We received approximately 59 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community building activities, including: large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers, interactive marketing firms and independent consultants.

Several key issues pertaining to social media strategy and monitoring surfaced during this report, including:

• Two thirds of the respondents, 66% (39), indicated that their organization has either fully or partially written social media guidelines.
• The three most commonly reported policies that respondents said were important for staff participation in social media were:
  • Follow All Existing Employee Guidelines (23)
  • Be Transparent (20)
  • Respect Audience and Coworkers (20)
• Over three quarters of the respondents rated Facebook, 75% (44) and Twitter, 73% (43) as a 1st or 2nd highest priority social media site in which their organization participates.
• Almost a third of participants, 29% (17), indicated that their organization uses paid tools or services to monitor social media sites, with Radian6 (7) being the most commonly reported.

Size of Organization
Over a third of the respondents, 34% (20), have less than 50 people employed in their organization and only 12% (7) respondents reported having more than 5,000 employees.

• 34% (20) belong to an organization that has less than 50 employees
• 30% (18) belong to an organization that has between 50-499 employees
• 7% (4) belong to an organization that has between 500-999 employees
• 10% (6) belong to an organization that has between 1,000-4,999 employees
• 7% (4) belong to an organization that has between 5,000-9,999 employees
• 12% (7) belong to an organization that has more than 10,000 employees

Key Policies for Staff Participation
The three most commonly reported policies that respondents said were important for staff participation in social media was to Follow All Existing Employee Guidelines (23), Transparency (20) and to Respect Audience and Coworkers (20).

A third of the respondents also indicated that Adding Value (19), Being Polite and Courteous (18), Protecting Confidential Company Information (18) and Using Your Best Judgment (18) were considered key policies for staff participation in Social Media within their organization.

Social Media Business Goals
Most respondents rated all of the business goals as having some importance within their organization’s social media ecosystem.

The most important business goal reported was Driving traffic to the main organization web site, with almost three quarters of the participants, 73% (43), indicating that this was considered a very important goal for their organization.

The second highest rated social media business goal was Branding, 71% (42). Only 10% (6) participants said that Branding had no significance to their organization.

The next four most important business goals according to the respondent’s ratings were Retaining customers / loyalty, peer-to-peer evangelism, Educations, and Evangelism. These had similar ratings with at least half of the respondents rating them as very important business goals for their organization’s social media ecosystem.

Even though Peer-to-peer customer service and Recruiting had the lowest ratings, more than two thirds of those that rated the importance of these business goals said that they had some importance to their organization.

Measuring Success
We received a wide variety of responses to this question. The most common metrics measured on social media sites is the Traffic Generated (25) including: General Traffic Generated (10), Number of Clicks (7), Number of Page Views (4), Number of Returns (2) and Number of Site Visits (2). One participant commented, “We use Google Analytics to measure clicks to the company website, clicks to other social networking sites, duration of time spent, and direction of traffic”.

The second most common metric that respondents said they used to measure success on social media sites was related to user participation in the site content, such as, comments, posts and discussions (22), The amount and quality of content posted was said to be important for many participants. One participant said that, they track the percentage of positive comments versus the percentage of negative comments. Several other participants said that they monitored the Amount of Engagement (5) that was happening on social media sites.

Several participants indicated that they measure the Number of Brand Mentions (8) within user content posted on their company site and also in mainstream media content, with one response comment as follows: “We measure the percentage of participation within discussion related specifically to our company and market, the number of Brand Mentions versus Competitors and topic and sentiment tracking related to our company and competitors”.

Other commonly reported metrics that participants said they measure are the Number of Fans / Followers (16) on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as website follower friends and fans. Tracking the Number of Members / Registrations (8) such as website registrations and other social media membership sites such as LinkedIn group membership was also said by some to be used to measure success within their organization.

Tracking the Number of Leads / Referrals (14) was also mentioned by many participants to be useful in measuring success on social media sites, with participants commenting that they monitor referrals from social networking sites, as well as goal specific metrics such as revenue, sales and leads.

Number of Retweets (7), Number of likes’ (5), Ratings (2), Number of Video Plays (2) and Number of Unique Users (2) were among the other metrics that participants said their organization used to measure social media success.

