simple calculation: engagement increases the likelihood of renewal. Renewal increases the likelihood of creating organizational evangelists. And virtual communities are an increasingly popular form of engagement.”

So I leave you with a question: what would your organization look like if your individual staff members didn’t focus specifically and exclusively on your journal, or getting out the renewal notices on time, or managing the membership database, or creating press releases, or your legislative fly in day, but instead worked as fluid team of engagement specialists on increasing engagement in your organization, your industry, your profession, for your entire universe of constituents? What would that world be like?

Contact Elizabeth Weaver Engel, M.A., CAE