Bridging The On-Line Real-World Gap: An Interview With Ruby Sinreich Of Netcentric Campaigns

Ruby Sinreich is the Web Maven at Netcentric Campaigns, a division of Green Media Toolshed. She is also the founder and editor of OrangePolitics.org, a progressive multi-author blog about politics based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Previously, she was the Online Organizing Manager in the Public Policy Division of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.Ruby and I talked in the following interview about Netcentric Campaigns and building an effective on-line strategy to support off-line, real world political organizing.

Ruby:

Network-centric advocacy is based on a philosophy of empowering the grassroots, your supporters, the “network.” We try to build strong networks between activists so they collectively form an effective movement. There are five aspects that we think are necessary for effective social networks

1. You must have strong social ties so that the members trust each other and know who (with what skills) is in the network. Friendster/MySpace/Orkut/etc. are one way to build social ties, but so are in-person gatherings. Happy hours can also build your movement.
2. There needs to be a common story that ties members together. They should have a shared sense of what the problem or what the goal is. This can vary widely, it might be a generally shared value, or it might be a mutual bad guy.
3. There has to be a dense communication grid so folks have many ways to meet and communicate with each other. Blogs and social networking tools are a part of this, so are instant messaging and face-to-face gatherings.
4. The members should share resources with each other. This could be money, space, information, etc. Like a directory that members can access, or sharing expertise.
5. Finally there should be a sense of purpose so the network members know what the network is for. So they think of it as a tools for collective action or whatever the goal is.

Marshall:

It seems that there has been work to bridge the online world and the offline world for progressive causes for at least a few years now. Are there specific lessons that have been learned that have changed the way that you now advise organizations to, for example, build strong social ties with online and off or build a common story?

Ruby:

I don’t really think much about the distinction between on- and off-line. When we know our goal and our strategy, that leads us to tools which may or may not be online. We want to use a lot of online social networking and self-publishing because it’s very supportive of the kind of ties we want to build.

The internet itself is very network-centric (at least right now) so it lends itself to organizing in this way.

Marshall:

How do you advise people to use those tools to build ties in light of age and tech comfort level differences?

Ruby:

I try to connect new tools to old methodologies.

Marshall:

Can you give me examples of new tools/old methodologies that have made the most sense to people new to tech but familiar with old methods of political organizing? Analogies perhaps?

Ruby:

For example, I think Saul Alinsky was a great and strategic community organizer. Baby boomers are more familiar with him. So I talk about how his goal was to build local leaders that would speak out on behalf of themselves instead of doing it for them. Helping your supporters blog about your issue is that same thing – you are raising up their voice to advance the cause and empower them at the same time.

Marshall:

Are there opportunities afforded by these new tools to respond to some of the problems of traditional organizing? Like loud voices having undue influence or male dominance of planning?

Ruby:

Yes, but the digital divide makes new problems. In some ways, the Internet is a level playing field, but only if you are there.

As the New Yorker cartoon quipped “on the internet, no-one knows you’re a dog.” or a lesbian, or disabled, or African American, or an immigrant. BUT…There are still cliques that form, and sometimes they can be insular groups of straight, white guys.

But sometimes they’re not. It really depends on who listens to who. Does the media mostly read the authoritative-seeming blogs of the power elite? Or do they read the blogs of regular folks, activists, people who are just as authoritative but may not have as high of a Technorati ranking.

Marshall:

How do you, or how do you advise others to, change this dynamic of who gets read?

Ruby:

Well to some extent the machines that confer authority (like Google and Technorati) are neutral (ie they don’t know or care that you are a dog), so if more “outsider” voices use the tools that sway them, like hyperlinking and tagging, they can promote the voices they choose.

But I also think we should be building our own networks. Like, do I have to care about myTechnorati ranking? There are more important factors than just numbers of readers.

On my local politics blog (orangepolitics.org) I care much more about the quality than the quantity of readers.

Are the folks YOU want to talk to reading your blog? If not, what are they reading? Try to hang out at the sites they hang out at.

Marshall:

How other than readership numbers and numbers of inbound links can a person quickly evaluate the credibility/authoritativeness of a blog they discover?

Ruby:

It’s also about trust. I usually discover a blog because someone else links to it. If a lot of people I like link to it, or if I personally know and trust the person who links to it, I trust that blog more. You can also look at how much commenting is going on, but that’s not always a good indicator. You have to decide for yourself ultimately.