The Complete Social Media Strategy & Monitoring Report

The full 31 page report may be purchased here: http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/somestmo.html and includes detailed information, analysis and charts on:

• Job title and industry
• Online community destination
• Social media guidelines
• Social media sites
• Paid services and tools
• Comments and advice from survey respondents

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We received approximately 51 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community building activities, including: large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers, interactive marketing firms and independent consultants.

Several key issues pertaining to online community platforms and services surfaced during this report, including:

• Nearly half of the respondents, 49% (17), indicated that their online community platform and services budget is less than $50,000.
• The three most commonly used primary platforms, apart from in-house custom made platforms, were:
  • Blogs / Forums
  • Lithium
  • Jive
• Over a quarter of the respondents, 27% (13), are actively looking for a new online community platform.
• A third of the respondents, 33% (17), indicated that they used Google Analytics as their Metrics & Reporting tool and 12% (6) use Omniture.

Job Title
A high percentage of the respondents have high level positions within their organization, with Community Director positions, 29% (15), being most frequently reported. Director related job titles include Director of Communities, Community Relations Director, Director of Social Networking, Managing Director, Regional Director, Senior Director Customer Experience and Director Community and Products.

The second most commonly reported job title was Community Manager, 21% (11), with an additional, 12% (6) of respondents reporting other Management job titles including Associate Manager Consumer Insights, Community Product Manager, Product Manager, Program Manager and Senior Program Manager of Client Programs.

It is interesting to note that over half of the respondent, 55% (28) have the word “Community” in their job titles, whereas only 2 have the word “Media” in their job titles.”).

Platform Attributes
The two most commonly reported attributes that respondents said was important when purchasing a new community platform was the Feature set of the platform (28) and the Ability to customize the user interface (26). Over half of the respondents indicated that these two factors were among the top 3 attributes they used in making purchasing decision.

Other attributes that respondents felt were important in the decision making process include the Price or Pricing Structure, Ability to scale the platform and the Reporting functionality of the platform.

It is interesting to note that the maturity of the platform option was only selected by 3 participants as an important factor when considering a new platform. Respondents were interested in newer, flexible platforms that have advanced features and customizable interfaces.

Platform Features
86% (44) of the respondents said that their company’s current community platform utilizes Discussion Forums. This was the most commonly reported feature reported during this survey and was 17% higher than the second most utilized feature, Blogs 69% (35).

Approximately half of the respondents indicated that their organization used Groups, 51% (26), and Surveys & Polls, 49% (25), as part of their current company’s platform.

The least reported feature that people used in their current platform was Chat 18% (9).

Community Platforms – Rated
Overall ratings to this question were above average in every area, with the highest average ratings given for the vendor delivering the platform on deadline (4.9) and post-purchase support from the vendor (4.8). The lowest average rating was given the platform’s capabilities in the area of Metrics & Reporting (4.0). All these ratings are out of a rating of 6.0.

HIGHEST AVERAGES:
The following Platforms were reported as having the highest averages (all attributes):

• HiveLive’s LiveConnect (5.4 out of a rating of 6)
• Leverage Software (5.4 out of a rating of 6)
• Groupsite (5.3 out of a rating of 6)

The Complete Online Community Platform Services & Satisfaction 2010 Report

The full 42 page report may be purchased here: http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/coplsesa20.html and includes detailed information, analysis and charts on:

• Organization Type and Size
• Annual Community Platform Budgets
• Respondents Primary Community Platforms
• Detailed Ratings of Community Platform Features and Functionality
• Other Products & Services Used for Community Operations
• Platforms & Services Wish List

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The intention of the study is to explore how organizations are managing their social media strategies and what tools they are using to monitor their social media presence.

If you are involved in the development of your organizations’ Social Media and Community strategy and monitoring, I would encourage you to participate in a short survey here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/socmedmon

The topics we are exploring in this project include:

• Key policies for staff participation in social media;
• Highest priority social media sites;
• Organizational business goals for participating in the social media ecosystem;
• Metrics and tools used to measure success on social media sites;
• The biggest challenges that executives and teams are facing

I would ask that you please complete the survey by next Friday, 7/16. All participants will get a copy of the results.

The tag for this research project is: #socmedmon

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1) What is IdeaScale? How do you describe the sector you are in?

We have been building online market research tools since 2003. Throughout this time, we’ve found that traditional online research methods were not effective in fostering a sense of community among customers. In addition, we found that our client’s customers are talking about their organization all over the social web (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc.) Our goal is to help channel these discussions to both increase engagement and provide focused, effective feedback for your organization.

