Crowdsourcing at Ebbsfleet United: building the Republic of Football

One of the exciting principles of MyFC was that it would allow ordinary fans to get involved in the decision-making at a football club, in a way that had never been achieved before, the theory being that the crowd could make a better decision than experts.

In recent weeks, for example, we’ve been voting on:

• Season Ticket and Matchday ticket pricing
• Home and Away kits for 09/10 season
• 09/10 Season kit supplier

as well as some of the internal Society governance and club management issues.

Firefighting leads to disengagement

The voting process is far from smooth: there’s a constant balancing act between transparency and privacy, between “authority figures” recommending an option or a free vote.

There are also situations where the members approval is sought in order to authorise a Club officer to undertake an activity,  usually a forgone conclusion because we don’t have much choice in the short term but to accept the recommendation.  These kinds of votes cause the most division and the Board of MyFC really should have learned long ago that long term planning was needed as well as the short-term fire fighting.

MyFootballClub's Working Groups process

Groups, working

This is where the Working Groups come in, allowing a group of ordinary members to tackle an issue, break it down into to manageable tasks, and make well reasoned recommendations to the members, with open-ended votes.  They’re still in early stages, but already we’ve seen progress from the active groups.

For example, the Financials Working Group came back with a procedure for arranging and publishing the Society and Club accounts, something that had previously been bogged down by lack of ownership and inertia.  This will add clarity to discussion and allow decisions to be made with full awareness of the implications for the Society and Club.

These are the groups that are currently in progress or being considered,  all initiated and given the go-ahead by ordinary members of the Society, and approved by the Society Board.  Links require MyFC login.

Financial WG
Aim: Strengthen the flow of financial information and prepare forecasts and draft budgets for the Club and Society (full aims)
Status: In progress, Private, Open Forum
Leader: rugbyswift
Last weekly review: 15/4/09

Marketing & Advertising WG
Aim: Focus marketing and advertising campaigns for Club and MyFC Society (full aims)
Status: In progress, Group Area, Original thread
Leader: roca
First weekly review: due 27th April

Communications WG
Aims: Make recommendations to improve communications between members, Board, Club and general public (full aims)
Status: Awaiting Greenlight Vote, Forum Discussion

Surveys WG
Aims: Facilitiate surveys to members on behalf of Society and WGs
Status: Forum Discussion

Live Streaming WG
Aims: Investigate options for providing cost-effective live streaming of TV footage to overseas members
Status: Forum Discussion

Calendar & Planning WG
Aims: Establish timelines for activity leading up to important deadlines and improve Calendar functionality
Status: Forum Discussion

Get stuck in!

Weekly reports allow the wider membership to keep a casual eye on the situation, meaning they can get on with working on areas that interest them.  Other members may stick to discussions or just engaging in casual chat.  Nothing wrong with this, as it still contributes to the fabric of the Society.  Governance and communication are likely to be ongoing issues: the need to keep all types of member involved and informed.

This framework can take MyFootballClub from an unfocused mob to a more constructive, forward looking organisation.  Providing the Society’s Board, the Website Operator and the Club management cooperate with the recommendations of the members, finally MyFootballClub can get to grips with the fundamental problems and start owning Ebbsfleet United.

Goodwill Hunting

When MyFC started recruiting members before taking over Ebbsfleet United, one of the rules was that the first year of membership would commence when the club was formally taken over. Which means that on February 19th 2009, over 20,000 memberships will expire. Some have renewed their subscriptions already, but there is great uncertainty as to how many will actually commit on or before the deadline. This is a problem because the clubs budget depends on the funds that these renewals will bring in – the CEO hinted as much on a recent BBC TV Inside Out report.

So whilst there are various issues that the Society is dealing with (not least how to deal with dissenting views, and others that I’ve commented on previously) the Operator has a new campaign to get people to commit. They have asked all members to signal their renewal intentions, and whether they will be purchasing gift memberships for christmas, perhaps donating a little more to the club kind sir?

I’m not sure at how this information can be considered representative, as it doesn’t seem to take into account the thousands who really don’t care any more. I said on the forums after the first couple of days: “by the end of next week the figures you have will be pretty much all your going to get”, and sure enough, for the last few days, there has been little increase in the number of respondents, which is now at about the same level as recent Society vote turnouts. I.e. everyone who was ever going to respond has done so, so their response should in no way be extrapolated to the rest of the 28,000 people who haven’t replied.

New Research

This report from Forrester Research could be far more useful, not just at estimating likely renewals but as a guide to work out how better to engage the different “kinds” of community participants.