Marshall:

That sounds realistic for sure. Can you provide me another example of old political methods and new communication tools working together beyond building local voices through blogs?

Ruby:

Door-to-door canvassing and phone banking are old methods. Increasingly folks do not want to be bothered at home, and are turned off by what might be perceived as an intrusion. The new methods are house parties and viral e-mail. Note that both of these come from your own social network, not just a stranger who wants to talk to you.

I trust the people I know more. If they tell something is important, I believe them. If the TV tells me… not so much.

Marshall:

So this new era of communication technologies is actually re-emphasizing the importance of face to face connections?

Ruby:

It’s emphasizing social connections which are often built in person and can be enhanced online.

I did a talk called “How to think like a network,” which is my latest iteration of my favorite subject: the five aspects of effective networks, a.k.a. network-centric advocacy. I’ve been talking to nonprofits, geeks, and activists about this approach for five years now (!) and while the technology has changed a lot, I think the strategy is as relevant as ever.

I’m embedding the presentation below, but I would really like to encourage comments especially from the folks who participated in the session today. Even though we had an entire hour for discussion, I was a little frustrated that we didn’t cover very much. So I hope we can use this post as an opportunity to ask and answer each other’s questions and keep the conversation going.

I made these transcripts by just copying the log whenever I remembered, so there are some gaps especially at the beginning. Please fill in any bits if you also saved it.

Advanced nonprofit technology practitioners need a place to connect and learn from each other. Who will fill this gap?

For years this was the collective whine from the hundreds of NTAPs who attend the Nonprofit Technology Conference to help other colleagues in the sector. When NetSquared was announced in 2005, I was excited to hear they would be bringing together the best minds from the nonprofit world with the leading technologists. Would this be the long-awaited venue for advanced “NPTECH” conversation?

In 2006, I attended NetSquared and it was one of the most useful and impactful conferences I had been to in years. (See my blog post here.) I eagerly signed up to come and participate again this year.

As you know if you are reading this, N2Y2 has a different goal, which is to connect innovative projects with the funding they need to succeed. I question whether $25,000 is enough to really make much impact, but I appreciate that this is a good goal. But it’s one that I don’t have any personal investment in, and it leaves the need for interaction largely unmet.

Tune in for Part Two: Eating our own dogfood, and meeting our own needs. To be posted here and at http://www.netsquared.org/blog/rubyji

I also started a new “back channel” as the official IRC wasn’t working for everyone. We’re using the free and very easy Meebo (as inspired by Alan Benamer’s NPtech chat). See us at http://wwwl.meebo.com/room/netsquared/

There are already a bunch of pictures posted at http://flickr.com/photos/tags/n2y2/

N2Y2 (as they are calling this second event) is going to be very different from last year’s conference. In fact, they’ve thrown out the standard conference format and instead are focusing the entire event around 21 projects that were selected by the NetSquared community (ie: anyone who wanted to vote). The entire event will be about improving the projects from a technical, financial, and management perspective.

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this change, but as with many conferences, much of the value comes in the wonderful people you can meet, and I’m sure this year will be no exception. You can follow the action via the N2Y2 tag and NetSquared’s Twitter friends page. Read Beth’s Blog or the NetSquared community blog for more goodness.

As I mentioned before, my special part to play will be as one of 21 “champions,” each of whom is helping one of the projects through the process. My project is the Genocide Intervention Network, which aims to utilize social networks and social media to build the movement against Darfur and other atrocities. For my homework, I plan to spend some quality time on the plane reading their excellent proposal. If you get the chance to read it, I’d love to hear any feedback.

In honor of the launch of Change.org’s new political actions tools and of the fact that I am going the be the “project champion” for the Genocide Intervention Network next week at NetSquared, here’s a widget that brings them both together.

The Genocide Intervention Network envisions a world in which the global community is willing and able to protect civilians from genocide and mass atrocities. Our mission is to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.

More on both subjects later. Right now, I have a job to do (for 3 more days)!

