What is participation in a Web 2.0 world?

by Matthew Hodgson

August 21, 2009 at 8:42 pm · Filed under Communities, Web 2.0

For some time the giants of the Web 2.0 world like Tim O’Reily and Clay Shirky have talked about ‘participation’ and ‘engagement’ but there is some real lack of clarity and simplicity around what is actually meant by this beyond some significant motherhood statements and technology definitions. This problem is compounded by social commentators who, when asking a room of people “who uses Web 2.0″, note that only a few people are live-blogging or twittering and flail their arms in the air with dismay and cry out the 20 year old 1:9:90 rule of the few contributing and the masses only lurking without realising the sampling issues inherent in asking this question of the convenience sample sitting before them.

Forrester’s Social Technographics really help clear the fog when we consider what types of behaviour we should include when we refer to ‘participation’ and ‘engagement’. All of these roles, from Creator to Joiner, and even Spectator, are critical in promoting Web 2.0 as a means of connecting and forming relationships as a means to promote identification, communication, networking, and collaboration between both individuals, and between individuals and communities of practice with an online presence. It follows that, beyond looking at the technology, when investigating how to encourage staff and clients in the way our organisations work and make decisions we take a more holistic perspective regarding the range of activities we include in our intranets, our extranets and our standard internet presences.

When recently twittering for some perspective and clarity on these issues of definition of participation, ICANN responded with a gem — IAP2’s core values of public participation [1]:

Public participation is based on the belief that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.
Public participation includes the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision.
Public participation promotes sustainable decisions by recognising and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision makers.
Public participation seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected by or interested in a decision.
Public participation seeks input from participants in designing how they participate.
Public participation provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way.
Public participation communicates to participants how their input affected the decision.

It was an important reminder that, beyond agreeing with the group’s own Web 2.0-style social contract, because definitions of participation in a Web 2.0 world are still fairly vague and can differ quite dramatically between organisations, it is not only important to acknowledge and support all online behavioural roles but also vital to communicate what participation means to you to those with whom you want to engage.

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1. International Association for Public Participation, 2009. IAP2 Core Values. Online at: http://www.iap2.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=4

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Just posted a piece on Friday about Twitter Evangelists and their message of engaging, conversation, relationship and community as it relates to the Twitter channel of web 2.0 or social media. Not providing answers, but questioning.

Your closing line particularly resonates: “vital to communicate what participation means to you.”

Think I’ll have to read this a couple of times to really digest your message, but appreciate the challenge!

[...] What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? by Matthew Hodgson on The AppGap Share and Enjoy: [...]

[...] Hodgson asks at The AppGap what participation and engagement really mean and he refers to the IAP2 core values of public [...]

Is the 90-9-1 rule a version of the 80/20 rule – Pareto principle? The Forrester’s Social Technographics profile tool in the Groundswell book has helped me very much in my take on social media for the future. I will use this guideline when I am taking a new combined role as a social media “specialist” (read: enthusiast) & business intelligence analyst at a new start up company that will enter a new international market in the near future.

[...] What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? by Matthew Hodgson on The AppGap Share and Enjoy: [...]

What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? http://bit.ly/XPtRq |everything fr passive 2 active engagement is imprtnt 4 success.#SM #e20 #E2.0

Provocative post by @theappgap RT @VMaryAbraham What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? http://bit.ly/XPtRq passive 2 active engagement..

Like voting every four years, even the most participatory models offered by our institutions fail to grasp the nature of our networked world. Today, much of the public is always-on and you can find someone talking about the issues. Participation doesn’t stop any more. One shot deals, even those that are open and inclusive, do not recognize this sea change in communications.

Getting something organized and creating results, that ‘becomes’, out of all the constant networked ‘participation’, will IMO require that people acknowledge ‘being’ whilst ‘doing’ and increasingly accept or embrace (depends upon how enthusiastic or not one is about living in ongoing ambiguity) that the process is the outcome.

This in turn requires that there are real democratic principles put to work with respect to iterating through participation the objectives and values that networked groups of people can actually believe in and want to accomplish. Networks are increasingly the public places and spaces where attitudes, opinions and culture are / will be shaped, and they carry important information about attitudes and information that the still-rigid institutional stewards of our societies should not, or cannot, ignore.

It will remain a challenge as to how to reach consensus, but it seems clear that more and more our (negotiated) agreements will be our structures … agreements about what to do, how to do it, who will do it, by when and with what kind(s) of accountability.

I subscribe to your normative expectation that we should “be” participative. But many libertarians will resist being told to engage with others with civility and tolerance, and that’s a democratic challenge.

Also, most people persist with a reified rather than dynamic view of institutions, and don’t accept that discourse shapes our world. Presented with the opportunity to join a discussion about improving a system, the response is “well, it is as it is.”

IAP2 addresses a particular context: the relationship between an electorate and its government.

I agree that IAP2 is process-focussed. It also respects the institutions of representative democracy. But it does not suggest that participation stops when policy is set. Every IAP2 practitioner agrees that the participatory approach should be ongoing.

Thanks for the clarification, Ron. As I said, “the values seem to imply…” and my intention was not to disparage the IAP2 process. It was the AppGap post combined with Euan’s that sparked my thoughts about the need to create structures that embed “being” into how we work.

Reading @matthew_hodgson’s post What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? http://bit.ly/T4OxC @theappgap

RT @lyceum: Reading @matthew_hodgson’s post What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? http://bit.ly/T4OxC @theappgap

Your post puts into perspective something I have been following the past couple of days. I have been very impressed at the changes in democratic engagement through the white house website (www.whitehouse.gov). It is my new favorite site just because I love seeing the level of participation from so many voices that seem to have been silenced by the main stream media. In particular was a link to a blog written by a housewife in Utah who has been debating the role of the government in the healthcare system with her conservative husband. There are two posts, one from the Husband and one from the wife.

I think this demonstrates more than being or becoming. Another dimension that the new technology creates is legitimizing. What I mean by this is a person feels as if they have a voice that is allowed to be expressed and SOMEONE will hear. I’m not sure legitimizing is the right word, but there is something going on that gives a person a place in this world in relationship to others. This goes beyond being and becoming, and places someone within a system or network.

Yes, Virginia, it will probably be something that all of us have to do as systems and institutions change (or at least we hope they’ll change). I would also call this finding one’s place.

Ya i too agree participation should not only be in making initial decision, Participation should be in each and every phase. The impact of participation will be felt only when the organization standards improve.

RT @hebsgaard What is participation in a Web 2.0 world? #e20 http://bit.ly/14Hb65

LOL, Harold. I almost wrote in my previous post a code I developed for my dissertation looking at group work in an organization…locating one’s place within the power structure of the organization.

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