IdeaScale is used by all types of organizations ranging from government agencies to non-profits to companies of all sizes. Some of the worlds most recognizable brands such as Xerox, RedHat, Microsoft, the Veterans Administration, and even The White House have used IdeaScale as their crowdsourcing platform. Our parent company, Survey Analytics, has made Inc. magazine’s list of the fastest-growing private companies, ranking 172nd overall and 25th among business-service providers. Puget Sound Business Journal recognized Survey Analytics as one of the 50 fastest-growing private companies in Washington State.

2) What are the three or four main motivations a company or non-profit has for using an idea management platform?

1) Increase employee (or customer) engagement.
2) Sense of involvement/ownership.
3) Build a sense of community around a specific idea.

3) I see a number of federal agencies just launched feedback sites on your platform. It looks like information is rolled up here: http://opengovtracker.com/. What is this initiative trying to achieve?

OpenGovTracker was built during the big snow storm in DC last winter by two developers with a lot of time on their hands . They were aware of our API, and were able to use it to build a very helpful dashboard. They key lesson is platform and APIs – there are just some things you’ll never dream up on your own. The only viable approach is to build a rich set of APIs and plugins to allow anyone to mashup the data to build cool and interesting applications. We’ll seeing the same type of response from our iPhone plugin – an application that we recently open sourced for our user community.

4) What common pitfalls are you seeing as clients turn to idea management platforms?

I see several issues:

Properly Assigned Moderators: Since the initial setup/configuration of these community tools can be slightly technical, there tends to be situations where this same person ends up moderating the community. In reality, this role is best suited for a marketing or PR person within any organization. We see many of the same people that are setting up and configuring the sites end up moderating hundreds of ideas a day.

Clear Terms of Services and Rules of Participation: Also, we see a lot of folks failing to define a set of moderation guidelines for their community members. A clear set of terms of service as well a defined moderation policies goes a long way in clarifying to your users what they can expect from you and vice versa.

Don’t Be Afraid: Many folks are deathly afraid of publicly talking to their customers. You’ll soon learn, however, that the people that take the time to leave you feedback about your organization can end up becoming some of your best customers.

5) Matthew Lees’ latest report on crowdsourcing and ideas sites talks a lot about management. How hard are ideas sites to manage?

Not hard at all! For example, our flagging functionality allows you to leverage your own crowd to help control inappropriate or foul language. So for example, if a user sees a comment that she thinks doesn’t belong on the site, she can click a link to flag the item. This will then remove the comment from your community and drop it into a queue for a moderator to review.

6) Any other words of advice for people learning about this sector?

Moderate early and often. The first few hours/minutes after your community goes live is most important. If a user sees a bunch of inappropriate ideas or comments, your site may not be taken very seriously. A very common practice is to “Seed” the community with a bunch of pre-writtem poems.

Cross-posted on the Good Ideas Blog.

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If you are involved in strategy or management of your organization’s online community strategy or management, I would encourage you to participate in a short survey here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XWPJF79

The topics we are exploring in this project include:

* Review of current online community platform;
* Other community vendor services (metrics, sentiment analysis, moderation, etc.)
* Services you’d like to see but are currently unavailable

I would ask that you please complete the survey by next Friday, 6/17. All participants will get a copy of the results! Thanks!

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To sort through these challenges, we asked for the views of Fred Smith, a Senior Technologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who oversees many new media efforts. The CDC is always included on the short list of US government agencies using social media in innovative ways.

Here are five of Fred’s good ideas for effective social media programs in government:

1) Take Risks

New media are new. We all are experimenting to some extent. This means accepting some risk in social media efforts, and also tolerating some degree of failure. Senior management and staff need to understand the risk profile of social media efforts. (As a related note, Amazon reportedly includes “risk-taking” in their performance reviews.)

2) Realistic Evaluations

It is important to evaluate social media efforts, and particularly to understand which channels are best for reaching which audiences with which messages. Performance reporting will improve efforts. That said, it is necessary to be realistic about how precise communications evaluations can be (e.g. nobody ever asks “how effective was that brochure?” — they ask “how effective was our campaign?”).

