Can you help me out with a messy research-related question?

What are the best ways to set boundaries around subsets of an “extended organization”, and then give these subsets names so that they are easy to talk about?

The problem seems on the surface looks like a question of semantics (i.e., what to call it). But it’s more than that, since the terms of expression need to be founded on some kind of principle of composition. I need help with both the semantics and the principle(s).

When we’re talking about a network of coordinated, interdependent economic actors, how do we decide which of these actors should be considered part of the organization and which of these actors should be considered outside the organization?

And, how do we name the groups within different levels of boundaries, in a way that’s easy to comprehend and makes sense conceptually?

And the biggest issue:

How do we refer to “the organization” without automatically dismissing the sense of connection that any particular actor might feel, and without diminishing his/hers/its valid status as “part of” the organization?

(Note, I can’t call it The Organization because (ultimately, though not now) I want speak of it as its real self, by name, and not just talk about it as a theoretical organization.)

Here’s the situation:

“The Organization” in question is the core entity and the largest entity in a community of commerce / commercial network of businesses. All of the businesses are interdependent economic partners.  The core organization cannot exist without the co-commercial organizations. And, although some of these entities have revenue streams and commitments to entities outside the extended organization, most of them depend on the incorporated organization for key elements of their value chain.

The incorporated organization is big-ish (400 employees), and the co-commercial entities are small (1 to 10 employees) concerns. Some are incorporated or LLCs.

What I’m talking about this extended organization, I need to name three things:

• The incorporated organizational entity, which is incorporated and has a CEO, and directly employs individuals (that all get W-2 income from their work in the organization).

• The extension of the organization that includes not just the W-2 employees of the incorporated organization but also includes all of the co-commercial partners whose participation is critical to the incorporated entity.

Because the incorporated organization relies so heavily on these co-commercial partners, it’s hard to think of them as not being part of “the organization”. In fact, lots of these partners describe themselves as being part of “the organization”, and are often seen that way by customers and outsiders. If you asked a customer or a random person on the street who The Organization was, they’d likely include the co-commercial partners and maybe not even know that they were not completely part of the incorporated organization.

• The community of commerce, which includes not only the incorporated organization and its co-commercial partners but also includes the customers that interact with partners.

Do economic or financial dimensions work as complete decision rules?

In my description above, of the different layers/levels/subsets of “the organization”, I’ve defaulted to using legal & financial categories to set the boundaries. For example, the incorporated organization vs the intended one. Another similar strategy is distinguish between entities financially, by using who issues the W-2 to whom as a way to separate the pieces.

The easiest way for me to distinguish the boundary is to consider the legal entities–whether they are incorporated or not, and then to consider who is attached to each Inc. entity, based on their W-2 income.

But these dimensions and boundaries are defined by purely financial criteria – which isn’t enough to really define “the organization” if organizations are more than just economic machines. Categories like sources of revenue, origin of income for individuals, and legal status don’t reflect any particular sense of social agreement, such as the beliefs of participants about who the organization is or isn’t.

I’m willing to use the financial criteria to establish qualitatively different boundaries that include more or less of the network’s participants, but once I do that I still have the problem of …

What do I call the different entities?

I have to start with the core organization’s real name, so that outsiders can sort of know what I’m talking about. My daughter suggested “Pluto” as the nom de recherche for this organization, so Pluto has to be part of it. (Or not, you can convince me otherwise).

I could call the three key groupings Pluto Incorporated, Pluto Extended, and Pluto Community.

The method for distinguishing groupings can’t put any particular group down. In other words, there can’t be a master category (e.g., President) and a few marked categories (e.g., Female President), because adding the modifier to only some of the categories makes them subordinate. SO, I can’t do Pluto, Pluto Extended, and Pluto Community.

And, I need a method to refer to them that feels reasonably seamless, and is not clunky or cumbersome. This is made me think about using subscripts, to call it Pluto -I, Pluto-X, Pluto-C. (note, I can’t format a subscript in wordpress — techfail on my part)

But does this look dumb or distracting in print?

Self-Determination and Psychological Connection

Finally, a perfect solution would be to have a naming system that was related to how the different people (and the entities they are part of) think of themselves in relation to “the organization”. How could the names reflect the group that think of themselves and each other at “the organization” when this includes the core organization and some but not all of its co-commercial partners?

Even though the I, X, and C designations map onto financial distinctions, they don’t tell the reader anything about the sentiments or relationships among the actual people I’m referring to. For example, to talk about Pluto-I when I’m talking about things other than revenue/finances, such as the effort of “the people who think of themselves as ‘the organization’ and who are all working together”.

Theoretically, I could make a fourth group that includes all the people who think of themselves as being part of Pluto.

Maybe Pluto-| could stand for Psychologically Pluto?

Making distinctions of who’s in or out based on members’ psychological self-assessments, by asking them whether or not they consider themselves “in” the organization, makes sense when we’re trying to capture or talk about their psychological (that is, non-economic) motivations. But, since I’m an outside researcher who can’t survey the sense of membership of all the entities in the network, I’d always be referring to this group as a theoretical one with a boundary that hasn’t been firmly established.uld always be a blurry group.

Any thoughts on how to parse these distinctions in a way that’s conceptually clear, emotionally inclusive, and textually simple?

I’d love your suggestions ..

Image: B’okay on Flickr ??? Some rights reserved by HarshPatel;Photographer

Networks of people and organizations are usually either “markets” or “communities”.

