Shake the Pillars

The past couple of days I’ve been sitting in on the Mesh Conference in Toronto. It’s a cheerfully chaotic gathering of local net entrepreneurs, developers and marketers, all working on the theme of the emerging world of Web 2.0. Some of the energy here seems to come from a sense that the internet tech market is starting to pick up again.  I just overheard someone say “We’re heading into another cycle,” and there’s plenty of buzz about venture capital starting to show interest in the internet marketplace again - though so far most people still seem to be playing it cool.

I sat on a panel with the ambitious title of “Can Web 2.0 Change the World?”. My co-panelists were Tom Williams of Givemeaning.com and blogger Dave Pollard. We discussed a few current trends in philanthropy and activism and took some questions from the floor, but I don’t think we really rose to the level of discourse called for by the workshop’s title. It seems to me that the ”Can Web 2.0 change the world” question is what the Mesh Conference itself is trying to answer, and it’s making me wonder how to connect what’s happening here at Mesh with my community-mobilization work for social activist groups and nonprofits.

The buzzword of Mesh is clearly ”community” and it usually refers to the idea of a community of customers for a product, or a community of users for a platform or service. Building community is generally agreed to be a key activity in the new internet marketplace. Many Web 2.0 products and services are built around models and tools for connecting individuals with their friends, peers and with groups with similar interests. An active, supportive user community is seen as a necessary resource for improving and promoting a product or service - if the developers are able to engage them as collaborators, and not just users or customers. Suffice to say “the heart of Web 2.0 is Community”.

‘Community’ is a word that we use a lot in the nonprofit and activism sectors. For membership-based organizations like Amnesty and Greenpeace, the grassrotts, community members are both the source of moral authority and of political power. When Amnesty speaks, it carries the voices of thousands of committed individuals who are aligned with the cause of human rights. And those voices carry weight.

But let’s be clear - building and managing a community of supporters is not an easy task.  There are many compromises, strengths and weaknesses that come with having a strong, mobilized community at the heart of your organization.

So I’m wondering what  Web 2.0 businesses can learn from nonprofits?  I have a few thoughts here .. would like to hear more ..

Authenticity.  This was another Mesh buzzword, but it’s an actual fact of life for nonprofits. The link between an organization and its community of supporters is based on a heartfelt alignment of values.  The organization’s identity, mission and mandate must be consistently and transparently applied, or the support of the community will waver.

Democracy:  Community supporters need to have a opportunity to voice their opinions and believe that their views are being heard. Most nonprofits are bound by the terms of their constitutions to hold annual general meetings where accredited members are able to vote on matters of policy and practice. Relying on customers to vote with their wallets is not the same thing.

Diversity:  Communities do not speak with one voice only. There may be dominant voices and popular opinions, but the rule of the long tail advises us to give careful weight to the minority and fringe opinions as well. That’s not to say that consensus is any sort of workable model either — just that all views, opinions and feedback need to be respected. A community that reduces its diversity of opinion weakens itself.

Ownership: Communities that invest time, energy and resources into a cause or product also develop a sense of ownership, and an expectation to be engaged and respected in decision-making around its future development. This doesn’t always mean some formal involvement in decision-making processes — only that the interests of the community are consulted and considered. As the community base grows, so does it’s influence.

I’m getting ready for a couple of panels/workshops at the MeshConference in Toronto. The topic is Web 2.0, and as I read more about the presenters/workshops and new web tools we’ll be looking at, it’s rekindling my interest in a web site that i developed a few years ago and has been running on auto-pilot for quite a while.

I started up The NonProfit Matrix (http://www.nonprofitmatrix.com) back in 2000, just at the height of Tech Boom 1.0. The nonprofit industry was facing a plethora of startup e-commerce and web-based service providers, and as an identified “internet expert” in the sector, I was finding myself hard pressed to keep up with all of the new vendors and help make sense of all the new offereings. So I started up a site to catalogue profiles of the ASP services I had accumulated, and the site grew quickly into a full-fledged online directory of ASP service providers to the nonprofit sector.

The Nonprofit Matrix site is essentially a searchable, categoried directory, with about 400 profiles of application services providers. The profiles are maintained by the vendors themselves. They submit their profiles, and after an initial review and approval, they can update their info as they wish. This has meant two things:

1. The site is easy to maintain. For my part, I only need to review and approve the 2 or 3 new profiles that are submitted each week, and once every few months I sweep through the entire listing and eliminate any vendors whose websites have gone dead. (If you’re familiar with the site, you’ll know that until recently there was also a News section where I posted press releases from ASPs, but I shut that section down because in the age of RSS feeds, etc. it didn’t seem to be particularly relevant).
2. The information in the site is “low” quality. Because each vendor controls their own profile, there is no independent review of the information they provide, or the categories they select to identify their services. (The All-in-one category is the only one that I still monitor directly, just to help keep it from being mis-used). As well, the information in many profiles is veyr much out of date - has not been updated in years. That’s why each profile has a Last Updated date to help site visitors make an assessment of the validity of the information in each profile. I have been looking for ways to increase the quality of the information in the Nonprofit Matrix, but not to increase the quantity of work I’m putting into it.

As i am learning more about the world of Web 2.0, I’m starting to see some new possibilities. Specifically I am considering how to add some form of reputation system to the site, so that visitors/users of the ASPs listed can add some rating or comments on their assessment of the services. Problem is, I tried adding User Reviews a few years ago, and ended up in a bit of a legal wrangle with an ASP who didn’t take kindly to the negative reviews posted by some unhappy users … so I ended up shutting down the whole User Review system — who needs the hassel? However, I have seen models of User Review/Rating systems out there on the net and am beginning to get interested in the idea again. I’m looking around for a suitable system to build into the site, or to model some simple code or interface on.

Hmmm …More thinking to do on this ….