3) In Government, Identify and Update Social Media-Challenging Policies

Many government policies were written before social media (or even the internet). They now can create obstacles. For example, as part of the “Paperwork Reduction Act”, the OMB is required to approve any program that asks questions of the public. Should that include, for example, voting up an idea on a social media site? This law, as well as laws and policies dealing with terms of service, tracking technologies, privacy issues, and others topics are being updated.

4) Promote Open Source

Government should use and contribute to open source initiatives. Unfortunately there are many terms of service, liability and other issues which hinder government participation. These obstacles are (slowly) being addressed. When government agencies can’t turn to open source, they should at least investigate offering their data and content
through open APIs.

5) Coordinate Security and Social Media Efforts

IT security staff and social media staff have very different – and typically conflicting – approaches to the web. It is important that they work together. At the CDC the security and social media teams meet monthly to work out any issues, and (importantly) to describe what is on the horizon in order to identify potential challenges.

Please feel free to vote or comment on these or other ideas – or add your own – on Good Ideas.

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Attendees: We have a lot of knowledgeable folks from industry (Google, eBay, Walmart, HP, LinkedIn, Nokia, O’Reilly, Intel, Microsoft, Flickr) as well as from many smaller firms. We also have many non-commercial groups with community expertise (Wikia, Pew Health Group, Civic Ventures, Skoll Foundation). See the full (growing) list here: http://ocu2010.eventbrite.com/.

Discounts: Our final event discounts end May 26 – $50 off the event price. Sign up now!

Sponsors: Answers.com just joined the event as a Platinum Sponsor. We are expecting a group of others to join this week. If you would like sponsorship information, contact Chloe at ccaviness@ForumOne.com.

We’d be delighted to see you there: great venue, nice food, bottles of wine for some attendees – and most of all a great group. Here is more detail from a previous post. This year please join us!

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I love my community. Whether I’m talking about my role at NetSquared, my blog, or my network of friends, I am inspired every day and find value in, and rewards for, my participation. Regardless of whether I feel like, or am trying to be, a community builder, the community always provides opportunities for others to join me. These spaces are built on distributed power and that makes the community a moving, growing, living thing that I am a part of, rather than a weight, trouble, or burden that I’m responsible for.

But, it ain’t easy. Being a Community Builder (I refuse, on principle, to use the word Manager) is a lot of work. So, how do you do it without losing sleep or sanity?

Here’s my 3×3 to Sustainable Community Building.

1. There are no short cuts.

Lead by example
Interact, use tools, and create and share content the way you want your community members to do so. Seeing you leave a comment, or share a resource, will model the desired behavior so others can see what to do (especially if they are new to social media or new to your community) and how to do it (especially if they are new to your tool or platform).

Operate in public
When it comes to “administrator” or “moderator” activity, always conduct it in public unless it requires or involves personal information. Don’t send a private welcome message – do it in public so others can benefit (they too can see, join in, and find someone new)! Don’t remove or edit contributions, but leave a comment to suggest how they can be improved. If there’s offensive or inappropriate behavior, note it in public so others can learn what’s okay and what isn’t, and feel empowered to help moderate as a community.

Ask for feedback and help
Asking for help or ideas means that 1.) you trust the community, 2.) you know that your community is valuable and smart, and 3.) you are interested in collaborating (not dictating). Don’t be shy about it – post blog entries or conversation starters, share your own feedback (operate in public), and provide places for the community to share ideas or feedback at any time (not just on specific ideas or proposals).

2. Know your community.

Let the community know itself: Working in networks means that the “center” (that’s you) is no better than any of the other parts. You don’t have all the answers, all the information, all the best jokes. So, help your community know its self. Messages shouldn’t just be about you, stories shouldn’t just be about you. Find content and value from the community that you can help put the spotlight on; find stories and changemakers from the community that you can support. Make connections and introductions.

Know your role: Knowing your community means figuring out what they need from you, how they need your help, how they need you to help them to succeed. Some communities may need a “manager” to help keep everything moving along, and others may need an “operator” to make connections and recommendations. Some communities need a “friend” to share ideas and honest feedback, others may need a “champion” that can help push ideas and opportunities forward. Find your role (by asking for feedback and help!) and take pride in operating the way your community needs.