It bothers us that networks fit one or the other model of working together, because we envision something more –something both market and community –  in one network.

We are often disappointed when markets don’t exhibit a commitment to any values other than maximizing profits. And, while we treasure communities where we create collective meaning and build relationships, we often shy away from using these relationships to help each other make a living. We ask too much of the market format, and expect too little from the community format.

It’s become easier to see how these two different models, the market focused on economic transactions and the community focused on meaning & social interchange, diverge in both form and feeling.

Ebusiness and social technologies have made it easier for us to buy and sell based on prices alone. At the same time, they’ve made it easier for us to build strong and rich networks of interpersonal and collective relationships that sustain us socially.

In online markets, the ease of finding a lower price or quicker delivery has led us to dis-intermediate the buyer-seller social relationships we relied on before. We’ve learned to sacrifice the comfort, the security, the qualitative connection, and any interpersonal meaning we found in these commercial exchanges in favor of reduced search costs, lower prices, and increased economic efficiency.

Online communities, facilitated by social technologies, have created more meaning for us, as we’ve been able to find and interact with people who are like us (or unlike us in desirable ways), who have similar interests, values, and goals, who can recognize and affirm who we are, and with whom we can pursue a shared social purpose.

Although we often draw on online communities for social support, learning, and collaboration, we have sometimes shied away from using them to sell or buy or earn money. We worry about burdening our relationships with something as crass as pricing or payments, since we fear that these will change the nature of our interactions and deprive the community of its innocence – or its nobility.

These concerns and these hesitations are appropriate, since markets aren’t supposed to be about creating meaning, and communities aren’t supposed to be about extracting excess rents. Markets and Communities are different models for working together.

But what about our vision of markets where relationships matter and communities where we can make a living while we explicitly pursue values beyond profits?

Enter the Community of Commerce.

As I’ve been researching online eMarketplaces like eBay and Etsy, I’ve identified that while the dominant model is a marketplace that’s all about efficiency and economic exchange, an emerging model is a marketplace that combines the exchange of goods and services with the exchange of social meaning. This combination of economic and social exchange is intentional, motivational, and wickedly effective.

Instead of seeing this model as some sort of ‘not-free’, values- constrained market, let’s give it its own category. Let’s call this model a Community of Commerce.

Defining a Community of Commerce

A community of commerce is a network of organizations and individuals that buy, sell, and exchange goods and services within a collectively-defined community culture, a culture that is based on articulated, shared, more-than-economic values.

Back in 2000, Stacy Bressler & Charles Grantham published a book “Communities of Commerce: Building Internet business communities to accelerate growth, minimize risk, and increase customer loyalty.” Their thesis was that businesses should learn how to transcend geography so that they could identify and connect with strategically relevant business partners. Bressler & Grantham’s motivating contrast was between off-line and online business relationships; they used the terms “communities of commerce” and “online business communities” interchangeably.

I want to expand the definition of “communities of commerce” to focus on how the tensions, tradeoffs and opportunities of a commercial network that puts community first will differ in economically and socially important ways. Trying to stack a network for exchanging meaning on top of a network of economic exchange won’t work – it’s not like we can simply add “meaningplace” to “marketplace” and call it a coherent business model.

In the next few weeks, I’ll post my efforts to define what’s distinctive about a community of commerce, to explain how it’s related to other progressive business models, and to begin to unfold the tensions and opportunities that arise when buying & selling are inseparable from and integral to the mutual exchange of meaning.

I’d love your thoughts about the concept and especially your suggestions for defining it.

See also:

Don’t Tell Esty That Authenticity Is Getting “Old” — The Social Dynamic Between Crafters and Buyers is Timeless
Purpose is the Killer App: Why Organizations Need Social Business Tools
7 Ways That Social Business Advice is Wrong for Your Organization
Insights about Authenticity from the Open Community Book Tour

Image: Indian Garden Flowers Some rights reserved by EssjayNZ

Every organization has a story. Any group that wants to be an important part of that organization needs to craft a place for itself in that story.

The story an organization tells itself and shares with others helps everyone make sense of who the organization is. For members, the organization’s story helps them articulate their connection to the organization, because it explains how their work contributes to who the organization is and to why it exists.

Crafting a place in the organization’s story can be harder than it seems.  Especially in consumer-facing companies, groups that are not visible to consumers often fall outside of the story. Departments like Accounting, IT, HR, Facilities Management, et. al., are rarely part of the organization’s brand, and they are often distant from the core promise of who the organization is, what it does, and why.

 [When I worked in the manufacturing and sales divisions of a consumer products company, folks in both divisions felt like under-appreciated step-children. If you didn't work in marketing you weren't a full-fledged member of the organization, because only marketing was featured in the organization's story. ]

So how does a part of the organization that might not be seen as central to the organization’s purpose make itself part of the organization’s story?

The Software Engineering group at Etsy has what looks to be an effective way of connecting themselves to their company story. Their example shows how some clever and authentic self-description can knit a traditionally ‘backstage’ group into the main fabric of the organization’s identity.

Etsy’s Company Story

Etsy’s company story revolves around artisans, makers, crafters, and the community these artisans create with each other and with their customers. At Etsy¹:

Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.

A company story about a marketplace for handmade and unique objects doesn’t seem like a story where software engineers could be lead characters.  Conventionally (meaning, outside Silicon Valley and Alley), software engineers work in the background, off to the side, in cost centers that support but don’t create the organization’s identity.

