Wow. I just realized it has been 5 weeks since I posted last. That is what having a new job as ED and a 7 month old will do. Needless to say, I have been busy. But, I have started reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky again. So, be ready to see a few posts about what nuggets I dig up.

Here is today's nugget. In Chapter 5, Shirky talks about Power Law distributions and Wikipedia contributors. And this quote is something I think too many people forget in associations when planning or launching their social media projects:

To understand the creation of something like a Wikipedia article, you can't look for a representative contributor, because none exists. Instead, you have to change your focus, to concentrate not on the individual users but on the behavior of the collective.

If you don't have champions ready to help lead the effort and be the top of that power law curve, you won't get anywhere. Plus, if you are only looking at a small sample of your members, you may not be getting the true picture of who will participate.

Originally posted @ BlogClump - Blogging About Associations From a Gen Xer