It suggests that users of social websites like MyFC can be categorised by the extent to which they participate online and can be described by the following activity profiles:

• Creators – write articles, create social content, upload images etc
• Critics – respond to articles and forum posts, add to Wikis etc
• Collectors – organise content for themselves and others
• Joiners – join social networks and maintain their online identity / profile
• Spectators – read articles, watch videos etc but otherwise do not contribute.
• Inactives – neither create nor consume social content.

Clearly these categories are not all discrete as some participants may be both creators and critics, for example.

They also report significant differences in patterns of activity between different age groups, gender groups and nationalities. This is demonstrated with the profiling tool.

Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

A quick glance to me suggests that things may not be as bad as some of the more skeptical members make out, and reinforces my belief that the “Target” survey does not truly reflect likely member participation. This data seems to suggest that a website where 40-65% of the membership are either inactive or only spectators is not unusual.

My hope is that the Society Board and the Operator will at least consider this research along with their own demographic data, and use it to make better estimates about the renewals strategy and website development.

Activity Theory & MyFC

This is something I posted to a MyFC forum thread that had been going on for some time.  Another member made a comment that such a dull, non-football discussion had gone on for 18 pages.  It was a good opener for me to make some comments that had been floating round my head for some time.

Diagram of Extended Activity System

There are clear problems with this Society, which underpin any activity that leads it towards achieving its goals. We have to get these in order if we are to do the work we need, e.g. sorting out the finances, recruitment, or other club business. I see 3 main problems: the tools that we use, the rules that govern the community, and the division of labour within the community.

I’m citing Extended Activity Theory here, something I’ve been studying recently. I think it offers useful insights into where things don’t work and more importantly: how we can fix them.

TOOLS
Tools are: the website, forum, mailshots, wiki, podcast, matchday programme, chatroom, API, team selector, translation team, board blogs, twitter/jaiku match updates, tags, PM, video – anything we use to transmit or accumulate knowledge throughout the society.

“Tools shape the way human beings interact with reality and reflect the experiences of other people who have tried to solve similar problems at an earlier time and invented/modified the tool to make it more efficient. This experience is accumulated in the properties of tools as well as in the knowledge of how the tool should be used. “

“Tools are created and transformed during the development of the activity itself and carry with them a particular culture – the historical remnants from that development. The use of tools is a means for the accumulation and transmission of social knowledge. It influences the nature, not only of external behavior, but also of the mental functioning of individuals.”

The tools we use are not well integrated and need reviewing – they do not adequately assist in the accumulation and transmission of social knowledge. I.e. match updates, board updates, finance information, board activities, calls for help etc. These are not well organised and this is why a lot of people feel they cannot engage with the society and the club.

Many elements (forums, for example) do not reflect the experience and best practice of many succesful online communities, and have not been allowed to adapt and change as the Society has developed. They way that the forum is managed, for example, is one reason that many people have ended up posting on other sites.

RULES
“Rules – conventions, the code and guidelines for activities and behaviors in the system.”

These are not well defined. Hence this thread has extended to 18 pages. This doesn’t just apply to forum discipline, it refers to the board, how often and by what means to they communicate with members. The relationship between the Operator and the Society. The CEO and Chairman. etc. These all need to be clearly defined and stored in a place so that all particpants in the Society know what’s going on. How many times did we see a new member join and not have any clue about what was going on and who did what? Why else did we have hundreds of people put themselves up for the Society board, and then so many drop out?

DIVISION OF LABOUR
Division of labor – social strata, hierarchical structure of activity, the balance of activities among different people and artifacts in the system.

Again, these need to be well defined, and obviously relate to the rule and tools. Remember the Members’ skills database? Could have been really useful in handing mini tasks to members, especially coupled with a “call for action” list. Here, we need to define what needs doing, perhaps assigning board members to manage aspects of it and the assignment of tasks. Again, we might need to be careful when dealing with sensetive information, but this is where rules come in.

We also need to recognise and accept the diverse interests, experience and skills of members, and not be dismissive if some members are interested only in matchday activity, but not the politics of the Society. And vice versa. We should be confident that they can discuss and investigate these subjects, report back to the Society in general and produce an action plan we can make a decision on.

Summary
We need to get the Operator to review and integrate the tools our Society uses. We also need to define more clearly the Division of Labour and Roles and Responsibilities of the board, web team, forum team, CEO etc, and the rules that they should adhere to. If we sort this out, the society can thrive, engagement will improve, and the financial, footballing or other challenges can be met head on, as a diverse but united body of people with the same object.