But at Etsy, engineers have cast themselves as craftspeople – as people who make a living making things — just like everyone else in the Etsy community. With their Code as Craft initiative, Etsy’s engineers have designed their group as a central, direct, and explicit contributor to Etsy’s mission and Etsy’s overall success.

The Code as Craft Initiative at Etsy

Back in June of 2010, the Etsy tech group launched a blog “Code as Craft” to focus and share their conversation about how the engineering group sees itself and how it fits with the larger Etsy community.  In the inaugural blog post, Etsy CTO (now CEO) Chad Dickerson explained:

At Etsy, our mission is to enable people to make a living making things. The engineers who make Etsy make our living making something we love: software. We think of our code as craft — hence the name of the blog.

It sounds a bit over-reaching, until you realize that the Esty Engineers’ Code as Craft initiative based in something real.

Genuine, not fake.  The language of “Code as Craft” captures and highlights something that is already true, indigenous and authentic about software engineering. Just as light is both wave and particle, software design is both mechanical and organic.

The “Code as Craft” movement /meme has been around since the dawn of computing. While mathematical rigor, linearity, discipline, and a mechanistic orientation might characterize how outsiders see software engineering, engineers themselves see this and more. They see themselves as artisans exercising skill, judgment, taste and creativity.

The computer technology folks aren’t over-reaching posers for calling themselves craftspeople. Their sense of themselves as crafters and their work as craft is real, rooted in years of professional self-description. The Code as Craft language may be strategic, but it is also a very simple act of engineers’ highlighting the part of their work that they choose to identify with most. In the Etsy environment, engineers are artisans whose work is simultaneously functional and beautiful.

Chosen, Not Imposed.   Etsy’s software engineers chose the language of craft themselves. The language wasn’t imposed on them by someone else in the organization trying to fit them into a tidy little box.

You might think it’s just a nice coincidence that software engineering would have words like ‘art’, ‘craft’, and ‘beauty’ in its toolbox of self-description, and that software engineers would be critical for enabling Etsy’s code- and data-heavy business model. But while there many organizations like Etsy that couldn’t exist without a cadre of software engineers, for these same companies words like ‘art’, ‘craft’ and ‘beauty’ are irrelevant to the company story.

For Engineers at Etsy, describing themselves as crafters isn’t a coincidence, but a leadership choice.

Craft Connects Coders to Etsy’s Other Crafters

At Etsy, engineers striving for improved run times and multi-layer design compliance can use the same words — craft, crafting, craftsperson — to describe their work as do the artisans making sweet mouse pincushions.

The shared vocabulary literally helps them communicate across differences that in other organizations could be barriers.  Moreover, shared language helps vendors, marketers and engineers see each other and recognize what each group is contributing, because they can use criteria that everyone understands.

Whether rendered in colors, textures or command lines, skill and beauty can be recognized by any craftsperson.

By connecting their discipline and their department to Etsy’s core story about “making things”, the Code as Craft initiative presents engineers as central and  relevant contributors to Etsy’s purpose. As a result, engineers can be recognized, affirmed and appreciated by other members of the Etsy’ community, who share the values and skills as craftspeople, albeit in different media.

Craft Connects Coders to Etsy’s External Role and Image

Engineers’ link to the company story is also useful outside the organization. Because they are crafters, Etsy engineers can represent Etsy and its company story to outsiders, not just other crafters but also the start-up community and the software engineering community.

For years, Etsy’s Community & Education group has been hosting regular after-hours Craft Nights at the Etsy Labs. Artisans come to learn and and share techniques for making products. With the advent of the Code as Craft initiative, Etsy’s engineering community has begun hosting occasional “Code as Craft” nights at Etsy Labs, where members of the tech community can come to learn and share techniques for running websites.  (Even better, the engineering group holds these events in a room lined with bins of sewing machines and fabric scraps, and feels perfectly at home.)

Their position as crafters helps the Etsy Engineers become both like other crafters in the Etsy community, and distinct from other software engineers in the tech start-up community. Etsy’s crafty coders become “optimally distinctive” — the same and special, at once.

Enabling, Engaging and Contributing as Crafters

The Code as Craft initiative is a way of embedding the professional brand within the organization’s brand to the benefit of both — like employee branding from the inside out.

What I like the most about the Code as Craft initiative at Etsy is the way that it invites engineers to contribute — from their uniqueness  — at their highest level. Code as Craft recognizes a specific part of a software engineer’s (potential) professional identity — the skilled craftsperson.  It engages that identity by inviting engineers to speak in the craftsperson’s vernacular, allowing them to communicate more easily within the Etsy crafting community. It puts their work right at the heart of the organization’s purpose — making a living making things — and aligns them with Etsy’s goals.

When we can craft our place in the organization’s story, we can create an authentic connection to who the organization is, what it does, and why that matters. That connection makes our work relevant and imbues our contributions with meaning.

See also:
How Social Media Create Organizational Meaning
Be Your Own Hashtag
The “New” Crisis of Meaning?
Authentic Student Entrepreneurs: Embedding Personal, Product and Organizational Brand

Images:
Mouse with felt ears, from July 2011 Craft Lab, by thelongthread.com
I Love Etsy from amazingminiatures.com  

¹ It turns out that identifying Etsy’s current mission statement is harder than you’d think. More on that in a future post.

What’s up with the word “new” in the phrase “meaning is the new motivator”?

From all corners of the interwebz conversation about ‘business’, I see mention of this idea that meaning at work is something new, something that we have just begun to desire.

