The Social Setting
March 18, 2014
Between these headlines was one of more significance: Facebook announced that it would be paying $19 billion to purchase WhatsApp. Which means social media is here to stay. And everybody, including big time basketball coaches, needs to deal with it in better ways than merely blasting it and/or barring it.
What it means for an organization like mine is that everything we do needs to be considered in all the usual goals, objectives and strategies progressions, and that at least one progression must have social media as an outcome and almost all progressions must have social media as a tactic.
Just over a decade ago we realized that almost every task we have has an information technology component. We discovered we needed our IT staff in the room when new projects or protocols were being considered, when new policies were being developed, and when all sorts of problems were being addressed. Fail to involve IT personnel soon enough or at all, we learned, and failure of the enterprise was assured.
We are at the same point today with social media. If we neglect the social media component – fail to consider how to use it to the advantage of the project or fail to consider how adverse social media could doom the project – we operate with at least one hand tied behind our back.
Just as the IT staff have needed to be consulted, and listened to, in order for the enterprise to reach its potential, so must our social media staff have a seat at the table and a voice in the discussion of anything of consequence we might think we should do.
This is as true for nonprofit organizations as it is for profit, for small organizations and large, both private and public.
Controlled Fires
July 24, 2012
Forest fires have recently been scorching the United States with unusual reach and rage. Infernos in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as well as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, have made news in our state.
Behind the headlines of the lightning-ignited 150-square-mile devastation near Fort Collins, Colorado is the analysis of forestry and conservation experts that it has been the absence of small fires that has helped to fuel the large fire. Turns out that Smokey the Bear’s campaign to prevent forest fires may be partly at fault.
In most of life, little problems here and there help to avoid larger problems later. The little fires consume the fuel that would feed a catastrophic conflagration exploding out of pent-up fears or frustrations or long-festering problems.
Even those who work in the “prevention business” – whether that’s the US Forest Service or a statewide athletic association – must tolerate a few fires. They can have positive, productive effects, one of which is to keep small problems from growing large and more destructive.