Video Dialogue: Beyond "Connecting"

My friend John Creighton and I have recorded another video dialogue about the shift in public life away from an “institution centric” world to a “citizen centric” world.

Our starting point was a comment that I heard at last week’s working session so social media and community benefit organizations, which was organized by the National Conference on Citizenship, the Case Foundation, and PACE. At this working session, Scott Heiferman, founder of MeetUp.com, said this:

“You know how all these organizations have links to their Twitter and Facebook accounts? Most of them say ‘connect with us.’ But why would I want to do that, and why do you want people to ‘connect’ with you? That still sees your organization as the mothership. Get people to connect to each other somehow.”

This prompted John and I to think about the whole notion of an institution wanting to “connect” with its public — and just how hard it is to take yourself out of the equation and get people connecting with one another. For an institution, this may be the toughest discipline of all.

Here is our discussion:

Creighton And Rourke: “Connecting” Is Not Enough from Brad Rourke on Vimeo.

(Go here to see our whole series of video dialogues.)