Seriously. It seems to come as a surprise, or as a new development, that maximizing shareholder value isn’t motivating to most employees. Wow. Where have these people been since, oh, the dawn of the industrial revolution?

Folks have been talking about meaning at work, and looking for meaning at work, long before this recent ‘crisis of meaning’.  

True, we’ve used different terms over time.

• We’ve talked about alienation and estrangement to describe being cut off from meaningful work.

• We’ve talked about commitment and engagement, as attitudes towards organizations that ought to have meaning but usually don’t.

• We’ve talked about “leadership” as the process of creating meaning, even if only through charisma, from the top of the organization’s food chain.

• And, we’ve talked about vision and mission, knowing that meaning was in there, somewhere, among all the BHAGs.

There is nothing ‘new’ about the desire for meaning at work.

Just yesterday, Luis Suarez wrote a great post about meaning, in which he shared a vlog from Roger Martin, Dean at Rotman School, about “The Crisis of Meaning in the Millennial Workforce“. Luis unpacks why any of us, knowledge workers especially, might feel a lack of meaning. He clarifies that meaning is an issue for every generation of workers, and that each of us needs to do something about refocusing business so that it meets human, social needs. (Read his whole post, it’s great.)

So my question is not whether we need meaning. The question is:

Why is our desire for meaning positioned this way?

Why do so many (like Dan Pink) position “meaning” as something “new”?

• Are we trying to avoid recognizing that meaning is something we’ve always wanted, but perhaps never felt permitted to ask for in polite business company?

Why do so many (like Roger Martin) position “meaning” as something others desire, but not us? Or that we desire for others, but not for ourselves?

• Are we talking about “Millenials” and “their” needs for meaning so that we can take care of ‘them’ while avoiding taking responsibility for ourselves?

• Are we trying to look ‘objective’ so that we don’t look demanding, or ungrateful? Do we have to make meaning a ‘business problem’ so that we can take meaning seriously?

I recognize that for many, it’s become a “crisis of meaning” because there is so little left to promise workers, in terms of job security, career development, gain-sharing, and ownership rights. Maybe after all these other kinds of ‘motivations’ have been eroded by the twin beasts of corporate profit-taking and work intensification, there is nothing left that we can truly count on to take our minds of the paycheck, and so we turn to meaning.

In good times and bad times, people have always wanted meaningful work. People have always wanted – and still want–to work in organizations that serve a larger purpose, where individual and collective efforts create meaningful products, meaningful services, and meaningful experiences.

Why do we treat this as a surprising truth?

See also:
The Pursuit of (Organizational) Purpose by Deb Lavoy

Social Media for Social Change — Inside the Organization?
Is your organization flourishing or withering?
How Social Media Create Organizational Meaning

Why do so many social business advocates overlook the organizational value of online communities?

Too many people dismiss online communities for not being central to the organizations they serve.  These critics dismiss communities for being merely social, just another way to chat or swap tips. Even when they acknowledge how communities can be critical for getting certain kinds of work done, they claim that communities are not sufficiently “business-like”. Worse, they dismiss community advocates and experts as “enterprise social business bleeding hearts” and “kumbayaros”.

What these under-valuers miss is the way that these communities serve a key ‘business’ purpose for their diverse and wide-ranging participants.

While the online community is not the organization, for many participants, the community is their central experience of the organization.

It’s in their role as participants’ central experience of the organization that communities are under-appreciated, and I think it’s time we look at the unique contribution that communities make to the ‘social organization’.

Communities serve two organizational needs that are fairly well understood.

1. Communities serve participants as a way to find, share and develop understanding of things related to work.

2. Communities serve organizations as ways to focus, coordinate, and engage members in shared activity that contributes to the organization’s main goals.

Communities also serve a third, under-the-radar need of organizations –

3. Online communities serve members’ individual and collective needs for a coherent sense of “the Organization”, by creating the experience of being part of something larger, consistent, and meaningful.

The double-barreled concept of “central experience” is key here.

Online communities are central because:

• They draw members from across the organization together into a group

• They draw this assortment of different participants to a common set of topics

• The participants’ conversation is anchored in a (relatively) stable and findable place

• The shared place is created and hosted by the organization itself.

The online community aggregates, focuses, and anchors a subset of organization members in a place that belongs to the organization

Online communities create an experience for members because:

• The community isn’t composed of abstract thoughts ‘about’ the organization, but of actual other people who act and respond.

• The community is composed of tangible actions, reactions, expressions and feelings that participants contribute. Instead of thinking about organizational issues in ways that are isolated inside their heads, participants put stuff out into the shared space.

• The community has an emotional tenor. Sensing, experiencing and contributing to the emotions in the community reinforces participants’ experience of the community as real, since their emotional reactions are decidedly real.

• The community is “present” as well as past, or potential, because the community and members’ relationship to the community exists over real time.

Tangible, Material “Organization”

For the participant, the community creates a tangible subset of ‘the organization’ that’s perceived as something different from the both the collection of other organization members that surround the individual while ‘at work’, and the collection of specific individual participants in the online community.

Not a mixture but a compound, not an aggregate but a sum.  The community becomes a ‘thing’ — “the Organization”.

Centrality + Experience => Entitativity => “The ‘Organization’”

Together, the the centrality and the experience of an online community help to create for members a sense of “entitativity”. (Entitativity is the scientific word for “thing-ness”.) Unconsciously and sometimes consciously, participants experience and thus treat the community as though it were “the Organization” .

