It's About The Conversation

Last week in Columbus, the Resource Interactive Client Symposium brought some of the most innovative and creative thinkers in the Live Web community together for a two-day discussion about the future of organizations in the social web.

Among the speakers were Doc Searls, Joseph Jaffe, and Duncan Watts. Jaffe's presentation is now posted on Slideshare and it's worth sharing.

While there may not be anything all that new for most geeks that follow the Cluetrain, the presentation reinforces some terrific points - among these is detailing when a "Conversation Isn't A Conversation At All."

1. Faking
2. Manipulating
3. Controlling
4. Dominating
5. Avoiding

When I look at this list, unfortunately I immediately think of traditional media (print and broadcast). I really don't watch much local news on television in large part because they really cover so little news. But also because of the manipulation that so often takes place.

The worst example of this are the short teases that may occur during a station break to promote the late news. I fully believe that an effective promo will keep an audience tuned in, but too many times the teasers used by local stations are used to manipulate (perhaps frighten) the viewer into staying tuned.

The same is true in many instances as to how commercial radio markets itself to its listeners. And I think public radio and television at times falls into this same trap through our on-air pledge drives.

We can all find examples of the other four non-conversations in traditional media:

• From reality shows and showbiz news that are as far from reality on one can get (Faking)
• The continued belief that journalism and content rights are still a one-way street (Controlling)
• the unwillingness to accept the fact that the influence of bloggers and social media is reducing the impact that traditional media is having on our culture -- particularly youth culture (Dominating/Avoiding)
  

On Slide 44, Jaffe envisions that in 2012 Organizations will have conversation departments:

• Level 1: Customers to Corporation
• Level 2: Employees to Customers
• Level 3: Customers to Customers
• Companies will have a Chief Conversation Officer
• Customer service will be the differentiator
• All campaigns will have “commitment to conversation”
  

While Jaffe's focus is around marketing, this concept is fitting to how Public Media can evolve when you think about the loyalty that we already have for our product on our broadcast channels.

The opportunity is here but we have to open the door up to our audience and our employees to have the freedom to engage in conversations at all levels.

We have the content -- and its our charge now to take the community that love us in the broadcast space and connect with them on the Live Web. We need to give them the choice to easily find our content, to contribute to what we've created, to distribute what we've created, and to connect seamlessly with the worldwide community of individuals that share the belief in our mission.

We can no longer control the keys to the vehicle and keep our audience in the backseat. We're in an age that we can only take the commute together in a car pool with a shared responsibility to navigate and drive us to make our communities stronger. By giving up the keys, we empower our audience to share the ride together -- both in the content created and in paying for the ride.

I appreciate RI's willingness to blog about its meeting and provide these materials at no charge. They've gained by respect and loyalty by doing so offering a meaningful lesson to us all.

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Power Philanthropy - Our Fundraising Future?

Columbus Business First is reporting today the incredible success of the Columbus Foundation's first Power Philanthropy "Match Day" where a pool of money was put forth as match money encouraging individuals in the Columbus area to contribute to support one or more of the 350 non-profits listed on the Foundation's Power Philanthropy web site.

The event started at 3 p.m. on Thursday, March 6th and in just 44 minutes $550,000 was raised from individuals in the community to go with the $237,000 in matching funds. All in all, $805,000 was raised in a very short period of time.

When you consider that 238 local organizations received gifts during the event - averaging out to about $3,400 per organization. Some non-profits did better than others - one took in more than $14,000 in match dollars while five others received more than $5K in matches from the Foundation. While these numbers per organization are not transformational in that no organization will be probably not be able to start or sustain any new programming with what they've raised, I'm enthusiastic about the idea for a number of reasons:

1. New Donors. I'm guessing that the way this event was marketed brought many new donors to both the Foundation and the organizations they supported. And most likely, given the medium used of on-line giving, that many of these donors are younger than the traditional contributors to these organizations.
2. Leverage the Power of the Match. As we know in public radio, challenges and match dollars always seem to work well. This further reinforces the power of leverages dollars for more dollars. Also, by opening this up to so many organizations the donors making the challenge will have their dollars put to use in a variety of ways to help make our community be stronger. This would seem to bring a great benefit to deepen the interest and commitment of donors to the Foundation.
3. It's About The Community. Okay, so no single organization is going to be transformed from this one-time event, it's not really the point. The point is that this type of event brings our community together in a stronger and more meaningful way than a series of fundraising campaigns or special events by individual organizations. If one were consider pooling all of the dollars (and overhead expenses) put up for a lunch or dinner fundraising event in our community into a matching program like this the results could be enormous.

Could an idea like this work for Public Radio?

