Accounting for Community: Thoughts for the BlogHer Business Summit

                                               

Stig Nygaard, via Flickr (CC license)

"Toto, I don't think we're in Boulder anymore..."

I'm in New York right now, and on Friday afternoon I'll be on a panel at the BlogHer Business Summit that I'm really looking forward to. Here's the official blurb from the conference program:

An RFP for the Measurement Industry

Where is the blog measurement tool that could measure more than "eyeballs," more than "authority" via inbound links, and could begin to approach measuring influence and relevance? [The panelists will] scope out what is, is not and ought to be available.

The panel will also include Edelman PR's Elizabeth Lee and LiveWorld's Jenna Woodul. Jory Des Jardins, one of the BlogHer founders and a gifted blogger in her own right will be moderating.

Gee... No pressure...

Frankly, I've been stressing a bit about this session. For a long time I've felt I was missing something very obvious about this topic. I've been worrying that I'm going to get up in front of an audience of people I respect and look like an idiot. Perhaps I'm about to do just that.

Regardless, something just occurred to me. I'd like to hear what you think about it...

Trying to measure how many people we reach, and how we affect or influence them, is indeed important. Therefore, measuring web traffic, inbound links, and analyzing clickthrough paths or discussion forum threads is helpful to a certain extent. However, I think this approach can only partly answer our fundamental question: Why bother being online? How do we really benefit from this activity?

I suspect today's online metrics fail to provide the most important part of that answer -- especially from a bottom-line business perspective. It's a flaw of perspective to consider only how you affect others, and not how you are affected.

The internet is a medium of interaction, especially for conversation of various kinds. Therefore: Shouldn't we closely consider, and start accounting for, the value that people bring to us when we open up to them?

WHY BUILD COMMUNITY?

"Community building" is a common catchphrase  in business and media circles. We all talk about it like it's important to us -- but what is the actual value of creating or joining a community? Honestly, what do we get out of interacting with people, other than money when they buy or recommend our stuff, or cutting costs for customer retention or service? Does it simply boil down to transactions and brand loyalty?

The true value of community is so fundamentally human that we often take it for granted. Or maybe we just don't like looking at it too directly, because that requires recognizing our vulnerability and interdependence. "Suits" generally aren't comfortable with that.

Here are some of the benefits from community I think we should account for more specifically. Each "value-add" on this list relates to existing typical business processes for which we already quantify costs, revenue, savings, or efficiency:

• Ideas, creativity, and extra information or analysis (R&D)
• Insight from diverse perspectives, including disagreement or disapproval (QA)
• Validation and motivation, from experiencing the focused attention of others and seeing ourselves reflected in what they say and do (HR: compensation and benefits)
• Goodwill, especially forbearance and forgiveness when we miss opportunities or screw up (PR and Legal)
• Trust, the foundation of human society and economics. If we didn't know how to trust, we'd still be clubbing each other over the head and stealing each other's lunch. Money itself represents trust. After all, it's just tokens with numbers -- we trust that we can exchange it for value. So let's consider this Sales.

MAKING VALUE JUDGMENTS ABOUT WHAT WE VALUE

I think it's especially appropriate to consider basic valuation issues at a BlogHer conference. It's kind of like learning to fully value core infrastructure that traditional business and economics generally discount, such as parenting, nutrition, the environment, morale -- and often (still), women.

Businesses and other organizations already have sophisticated systems for gauging the financial impact of all the "departments" listed above. What would happen if we adapted and expanded those systems to more accurately include what communities bring to organizations, and how that value drives the bottom line?

That's the kind of measurement tool I'd like to see -- not just for gauging the impact of online media, but for all efforts to engage interest and support from key communities.

...I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers. Since it's 5:00 a.m. and I need to get up in two hours to go to BlogHer, I'll stop here and toss it out to you:

What do you think? Am I onto something here?

More specifically: If we could adapt measurement tools or business systems to help organizations account more accurately for the costs, savings, and rewards of engaging with communities online and elsewhere, what could those tools look like and how might they work? Which variables would comprise that database?

And also: Which existing tools or systems are closest to this goal so far? Maybe we should start talking to accountants, not just technologists.

Please comment below. Really. I need to hear from people on this, so it doesn't keep depriving me of sleep. Also, I think this will vastly enhance my upcoming workshop with Heidi Miller on Creating Passionate Communities with Blogs and Podcasting.

And as always, feel free to disagree, or tell me what I've missed here.

Thanks.

Comments

[Adam Glenn]

I do think you're going much deeper than usual in thinking about measuring something as complex as community. We often lean on the easily quantifiable number, even if it doesn't really get at the true values behind community.

I especially like the comparison to non-traditional economic factors -- like unpaid housework or the pollution-cleansing effects of a healthy environment -- that are generally ignored in big yardsticks like GDP.

One way to get at the real value of something as rich as community is to consider the "replacement" value. That is, what would it cost if you *didn't have* the thing you take for granted. For instance, few considered the true value of wetlands (or swamps, as we used to call them), until their disappearance helped us see the exorbitant cost of replacing their roles in filtering water supplies, buffering against storm surges or harboring aquatic life.

By the same token, what will it cost media, or us all, to have to rebuild a diminished democratic citizenry?

There's a marvelous children's tale called Stone Soup, in which three strangers come upon a village paralyzed by mistrust and alienation. They set up a big soup pot in the town center, and starting with nothing but water and a stone, they gradually draw out the villagers, who add their own spices, vegetables and more to the mix. In the end, of course, the stone provides nothing of value, except as a catalyst for the town to create the value through their shared effort.

In most cases in this country, we don't have to rebuild trust from scratch like they did in Stone Soup. But let's never forget the flavor of a community comes from its own interconnections, and not from the stone.