Creating a sense of “the Organization” is a critical business process. The community does not “become” the organization, but it represents the organization in the experience of the members.

What “the ‘Organization’” means for the Community Manager

When we recognize that the community is experienced as “the Organization”, the stakes are raised for the community manager. The community manager not only has to facilitate and support the community as a community (of people interacting, in helpful ways, across an array of topics), but also s/he has to manage the elements of the community that influence what people conclude about the actual organization based on how they experience the community.

Community managers have to manage “the Organization” by:

1. Intentionally crafting the tangible space.

Community managers must attend to large and small decisions that physically construct the space (e.g., names, colors, user interface, visual appearance, defaults and fields, mode of display, data in the display, etc).

They need to think of themselves as the ‘property managers’ of the organization’s online building, since the community site provides the architecture, the aesthetics and the functionality that creates the experience of “the Organization”.

2. Intentionally curating the space.

Community managers must make firm, consistent, deliberate decisions about what is discussed, what resources and participants are brought in, etc. so that the community acts and behaves in was that resonate with the larger identity and vision of the organization.

3. Facilitating the community in the organization’s style.

Community managers must demonstrate, reinforce and cultivate a spirit and a collective personality that resonates with the identity of the organization, since ultimately participants’ experience of that spirit will influence how they define their organization.

It’s not only that the community managers must help the communities serve the organization’s larger goals; they also need to make sure that the experience of ‘the organization’ supports the larger understanding of who that organization is, what it does, and why it does what it does.

Participants will extrapolate from their central experience of the online community their sense of who “the Organization” is, and apply this to make sense of who the (whole) organization is and also to make sense of how they themselves should act.

Community Managers as Leaders

Because the online community helps to construct the organization an entity, rather than ‘just’ a conversation, Community Managers have to be recognized as more than “facilitators” or “moderators’. Because Community Managers are responsible for participants’ experience of the community, these managers have a critical — and undervalued– role as leaders in their organizations.

As leaders, community managers need to have a clear vision for the ‘central experience’ that their communities provide (a vision that is connected, I hope, to the reality of who the organizaiton is and wants to be) so that they deliberately serve that purpose of shaping what becomes “the Organization” for so many.

Image: a close-up to nature from eeicenbice
Circle of Life – For Mao Mao from Loves_TaiShan

Note: Whether communities remain ‘standalone’ conversations or morph into coherent online collectivities that span several tools on a social intranet, it’s clear that communities will become more and more critical to “social” in organizations. Eventually, these communities will organize all other forms of online organizational interactivity.

[(As I prepare for teaching the first class of the Business Technology Consulting Practicum, I've been reflecting on how to encourage the students to identify the unique gifts that they have and to consider how they'll bring these gifts to the teams and the projects they choose this year.  It's only fair, I think, for me to pony up my own 'gift' -- and that's that I love to ask questions and lure people into conversations where they can rethink & reframe their work, and then have a renewed energy for it.  So, for my students & co-learners, here's the rest of the story.   (Reposted from Jan. 4., 2010. )]

I love sticking my nose into other people’s business.

There, I’ve said it. It’s true, if a little odd. I think it sometimes embarrasses my family, this interest in other people’s business.

If you ever run in to me at a dinner party, or picking up kids at Tae Kwon Do, or walking to the train, probably the third thing I’ll ask you about (after yourself and your family) is what’s happening with your business.

If I can, I’ll ask you about the direction your business is taking, how healthy (or not) your organization feels, whether you are inspired, and how you’re trying to make a difference there.

I’m not so much interested in whether that accounts receivable issue is under control again (although I can talk about strategies for that) or whether it really makes sense in this climate to take on extra debt to invest in a new laminating technology (although I can pose tough questions about that too).

But I can- and will – talk about your strategy, your boss, your employees, your big picture, your enterprise perspective, or even your own hopefulness about your new direction, if you’ll let me.

People often find my favorite line of inquiry a little surprising.

I imagine that people are surprised because, while we often want to talk with our friends about how ‘work’ is going or what’s up with our careers, it’s not often that someone asks us about the mood in the company, about our views of leadership, and about how our organization is being authentic or not.

And, some people seem surprised when questions like these come from a woman.

Especially when I meet someone new (as I did at that New Year’s Day brunch last week, when we were talking about the threat of content farms to the magazine industry) I feel like I need to mention that I have a PhD from a business school, that I’ve taught MBA students and execs for years, and that I work with organizations and managers to establish strategies for aligning their actions and their purpose. As much as I hate to think it, sometimes new acquaintances assume that I’m your stereotypical work-from-my-home-office mom with a blog who “writes” and “consults”, and who has more to say about PTA fund-raising than about the motivational effects of various programs for re-pricing employee stock options.

And thus, sometimes people are surprised when I start to stick my nose into their business.

But, once we get past that possible implicit barrier, here’s what I usually discover:

• Most people quickly warm to the idea of talking about their business.

• They are actually delighted to have someone to listen to them talk it out, to bounce ideas off of, and to ponder alternative perspectives. Once they get going, they can unfold some pretty sophisticated concerns, and they do enjoy looking closely at the big picture.

• People secretly want to talk about their business, and just don’t get asked to do it often enough.

The best part? Sometimes I can even ask a question that helps people reframe the situation in a way that feels more hopeful, in a way that helps them see how they can make a difference. That’s actually my favorite part.