I think it could and here's why:

• If you're traveling around the country this week and next, you'll no doubt find that most Public Radio stations are fundraising giving up an enormous amount of airtime asking for your support. Could a truly national campaign bring better results in a shorter period of time bringing less pain to our staff and more public service to our listeners?
  
• Many stations are already pooling a huge amount of dollars in advance to use as on-air challenges during their drives. What if NPR would to also push out this idea to its 7 million monthly visitors to its web site as well as to those downloading Podcasts. Make it easy for people to contribute to the pool where all the money contributed would go to stations.
• And for the reasons stated about about community, a campaign like this would strengthen the public radio brand across the country much more than week-long, in some cases badly executed, pledge drives.

Where to Start?

The place to start with this is probably not either the Spring or Fall membership drives as many stations have too much at stake to want to risk trying an untested idea during such a critical time. Instead, I suggest doing something in December after the Fall pledge season is over and make it a year-end gift event.

Utilize our air with spot promos, our email list, and our web site to push the idea out that at a certain time on a certain day public radio stations, networks, and listeners and banding together in special fundraising event.

Use the same concept as the Columbus Foundation's Power Philanthropy model where are listeners can easily search find the station(s) they wish to support. Plus, if they don't have a specific station to support give them the option to contribute to the match fund.

This isn't a revolutionary idea as we've been talking about this at different levels for a long time. However, having seen how this worked in Columbus without the power of the broadcasters megaphone behind it, I am confident it could be a start in helping to replace some of our dependence on traditional pledge drives.

What do you think?

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How do we/How should we define ourselves?

I had the pleasure of meeting blogger Dave Winer at the 2007 Public Media Conference in Boston back February. On Sunday, Dave offered some very interesting thoughts on our changing world as it relates to public radio -- in the context of Sam Zell's purchase of The Tribune Company.

In his post, Winer writes:

Before the Internet, I listened to KQED. That meant listening to shows I wasn't interested in, like Pacific Time or Latino USA. Now, after having lived in Seattle, Boston and Florida, I'm an NPR listener. I found shows on WBUR that KQED doesn't carry. My favorite show comes from WNYC. I'm a fan of DIane Rehm who does her work at WAMU, but I first heard her on WJCT. I still listen to Fresh Air from WHYY, but I only listen to the podcast, and only when the program interests me.

In a few years, the transition to the Internet will be so complete that the link between the call letters and a local area will be meaningless. The stations won't even broadcast. Then someone at NPR will swallow the hard truth that the distinctions mean so little to anyone outside their industry that they might as well just collapse it down and call the whole thing NPR.

How would those in the public radio community react to these comments?

• Many would react in denial, that the world really isn't moving this way.

• Some would react in fear, that this is a big conspiracy brought about by a few of the major players in public radio to go directly to the listener and by-pass the local stations.

• And a few would react with a nod of the head and agree that this is the way the world is moving to and that we had better get off our tails and act now together to map our future. Not everyone is going to be willing or ready to work together in this leap of faith ... but unless we do, we're facing the same reality as the newspaper industry.

For those who see this new world and want to lead public radio forward, now is the time to step up, clear your throat, and voice your opinion loud and clear that it isn't 1988, or 1995 anymore. It's 2007 and we have the opportunity to grab this new world and make it ours or allow the new world to pass us by.

I'm ready to grab our piece -- I hope others are ready to step up as well.

Keeping our Eye on the Ball

Several public radio station leaders spent the day today discussing the merits, or rather the lack of merit, in NPR's renewed deal with Sirius Satellite Radio.

A few calmer voices were added to the mix but to spend a whole lot of time debating the issue is really taking our eye off the ball. This is not the discussion we need to be having.

Instead, we should be having a discussion regarding taking the work of the Digital Distribution Consortium Working Group from a White Paper to reality. Also, check our Jake's interview with Current and Dennis' blog post Calling The Question.

Instead of spending time rehashing Satellite Radio Strategy, we should be outraged by the decision by the Copyright Royalty Board regarding streaming rates that could result in a severe curtailing to any music streaming on the web and puts into question what will they do if we ever get to a discussion regarding Podcasting.

Rather than discussing the merits of XM or Sirius as friend of foe, wouldn't it be better time spent focusing on how to make your local station more relevant to your community?

We need to keep our eye on the ball or we'll strike out before the season even begins.

Go Cubs!

The Public Radio Talent Quest

One of the better ideas to come out of CPB in some time is the Public Radio Talent Quest.
This project will be fun to be a part of in large part due to the participants involved in this effort -- most notably the folks at PRX.

We are at critical point in our industry in bringing new voices to our air so the timing on this couldn't be better. I'm going into this with a really good attitude hopeful that something positive will come out of the effort.