Help it grow: Part of knowing your community means recognizing when it needs new blood, a fresh wind, or a change of pace. That doesn’t always mean just one or the other. New blood = new members. If this is the case then help the community to promote itself and attract others interested in participating. Fresh wind = new topics or ideas. Sometimes, conversation can grow stagnant and ideas can fail to materialize into projects. It is your role to help find new inspiration. Change of pace = new way of operating. This may mean that the community has outgrown its facebook group and needs someone (you) to help move it onto the next platform/space where it can do more. You may need to be the one willing to say what everyone’s thinking and take on the task of making change.

3. Strive to be replaced.

Encourage interaction without you
The goal of operating in public and leading by example is to enable the community to know how to operate without you. There can be interaction and exchange without your permission. There can be conversation without your moderation. Encourage the community to take control by giving them the responsibility and opportunity to do so.

Reward and spotlight leaders
Your goal should be to be replaced by other community members, as this means that you’ve created something so valuable, with members so dedicated to it, that they are willing to steer the ship and man the sails themselves. To begin nurturing those who may become the captains, start highlighting members who are contributing value. Shine the spotlight on those taking on extra responsibility. Operate in public by thanking them for their work in a way that’s visible to the whole community.

Share your toolbox
There’s no way that the community can take responsibility and contribute equally with you if you hold the key to a hidden set of tools. Open up all functionality to anyone who has proven their elevated role in the group. Share resources like strategies, best practices, and examples with the community so everyone can learn and contribute at the level you do. By sharing resources, you’ll probably find that the community has some to share back that will make your work even better, too!

But remember: all communities are unique, just like the members that comprise them. You can’t expect every group to operate the same way as others, or for one successful example to hold true in another setting. Communities are made up of people and the best approach you can have is to remain human. Organizations are buildings: they aren’t any fun, they aren’t very conversational, and they’re often made of neutral colors. You’re a human: you’re passionate, you’re interesting, and you have something to say. So even if you have different tools, different ideas, and different goals from one community to the next throughout your work, remember to stay human.

For more on my experience with community building, read Online Community Building: Gardening vs Landscaping.

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Current attendees include: Oracle, Jigsaw, Google, HP, Intel, iVillage, Autodesk, CafePress, Paypal, WiserEarth, Panasonic, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Linden Lab, Care2.com, NetApp, Flickr, Wells Fargo, Rosetta Stone, and many more! Go to the bottom of the registration page to view the entire list of attendee companies.

To register at the discounted admission rate of $195 ($250 after 5/26) please go here: http://ocu2010.eventbrite.com/

Last year’s Unconference was fantastic, and we expect this years to be even better. We had 220+ people in attendance in 2009, including: Microsoft, Autodesk, NetApp, Google, Yahoo!, Symantec, EcoTuesday, Cisco, GreatSchools.org, HP, Intel, Intuit, LinkedIn, Packard Foundation, Nokia, Walmart.com, REI, VMWare, TechSoup, and many more.

We also had an amazing list of sessions, including:

• Managing the Mob: What to do when things go wrong
• How to Manage Multiple Personalities & Relationships Online
• Social CRM : Mapping Social ID’s, Behavioral Targeting & Common Profiles
• What Metrics Should be Used to Measure Community Health
• Metrics for Measuring Community Health
• Using Other Social Media Networks to Build Your Community
• Recovery.gov Myth or Reality – How do we pay for virtual community outside of for profit?
• Using Community in Strategy Development
• How Does Online Community Help Local Businesses Generate Traffic
• Social Media Monitoring
• Identifying and Engaging with Online Influencers
• Big Community – Strategy Across Your Ecosystem
• Social Psychology 101 for Community Managers
• Social Capital – Community for Social Good – Your Stories/Valuation



• Communication Skills for Community Manager (How to effectively be an advocate for users and your company, to engineers, execs, etc…)
• If you Build it They Will Come…NOT! – Tools/Tips/Tricks to Grow a Community
• Online Community for Social Good/Change (Non Profits, Multiple Stakeholders)
• Empower Citizens to Solve Community Problems!
• What Makes Users Want to Participate in a Community? How do we Encourage Engagement?
• Super Tools for Super Users – Next Generation UI and Technology Brainstorm
• Mission Aligned Twittering
• Moving Beyond Metrics to ROI
• Changing Platforms & Vendors
• Community Driven Product Design – Collecting Feedback from your Community – Scale, Sustainable Fun
• Starting An Online Community
• Online Protests (like Amazonfail) – How they happen, How organizations respond
• Tools to Mobilize Your Community (as advocates)
• Sustainable Participation

You can see pictures from the 2009 Unconference here: ocu2009 on Flickr

OCU 2009 Wiki
The wiki is available if you would like to read the session notes:
http://www.socialtext.net/ocu2009

Register
Again, to register at the discounted admission rate of $195 ($250 after 5/26) please go here.