I am not quite sure why we don’t talk invite ourselves to talk with each other about our businesses, more often. It’s fun, really it is.

So forgive me if at first I seem nosy, asking you about your business.

I’m not trying to drum up another consulting gig (though, I’ll be here should you need me). I’m curious. I just want to know more about your business.

I’m pretty sure you’ll have fun telling me.

Photo: Wake up and smell the flowers from nualabugeye on Flicker

In a social organization, the design of digital social tools like intranets should reflect the organizational features that define the organization. These design features, no matter how subtle, can ‘auto-communicate’ and make salient the characteristics that matter most, and help organizations stay authentic.

Especially in the digital workplace, our digital tools create an important shared context that ‘defines’ the organization.

When I taught my MBA elective Leadership 2.0: Leading in a Digital Environment, I had a teaching case about an organization establishing its intranet.

The pressing question: What should the physical interface on employees’ computer screens look like?

The design challenge was to make the home page ‘work’ while helping keep the organization’s defining characteristics in the minds of the user/members.

Of course, ten years ago “intranets” were really simple affairs. In this case, we were really discussing the ‘frame’ — the sidebars, top navigation menu, and background image. (Once someone clicked into email, or to the library data base, all that was left was a half-inch frame all around.) There wasn’t much variation in functionality, just in the ways that things were presented visually.

But, even though the available options & decisions were small, these little design choices made a difference.

For example, the out-of-the-box default color scheme was light blue and navy blue. Meanwhile, the organization’s colors were green and white. The default frame had the vendor’s logo, a basic typeface, and generic names for features. In contrast, the organization had its own logo, a defined typeface for its printed visual materials, and its own names for tools and features (e.g., “MixxMail”, not “Outlook”).

Research in organizational identity, organizational symbolism, and office environments has shown that triggering a sense of specific place (e.g., this organization, this community) helps to keep the values of the organization salient while people go about their work. Wouldn’t the same triggering and salience be important as people used their computers as portals/terminals to do any variety of tasks?

With this case in mind, I was intrigued by Toby Ward’s post on Social Intranet Design.

Ward, a noted intranet expert, outlined his 7 Principles of Intranet Design: (summarized from his post)

1. Less is more.
2. An intranet is a business system, and the design should fulfill business needs (no creative whim).
3. Follow a design process that includes thorough input by management & employees
4. Soft corners
5. Soft colors
6. Employees love employee photos, not clip art.
7. White space is good.

Do these design principles help to reinforce organizational identity?

The 6th principle, ‘Use employee photos’ makes a lot of sense, since this is an easy way to break up space in an attractive way while making the intranet look like it belongs to a specific organization.

But the 2nd principle troubled me just a little bit.

‘Business-like’ design or Organization-specific design?

While I do agree that “an intranet is a business system, and the design should fulfill business needs”, I disagree with the idea that designers should dispense with creative whims. (By whims, I’m assuming ‘insights’).

There is always a way to be both ‘business-like” and creative, especially if that creativity is used to express the organization’s identity. Were I the manager overseeing the intranet design, I’d explicitly request that the intranet’s aesthetics (and functionality) reflect the identity (or corporate ‘brand) of the organization itself.

Every intranet– heck, every organizational tool — should reflect, express and reinforce the values of the organization.

Every digital tool should pass the ‘below the header’ test– if the logo or headline is taken off, users should still be able to “know” that this tools belongs to their organization, that it is ‘of’ their organization.

Otherwise, you run the risk of allowing your organization and its tools to become generic, unspecial, unspecific, less meaningful. You’re missing a chance to evoke, demonstrate and reinforce what the organization stands for .

Have you had any bad experiences with organizations trying to get too unique, or too generic, in their intranet aesthetics?

I’d love some examples either way.

See also:

Logos, Browsers, Brand Identity, and What You Value: The symbols we use to represent our tools also represent the communities that use these tools.
Social Media for Social Change — Inside the Organization?
Authentic From the Start-Up: 4 Tips from Cindy Gallop and IfWeRanTheWorld
Systems of Engagement: Technology for Social Organizations

Image: Peter Jakubik’s Oval Libertine Mirror: “The seductive motif on this mirror is prepared to adore you.”

Why do we really need to log in to websites we use all the time?

Why do those logins really matter, to us personally?

Logins matter for three reasons– two that are predictable, and one that’s rather surprising.

1. Website logins improve the targeting of the site itself, in ways that benefit the organization.

Logins allow sites and the businesses/groups behind them to track who’s there and why, making it possible for them to focus content, personalize offers, offer visit-specific support, solicit feedback, invite you return, close sales, and more.

2. Website logins improve the targeting of the site in ways that have have some secondary benefit to us as customers.

I get some convenience, additional security, increased functionality, and more, that might be valuable to me in my relationship to that particular website.

But in the end, is there anything about a login that really benefits us, as people?

Well, yes, actually.

Website logins help to create the feeling that we belong.

That we matter. That we’ve made it past the rope. That we are somehow special.

Isn’t that weird?

When we login to websites, we get the experience of knocking on the door, being recognized, and having the door opened so that we can enter.

Of course, to trigger a feeling of recognition and welcome, the login must be well-designed.

There is nothing more frustrating, or easier for creating resentment, than the unkind routines some websites put you through when you forget or (gasp) mistype your password.

(I find this particularly annoying, since I am a handicapped typist and struggle even with typing my own name accurately. That’s why I love the funny note on one of my iPhone apps that blames the tiny smartphone keys if a password is incorrect.)

