Internet, Social Media & Volunteering (Part III)

In older days the world was a plate, after that it was a ball and just now it is a network. (cp. J. Tomlinson 1999)

It’s a simple truth: The world is changing. Not only the technical development is in process, the human development is in process too. Even more: The biological and the social nature of men got completed with a technical one. Already in 1985 Donna Haraway realized that and penned “a Cyborg Manifesto”. Her credo:

“We are all Cyborgs!”

Of course this special Cyborg Metaphor didn’t mean scary creatures like The Borg from Starship USS Enterprise. It’s more about “prosthetic devices” as Haraway wrote. Its about devices we use (we have to use), if we would take part in our society.

Naturally in earlier days these devices havent been computers. Even during the 1980^th the currently development of the Internet wasn’t foreseeable. The standard devices in these days, when the world was a plate, were the font chiselled in a rock or smoke signals send through the sky. After that, when the world becomes a ball, paper and pen, books and newspaper got the devices men used (and have to use) to take part in society. With the development of computers and the network technology since the later 1960^th computers got an greater extend of the daily reality in our society.
In the last two parts of this column about “Internet, Social Media & Volunteering” I described the rise of the Internet, the so called Web 2.0 and Social Media. In this part — at the moment the last one — I’m going to point out some ideas how we can use the Internet for our work with volunteers.
Usage of the Internet while working with volunteers
Round about 475 million Europeans are using the Internet (Internet World States, June 2010). That is more than 58% of all Europeans and nearly a quarter of the internet users of the whole world (24.7%). From several statistics in Germany we know, that most of these internet users are well situated and young until middle aged people, which actively take part in socially development. They inform them self via online newspapers and talk to their friends on Facebook (or other social networking services). They sign petitions and backup online campaigns with themes they’re passionate about. All in one: They use the internet as integral part of their daily communication.
Many volunteers use the Internet in exactly this way — of course: volunteers aren’t any other kind of men, volunteers are Cyborgs too. They communicate via e-mails and social networking services about their daily work and engagement. They are writing what they’re doing and what they think about projects they’re involved in. In our days of computer and network technology communication gets more and more decentralised and because of that uncontrollable. Accordingly to this the first step to use the Internet and Social Media for the work with volunteers should be to open up an interactive cannel to volunteers online.
Sending e-mail newsletters to them, adding them as friends at social networking platforms and making useful communicational offers via textes, hyperlinks, video and podcasts to them could be a good fist step. But to interact with volunteers not only means to inform them! It also means to open up a feedback channel to them and discus their input and implement it to your work — even if it is critical.
Why should you do that?
Taking the people of Scoopvill from my last post as example we can say that giving and getting feedback via Social Media is very simple. Open up a channel can help you to canalize the feedback so that it simply reaches the right person and don’t become the word of mouth that’s maybe peeve to you. Think about what happened at Scoopevill: Sylvia produces ice cream with pickles. Not many people loved it but they find it interesting and perhaps tell their friends:

Oh, if you like to taste a very special ice cream, you have to visit Sylvia!

What should have been happen if Sylvia didn’t open up a feedback cannel to her stakeholders? Surly she would have wondered why just a few men love her pickle ice cream. Perhaps she would have changed to vanilla flavour. But that were already produced by the ice cream factory in a very good way. Sylvia would have set up a senseless business competition she could not win and break up the production of an interesting flavour that already has had a couple of loyal fans.
All in one: Feedback can help us to improve our work — and especially our volunteer management — because we get to know what’s going on with our volunteers, what our volunteers are thinking about our organisation and were the shoe is pinching. Of course providing a pubic feedback channel to the internet community could be precarious. Both, laudation and critic, becomes publicized. A few organisations already realize that and tried to set up an own social network for their volunteers.
In my opinion that is not a very good idea! Even if some social networking services have not the very best privacy policies, the volunteers and other stakeholders we’d like to reach are their and not at another platform — especially not at ours. Organisations, that’s my catchphrase, have to communicate were their stakeholders are!
… and of course online volunteering
Another idea to use the Internet for the work with volunteers I already described at the last years Volonteurope Conference in Sarajevo. The idea of online volunteering is as simple as the catchphrases that organisations have to communicate were their stakeholders are: They have to offer volunteer opportunities were their volunteers are! Offering opportunities that volunteers can carry out via the Internet from their home or work computer can help to involve volunteers that because of time and / or geographically barriers normally have no access to volunteer opportunities. Therefore please find my last years presentation about “Fit 4 Online-Volunteering – The essential investments” and the presentation slides:
[slideshare id=2232069&doc=fit4online-volunteering-091015101820-phpapp01] Surely the Internet offers many other opportunities and challenges we have to discuss. But interacting and encountering on a par with volunteers and stakeholders have to be the primarily principle of all our Social Media activities. Offering real advantages and communicating in a transparent way can help to improve your work as well as building up robust networks and finding more volunteers for our organisations.