More social media experiements

I seem to have collected some followers on Twitter (which my father-in-law thinks is a hilarious concept) which is nice.  I asked one why he followed me in particular (as I’d not met the guy as far as I knew) and he said he’d seen similar posts to what he was into.  Makes sense I suppose, just I hadn’t used it in that way before.  I may do from now, use it as a kind of ambient radar if there are particular issues I’m into.  Twhirl is really handy for that.

I’ve already integrated del.icio.us into facebook and here, also twitter into facebook, so now I think I’m going to try using twitterfeed to show new posts.

My previous attempt to trackback to Phillip’s blog seems to have failed (I think he has a lame blog host but can’t be sure).

Do you know, I’m not even sure if Social Media is the right term for all this malarkey…

Board stupid (1)

Ok, sorry about the cliched title.

MyFootballClub members are currently going through the process of electing their Society board, which means they are deciding how they want to the society to run, and therefore, how they will make decisions about Ebbsfleet United. Nominations close on Tuesday, as well as the vote to decide how many board members we actually want to represent society members.

I always believed that the biggest unknown about MyFC was not raising funds, or persuading directors to sell up, or even the due diligence negotiations and restructure. It’s the challenge of getting 28,000 people to reach a majority decision, or to provide enough information for them to be able to make their choices, and aggregate those individual choices into a collective decision.

Unfortunately, because the website is still hampered by the forum and lack of structure, the Wisdom of Crowds remains drowned out by the noise of the mob. Worse still, there’s a “silent majority” who either don’t have the time or the inclination to get into repetitive arguments about minor and major details. Who can blame them when there is so much replication – dozens of threads debating essentially the same thing?
I’ll say more about the technical side later, but for now I want to concentrate on the Society Board.

The role and ideal makeup of the board is like everything else at MyFC, up for the vote, although there doesn’t seem to be much thought into the job description. There have been contemplative articles and discussions going back to August about how the society will work, but as I’ve said above, these are lost in a swamp of forum posts. This means that there are over 120 candidates available at last look, for a board that would contain up to 11 members.

Some are confused about the role of Chairman or are putting more weight on parts of candidates’ CV’s that I don’t think bear any relevance to the role of the board. Some seem to think that the board will actually be making the decisions on behalf of members, and as such are voting for the maximum 11 board members (possibly paid, possibly not) so that there is no concentration of power.

But it’s also important for the society board to be a reasonable size so that those at the coal face at Stonebridge Road build up a trust relationship with the people who talk their language. It’s importanpolitics, democracy, socialnetworking, web2.t that the board members can quickly confer via Skype conference or chat room. It’s important that members can keep tabs on the activities and decisions that the board are making on their behalf.

This is the way I see it working:

The board choose one of their number to be Chair, and this person would attend EUFC board meetings, and represent the members and the board. Specific items that need to be raised, discussed and voted for are done so at such meetings.

Everyday decisions do not need to go through the EUFC board, instead the people on the ground at Ebbsfleet could consult with the individual society board members when there is an issue that requires members input. So it makes sense for the board members, especially the Chair, to be knowledgable in a wide variety of different fields.

So my ideal board would have 7 people – I like the number and Christoper Allens’s article linking Dunbar’s number with optimum group size.There would be two people who would be available to attend EUFC meetings without impact on their schedule. Ideally someone older (i.e. less family/work commitments) with a broad understanding of various issues, and living reasonably close to the ground. Above all a good communicator. I say two, because there would be a need to deputise / cover, and provide continuity after annual elections. These would be the Chair and deputy Chair.

Two members should be experienced in IT projects, including software development, in addition to other skills. This may drop down to one once the site and infrastructure improves. No reason for the IT literate board members not to be the Chair as well, providing those requirements are fulfilled.

The rest of the board members should have experience or expertise in legal, financial, political, managerial issues. This doesn’t mean that any one board member has more weight than any other. I don’t see them actually making many decisions, so above all they have to be able to interpret on our behalf and communicate.

I think that natural leaders will continue emerge from the membership, providing that the site strucute allows their views to be heard, discussed and acknowledged. There are already several board candidates who are favourites because of their interaction with members on the forums. I would expect these people to work closely with the board in gathering opinion and explaining situations, thus reducing the us/them perception of the board.

There are others who are clearly knowledgeable in specific areas, and I would expect them to also be used by the board members to provide opinion on a particular subject. There may be issues that require some further work or research, and again, we’ve seen members get together and produce fantastic things like the Fleet Wiki, the MyFC Podcast, SJ’s cartoon, The Transport Plan, the weekly newsletter. This isn’t just the Wisdom of Crowds, it’s the the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.