Because the login is such a simple step, and the responses so routinized, it’s also quite easy to design the experience to be warm and welcoming. Thus, it’s quite easy to garner some subtle but positive vibes for your site- and for your organization.

Why think about website logins and sense of membership?

What made me think about the psychology of logins was not only Chris Tuttle’s post about Nonprofit Engagement: Why Website Logins Matter, but also my recent road trip up i-95.

There’s one state where the EZPass lanes are marked “Members Only”. This always makes me laugh (really, who thinks of herself as a ‘member’ of EZPass?). Also, though, I recognize that this makes me, an EZPass ‘member’ feel special.

Go figure.

The outcomes may be subtle, and the dynamics may seem silly at the surface, but remember–

It’s the little, micro-interactions–  like the website login — that can make the first positive emotional impression on your visitors.

Make us feel welcomed.

Make us feel special.

Treat us as members.

It’s super subtle psychology you can use to your advantage and to the advantage of the mutual project that we engage in on your site, together.

Use Extreme Leverage 2.0 to Change The Social World
How Social Media Create Organizational Meaning

Image: Toll Booth by JacobEnos Some rights reserved

I’m taking part in the virtual book tour and are doing to explore concepts from . Maddie and Lindy, along with their colleague Jamie Notter, have long been some of my favorite bloggers.

“Even though” they write about communications strategies, and focus on a very specific type of organization (associations), their ideas are big, broadly applicable, and eminently practical. I appreciate their deep sensitivity to the organizational and leadership challenges of communications, especially when applied to social media tools. So when Maddie and Lindy put their ideas together in a book, and set up a virtual book tour to promote their ideas, I was only too happy to sign on.

Knowing that this post would be one of the last in a long line of reviews (all of them positive, it turns out) I wanted to ask them questions that not only pertained directly to authenticity and organizations of all kinds, but also to ask them questions that they might not have already answered.  Below, Maddie graciously answered my questions … even the completely softball opening question of:

“Why “Open Community“?”

Maddie Grant: We come from the association industry and for many of us “membership” people, community is old hat. It’s what we do. It’s central to our work.

And yet, for some reason (actually a lot of reasons) what we know about community isn’t always translating well to building community online. Lindy and I have talked to thousands of association executives who have voiced their frustrations about the social web–from the overabundance of tools and the disorderly experimentation of staff and members, to the lack of organizational support and the unwieldy processes for monitoring and managing social media, and that’s just the beginning. It’s easy to get bogged down in the newness and the detail, and miss the bigger picture–not the 10,000-foot bigger picture, but the “just high enough to make practical sense” bigger picture.

So we started writing the book, and the idea that kept popping up is the concept of Open Community. Here’s the gist: Your Open Community is your people who are bonded by what your organization represents and care enough to talk to each other (hopefully about you!) online.

Surprising Reactions and New insights

cv: All of the reviews of the book have been enthusiastic and positive. Certainly, you knew your book would address a ‘pain point’ or fill a need for association staffers and/or members, and the positive response to the book confirms that you’re offering associations something they feel they need. As you’ve read the reviews yourselves and talked to people who’ve read the book, which reactions have surprised you? Where there any points you took for granted (or thought were kind of banal) that resonated very strongly with readers? What new insights did you have about Open Community as you listened to readers?

Maddie Grant:  Actually, we wrote (and promoted) the book very consciously as a “conversation starter” and every “big idea” in the book is meant to be something people can riff off of and build a bigger conversation around. So while we were more excited than surprised that i t has actually worked that way and sparked some great conversations, we were also amazed at the creativity of some readers in sharing their thoughts. Here’s an example – and filmed a little video spot talking about what resonated with them.

On the downside, we’re looking for case studies from associations “living” the concepts in the book–and we’re sure they are out there–but everyone feels that they are behind the curve right now. So it looks like our industry may need this book even more than we thought, to help push things forward and help these organizations become more “social” and more open.

Aligning Actions and Purpose, and Conveying Meaning

cv: When I talk with organizations and their members, I focus on two issues–one is aligning actions with purpose, and the other is finding what’s most meaningful about the organization/business for members/employees and the organization’s external stakeholders. When you think about the insights and recommendations in Open Community, which single bit of advice do you think is most relevant to aligning actions and purpose? How about for helping associations and organizations communicate what’s most meaningful?

Maddie Grant:  Great question. In a wide sense, the entire book is about conveying the meaning of the organization. You can’t successfully connect with your community online without being able to identify why that matters purpose and what you are trying to achieve. Maybe you’re trying to advance an industry or profession–every association mentions that in their mission. Or maybe you’re trying to achieve something more tactical, like reaching out to younger stakeholders or reinforcing an advocacy campaign.

And as for our single bit of advice: choose clarity over control. We define clarity over control as “a leadership concept in which the clear articulation of an organization’s most important priorities, universally understood by all stakeholders at all levels of the organization, de-emphasizes the need for centralized control over every detail of the organization’s activities.” We call it “the key to leading the way and sharing control.” In it’s simplest form, it means being able to define for everyone in an organization (staff and members) how online activity advances the mission of the organization. If you can do that, then you’re allowing not only your staff, but also your members and other stakeholders to share and collaborate in the work of the organization in
a strategic way.

cv: In the last several months, there have been several books trying to explain and help us anticipate how social media will push organizations to change, and how organizations might embrace social media to transform themselves and their relationships with their stakeholders. I’m thinking of books like Charlene Li’s , Tony Bingham & Marcia Conner’s , by Beth Kanter, Allison Fine, & Randi Zuckerberg, and The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith. Each of these books is focused on its own niche (leadership, learning, nonprofits, and social change, respectively) but all of them address the link between social media and serving a community.