• Tom Ficklin, CIO of Empowerment New Haven (Connecticut), was probably the first person I met. We first crossed paths watching basketball in the hotel bar and I enjoyed checking in with him throughout the conference.
• I didn’t get to speak with him for very long, but I enjoyed the great presentation by Ethan Zuckerman, and was pleased that he remembered meeting me over 2 years ago at the Emerging Democracy thingy in San Diego.
• Another person who I met at a conference in in 2004 was Eddie Codel, who has been doing tons of great things including Geek Entertainment TV for which he shot a lot of video this week. He is also organizing VloggerCon to be held in San Fransisco next month.
• Justin Perkins is just another person to add to the list of nice folks at Care2.
• Ivan Boothe of the Genocide Intervention Network was a major force at the conference, he contributed insightful blog entries and comments in the hallway, and I really enjoyed talking with him. I’d like to connect him to my new colleague Tom Glaisyer, who shares Ivan’s interest in how social software can be used to prevent genocide.
• I was happy to run into my friend Kellan Eliot-McCrea who now works at Yahoo which is located in Silicon Valley (of course). I also got to meet two fierce coders who are friends of Kellan’s: Josh Crawford of the Brattleboro Collective and Evan Henshaw-Plath, aka Rabble, of Odeo.
• I already mentioned how great it was to meet Tantek and Kevin from Technorati, but I may have to follow uo with them as I’m still not sure my tags are working correctly…
• On the second day of the conference I sat down with my laptop determined to catch up with my e-mail. Haney Armstrong of Omidyar was very understanding of my anti-social behavior and I fortunately got to make up for it when he helped me figure out Second Life (his name: Haney Heaney) later that afternoon.
• I had the great fortune to also share my table with Sharron Rush of the innovative Austin nonprofit Knowbility and Jayne Cravens who is a true pioneer in the field of virtual volunteering. Both of their reputations preceded them. I had heard of Knowbility because they do some work tied into South by Southwest each year to promote web site accessibility, and I knew of Jayne because she has been a a leader in my field since before I was in it (and that’s a long time)!
• Another person who helped and promoted my entry into Second Life is James Au of New World Notes. He is somewhat of a honcho in SL, which you can tell because his avatar “Hamlet Au” has his own last name.
• I enjoyed walking (to dinner) and talking with Amit Asarvala, who does web strategy for Tech Soup. I should mention that I actually hung out with a lot of TechSoup/NetSquared staff this week, but I didn’t get their cards because I already know them. Rock on Marnie and Billy and everyone!
• At dinner I was chatting with a nice group of people and didn’t even realize I was talking to Tobias Eigen of Kabissa until he gave me his card. His parents are German and he said my last name (which is Austro-Hungarian) means “meaningful.” How cool is that! Meeting him reminded me that I want to hook Tobias up with the African nonprofit that I met through IFI Watch Net a few months ago.
• I also have to mention that I finally got to spend a little quality time with the fabulous Susan Tenby, who is the goddess/ruler/cheerleader/director of the TechSoup community. I have been wanting to hang out with her since we first met about 3 years ago. She is responsible for getting me to start playing with Second Life, where she is known as Glitteractica Cookie, and I hope we get to hang out more either in this life or the second one.
• Another person I enjoyed seeing was Holly Ross who is the director of programs for N-TEN. She organizes their conferences which I have been attending for the past few years. This was the first time I have seen her when she had time to think, talk, and discuss. I was really impressed with her sharp thinking about political issues. She also said that she was very excited about the new Executive Director that N-TEN had just hired, but she wasn’t at liberty to say who it was. Well a big announcement came out yesterday although I can’t find it on the web anywhere – congratulations, Katrin!

So I was recruited to lead a Making it Happen: Tips & Tricks session at NetSquared. I called it: how to be more cause-based, aka network-centric advocacy, aka bottom-up, aka cluetrain advocacy, aka user-centered, aka movement building. Basically I gave a little intro to the above topic and discussed it with anyone who wanted to stop by. People asked a lot of good questions and together we came up with a lot of great ideas for how to empower the supporters of our issues and help them lead our movements for change.

Thanks to everyone for chatting with me:

• Morgan Sully, community organizer, electronic musician, and organizer of electronic musicians.
• Perla Ni of the Stanford Social Innovation Review
• Kristen Burns, community relations & corporate giving at Symantec
• Ted Ko, project manager of Yahoo widgets
• Kearstin Kriebel, who is trying to protect San Fransisco parks and organize other groups with the same goals, at SFPT
• Erin Anderson, who has the cool title of eCommunity Mobilization Manager at the American Cancer Society.
• Rob Miller, with the Open Planning Project which is making an open source, social-networked, online project management tool especially intended to be used for community organizing and activism. Goodbye, Basecamp! Well, maybe.

Folks above without links didn’t give me their URLs.

There were just as many cool people as at other conferences, but less chaff. One of the most radical transformations for me: I have now joined the world of Second Life. Gotta go have some experiences…