You know the one:
1% of people create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.I suspect its assumptions are used to calculate all kinds of 'propensity of your market to join in social media estimate'. I'd hazard a guess Forrester applies it to this, for example (corrections welcome). (Image courtesy Chris Devers.)
Let me say I don't think this is a rule about willingness to participate - it is one about ability to participate.
And that is a critical, critical difference.
It means (and assumes) for example that everyone wants to participate and that it is the lowering of barriers to participation that will surface this.
The barriers could be cultural, technical, linguistic, financial, logistic
Whatever the case, don't kid yourselves participation is for a small elite. It's for whoever you are prepared to help overcome the barriers the rest of us face. It is up to you to lower those barriers.
Afterall, it's a rare human being who doesn't want to join in a conversation that matters to them. You just have to find ways to help them join in.
Spot on David
ReplyDeleteGail
Citizens online
The rule is about a standard situation with no (extra) stimulation to participate. If you invite somebody to the conversation it is more likely they will join in, if you don't they just might be a passerby. Participation is for a small elite, if you don't want to put in any effort in, the participation level will be low.
ReplyDeleteSee also this piece about it (including the comment of Lee on how to stimulate participation) http://dontmindrick.com/featured/roger-model-nielsen-participation-pyramid/
Hmm, let's not forget the rule applies to the entire eco-system of community, which is not predefined.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing stopping you from growing the 1%, but the 90% will probably still grow exponentially around that minority - there is a distinction there in the word minority vs elite.
As in life it's rare to find a group of human beings that share identical levels of socialbility or even willingness to participate.
Sometimes I just want to buy a product, sometimes I want to have a conversation with a brand, and sometimes I just want to be left alone ;-)
I do think you're correct and incorrect abt two things:
ReplyDelete"The barriers could be cultural, technical, linguistic, financial, logistic" -> participation is indeed blocked by the abovementioned, plus level of knowledge about certain topics/content.
"Let me say I don't think this is a rule about willingness to participate - it is one about ability to participate."
I do think it's about willingness, and not ability. I'd think one of the most important is -as mentioned above- the level of knowledge/experience on the topic.
Secondly it's about the "relation" ppl have with a certain topic. The more they have with it/important is to them, the stronger the need to intermingle and create interaction.
Other more concrete examples are for instance Twitter. All the tweets come by a small percentage of the Twitter userbase. Everybody has the same ability to share.
Yes of course. But where people have a strong relationship with the content (ie it is something they care about) it's then down to the tools and ability to access them at the point at which it matters to the user. So - all about ability since if you care about something (sufficiently) you have all the will you need :-)
ReplyDeleteTrue David,
ReplyDeleteI would have agreed directly, if this conversation would have taken place 5 years ago, do you concur it's still relevant today in a more social-media-diffused Web?
It is not just about willingness versus ability to overcome barriers.
ReplyDeleteIn strong communities, like those in the working class districts of Belfast, participation at each level of activity is much higher. When people think that their lives or livelihoods are under threat (from outsiders or a local gang), they will act. But you won't get them to act on behalf of an outsider.
But when a public body wants people to take part in a consultation, why should they trust the council or water authority to take any notice of what they say? As we found out in our research on all the consultations across the island of Ireland (http://www.e-consultation.org), too often the consultees perceive the consultations as tokenistic, since they have had no feedback from previous consultations. Even if they reduced the participation barriers by not just using 100-page consultation documents, but using e-consultation, there is still the problem of building a relationship of trust with the people who can take and implement decisions.
It is not the relationship with content (the subject) that matters, as much as the ongoing relationships between the affected population and those who have the power to help or hinder what they want.