Recognizing that you’re focused on associations, what insights from Open Community do you think apply to any organization and to every organization that wants an online presence?

Maddie Grant:  There are many lessons in the book for any kind of business. We actually feel that many associations have a huge advantage that they have yet to leverage–they have a built-in community within their membership. Association communities are people who gather in real life and talk about industry issues and spread the word or volunteer their time for the good of the order. The book is about helping associations translate that to building community online as well as offline. Many other kinds of companies and businesses are actually looking at membership-type models to build customer loyalty. And even for those that haven’t defined their business model in that way, similar lessons apply because successful use of social media tools has everything to do with building relationships between people. For-profit companies may not have built-in communities, but the smart ones are aware that the power of social media lies in the growth of networks around brands and organizations.

So specifically, there are lessons in the book that are absolutely relevant to any organization: lessons about building internal capacity (process and structures) for successful social media management; about how to manage the relationship between public outposts (like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and your homebase website; about recognizing and rewarding champions; about new skill sets for becoming a social organization; and more. The ultimate lesson in the book is that building community online is about people, not about technology or tools.

Read this book!

CV: My own view of Open Community is that it hits the issues square in the center, and offers actionable advice for managers who want to use social media to cohere their stakeholders around a sense of shared purpose.

I’d recommend this book to practicing managers, but I also think it would be worth a read by academics. Although Open Community isn’t an academic book about organizational theory per se, the insights and suggestions are well-informed. I can imagine management professors reading this and getting a double whammy– actionable advice to offer students, and an orientation to what’s really going on in actual organizations run by real managers who care about what they do and the people they do it for. I’d also assign this book to BBA, MBA and ExecEd students, because Maddie & Lindy reinforce all the messages we want students to hear about communicating and leading– in a very real-wold way. While Open Community will orient any manager to the key issues of social media, it really is a primer on the leadership challenge of creating community- online and offline.

More on SocialFish:
Mobile apps are a waste of time for associations, by Lindy Dreyer
Do you have a philosophical commitment to becoming social?, by Maddie Grant
Social Organizations Are Inclusive, by Jamie Notter

[Disclaimer: I liked this book enough to buy my own copy; I didn't get a free book in exchange for a post. I'd have read Open Community anyway, and appreciated it just as much. ]

This is a story about a quirky little cafe that disappeared.

While I lived in town, and for a few years after we moved, this cafe was a touchstone, a demonstration, of one of the experiences that made our small town so interesting. When the cafe changed just one little thing, it lost what made it special. Nothing has seemed as meaningful since.

The cafe was right downtown, just a few blocks from my house, and my family and I would go there all the time. And I mean, all the time. The cafe had several of your typical barista ‘characters’, often grad school dropouts who kept hanging around town, providing local color and culture.

One of our favorites of these was Patrick. Patrick was there when the cafe first opened up, and was an occasional weekend manager. Patrick was also an artist, a designer, and not coincidentally a great barista. He was the guy who’d give my two year old a cup just like her mom’s, filled only with milk foam, and tell her to find the invisible latte he’d hidden inside.

Patrick was so key to ‘who’ the cafe was that they had a special drink named for him. “The Patrick” was some kind of soy milk based decaf drink that the actual Patrick had made up. Folks would order it by name.

One day when we were sitting in the cafe, Patrick came over with a round of free lattes, to share the sad for us/exciting for him news that he was moving to New York.

Although Patrick the barista departed, “The Patrick” remained — for years — as a marker of the quirkiness of the cafe and the people who originated it.

Forever, it seemed, the cafe’s handwritten menu board listed that trademarked concoction,”The Patrick”. Every time I was back in town visiting or teaching, one of the first things I’d do was hit the cafe. I went not just for the latte, but for the reconnection to home, to the cafe and to what made that cafe special.

Time after time, I’d look at “The Patrick” on the menu and chuckle about Patrick the character, what he represented about the cafe in all its quirkiness, and what made this cafe’s latte more special than most and always worth coming back for.

And then one day, I came back into the cafe, and “The Patrick” was no longer on the menu.

Everyone else was the same– the aroma, the bad art for sale, the guy with the grey beard hogging the chess table, and even the design in the foam of my latte. Just no “The Patrick”.

When I went back up to the counter for a drink ‘to go’, I thought maybe I could also order “The Patrick”, just for old time’s sake. But neither of the baristas knew what “The Patrick” was. That they didn’t know who Patrick was was understandable, after all the guy’d been gone for 4 years at least.

But that they didn’t know of “The Patrick” just floored me. How could they not know this quirky drink, this original concoction, that had been part of the cafe since its start?

Had ‘The Patrick” disappeared as the cafe added a few more locations around town?
Had the owners/founders gotten tired of “The Patrick” and erased it to make room for a new version of Chai?
Had “The Patrick” lost its meaning to other customers?
Where did “The Patrick” go?

Wherever it went, it took with it the link to the founding sense of quirkiness, of play, that had always defined the cafe for me.

Now, when I’m leaving town after a visit or teaching, I still fill my thermos with a grande to sip on the way up 29 North, but it no longer tastes quite the same.

See also: Can Starbucks Touch Your Soul?