What constitutes a Meaningful Group?

Ben and Matt both recently posted on the idea of groups, both of which are great reads, which got me thinking about the topic.

With all the discussion about the ease of groups, thanks to web2.0, I simply ask - what constitutes a meaningful group? This builds off of my last post about social networks enabling, not creating conversations.

Because a group forms, does that make it meaningful to its users or its respective industry/movement?

I, for one, have joined many online groups and then forgot about them. Usually these groups are the brainchild of one - 5 leaders that can only grow the group so large before volunteer time isn't enough. Once it attempts to get into mid-level items or higher such as website development, etc it catches a snag. From what I've seen, these natural web2.0 groups haven't yet cracked into the macro level yet.

Associations, however, live at this macro-level - they go behind just networking into larger areas of the industry such as education and advocacy. Associations have impacts larger than just the group of members itself. And I think as long as associations are providing value to its members as well as making significant postive impacts in the larger field its involved in, I believe associations will always have a place. They will need to evolve, but as I've said before, the type and speed at which it evolves has a lot more to do with the industry and upcoming members than with the technologies available.

A group is incredibly easy to form, but making that group produce the results of an association is a whole other story.

Thanks for reading and have a nice holiday weekend,
Bob

Up Close and Personal

My FaceBook page serves as my personal and professional page - so there will be times my professional peers and even managers will see a side of me that I normally wouldn't share. A good example was a recent wall post by my sister. While the post itself is fine, it refers to a rather crude - though humorous - video.

Now for me - I don't care that you see that side of me. However members may not be willing to share their personal life (you yourself may not even be able to share that side with your professional peers). This was brought up at the Tech Conference during the Young Professional Facebook session. One panelist mentioned she had two facebook pages - one personal and one professional. And I totally see the point in having two pages - obviously some things probably shouldn't be shared with professional peers.

This is something to consider though as your organization makes its way on facebook and other recreational social sites. Perhaps your members don't want to become social butterflies, they just want to make some new contacts and participate in informal learning. They may not want to put themself out there for all to see. I personally do not keep a personal twitter page because I don't want to be that connected - for me it blurs personal and professional too much (not to mention my personal life is boring).

Now this may be a trival point for some, but members may like the exclusivity your organization offers. Being "out there" may not be appealing to them - though the experience of social networking would be beneficial. I've recieved some feedback along these lines from members who do not feel that facebook or any of the personal social networking sites are appropriate for business use and would not be interested in joining a professional network through any of them.

Don't fret though - this could be an opportunity to examine a closed group such as ning or collectiveX or percieved professional services such as linkedin. You just need to talk and listen to your members to find out how up close and personal they are comfortable getting.

Thanks for reading,
bob

YAP Group on Facebook

I've been sick this week and I'm out next week at a conference so this may be the last post for a week or so.

However, a Young Association Professionals Facebook group launced! Headed by Maddie, the group feels that... age is a state of mind. So anyone is welcome who thinks young, no matter what your real age might be ;) Oh, and I happen to be lucky enough to be an officer (though I don't know that means much - but I appreciate the thought).

I'm hoping to spend a bit of time helping this get off the ground. I've placed the badge to the right on my groups to watch! Feel free to join if you haven't found it yet.

Well, I've still got some things to wrap up before I leave but I'll be back on April 14 (if not sooner) and I hope to run across you on YAP.

Thanks for reading,
Bob

Members on Facebook

To continue on yesterday's post, I've been reaching out to some of my own members on facebook as I have time now that I've had Sr. Staff buy into Web2.0 thanks to Wikis and other experimental social groups. I've recieved a good response so far, some only signed up and used it once, some feel that linkedin or other more professional group is appropriate and there are people who "believe this would be a new and exciting tool for networking"

So far I've reached out to about 20 members and so far I've made 9 new friends and recieved a better idea of how our members are using it and how we can play off of this.

And if you're a young association professional, this could be a good time to introduce your board and executives to the concept of social networking and get them onboard - that is if they aren't already online.

Thanks for reading,
Bob

P.S. Thanks to the posts by Maddie on twitter, I've joined the next great phase of web2.0. I'll give my feedback in future posts.

Finding Members on Facebook

Intitially I believe there are 3 people who can benefit from social networking:

• Those already online
• Those who are participating in a conversation
• Those who need technology to participate

Today, I'm going to help you find members online because it's much easier to empower members who are already participating then trying to get newby's online.

So here are the quick tricks that I've learned for finding members online using facebook:

• Export a member list into a CSV file (no larger than about 1000).
• Use facebook's friend finder (must sign into to facebook to use).

Some tips for using friend finder:

• Once you select your list and upload into the friend finder it will begin searching - there is no activate button
• Members on facebook will appear from the email list automatically checked off. You can't send a note to them from this page nor can you track who a friend request was sent to, so it'd be a good idea to save this list and send out an email before or directly after you invite members to be friends
• After you select friends it will bring up emails not in facebook. I would seriously consider not inviting them to join facebook for two reasons: it will look like Spam which means they'll delete it, and second - think organic.

Upon successful uploading, you may have found more members online than you thought. Ask them to be your friend and reach out and see why they're online. If they're already talking, let them continue the conversation, maybe even help it continue to flow. Members already using the technologies may just be the WOM you need to get the later adopters online.

You can also search facebook groups, you never know, your organization or event could already have a group. What you do with the group is completely up to you - but it might at least be worth checking out to see what's being said. Organic growth will happen in one form or another.

Thanks for reading,

Bob