If you are charged with managing online communities or community strategy for your organization, this will be a valuable event for you. The agenda is participant driven, the networking is unmatched, and the content will be awesome.

We also have several sponsor opportunities open for this Unconference. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach west coast community and social media professionals, please contact Chloe Caviness about our sponsorship options.

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Ron Casalotti lives and breathes social media. For the past dozen years Ron has held senior social media positions at AOL, Business Week, and currently at Bloomberg. We asked Ron to share some of his accumulated wisdom in the form of five good ideas for using social media for the common good. Here are his thoughts:

The Business of Customers

For many years, companies have planned their existence based upon a fundamental falsehood – that they controlled their brands. And this charade was easy to perpetuate as hired pollsters, paid for by these companies, would create reports based upon the limited metrics available to them reinforcing their preconceived perception of what their customers were saying. Enter social media. Companies are now finding out that they do not control their brands – the customer does. Proposed: Social Media Departments become a separate and distinct segment of the corporate org chart, reporting to the CEO, and that Chief Community Officer (or a Social Media worded equivalent) be a permanent C-Suite position, tasked with independently (outside of influence from marketing; operations or product) engaging the company’s customer base and participating in a two-way conversation for the betterment of all.

Less Toast; More Water

Many people’s reaction when I speak to them about social media is akin to “Why do I care about who’s having toast for breakfast?” A great counter would be, “You shouldn’t – but you should care about who doesn’t have enough clean water to drink” Happening RIGHT NOW are grass roots groups using social media to advance awareness of and solicit funding for providing clean water for health and sanitation where none exists today. Almost 1 billion people do not have direct access to the 1% of the earth’s water that is suitable for drinking. Proposed: More attention be given and support provided to the current and future social media efforts to help solve this crisis. Charity:Water and folksinger Jewel’s Project Clean Water are two of the current charities using Twitter and other social media tools to help millions of others.

Coming to Our Census

“Ten questions in ten minutes.” That’s the mantra of the current U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 survey. After receiving a mailed noticed that the form was on its way; the form package itself; and a post card reminder about the form; I filled it out and mailed it back via USPS. Let this be the last decennial census done this way. Proposed: In the ensuing time period between now and 2020, a system be developed where the Census can be taken, securely, online, with social media marketing used to get the word out to all. For those constituents without Internet access ten years from now, local polling places, libraries and motor vehicle offices among other public facilities would be made available.

The Codger’s Crusade

Attention everyone 55+ out there: I have a message for you from my buddies on Madison Ave (and its equivalents in Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, Miami, London, etc): “You’re dead to me.” It’s true, why spend valuable ad dollars on a group that is set in its ways, has strong brand loyalty, and (let’s face it) will be dying off soon anyway? Better to try and capture the heart$ and mind$ of the twenty-somethings while convincing ourselves that our brand is young and relevant. One small problem: 50 is not the new 40, it’s more like the new 35. The fastest growing segment using social media are the 50+ crowd — and that segment is growing fast as Baby Boomers aided by better health care and nutrition join the fold. The problem is, young mature adults (can I coin a demo phrase, YMAs?)do not want to be treated as being old, or senior for that matter. Many avoid the grandpa/grandma titles altogether as being too “old” sounding. Proposed: Social media sites that truly cater to the 50+ set that are not condescending and do not try to include 60 and 70 year olds (who should have their own social media sites). A few have tried, but ultimately none have succeeded to provide this without itself engaging in ageism. It can be done – we should be working hard to get there before we’re too old to care.

Vox Populi

Every politician promises to listen to his/her constituency, only to rely upon weighing the public’s sentiment by the volume of mail received on a given issue. The problem is, not many people engage in letter writing anymore, given more towards sending emails or voting in online polls. While some politicians have latched onto the new media wave many more choose to do things the way they’ve always been done, afraid to rock the boat. Proposed: All functions in every Senator’s, Representative’s, Governor’s and State Legislator’s offices be required to provide easily accessible online equivalents for all interaction with the public. It’s time to bring our government into the 21st century.

You can vote and comment on these ideas at Good Ideas. You can find Ron on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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