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.

MyFC gets closer to Web2.0 expectations

MyFootballClub now have a WordPress blog integrated into the site so that the Society Board and the CEO and Chairman of the football club can communicate regularly to members in one place. Something I’ve been going on at them to do for ages. I’ve also got them to use twitter for updates, though people are still getting used to it (both the society board and the guys who maintain the site!).

I’m still trying to get them to be more open about their team selection process and getting members to think carefully about it. There’s a big friendly match against Charlton on the 12th July where we’ll be choosing the team, but I think the “system” they’re using is a severe mangling of Wisdom of Crowds principles.

This is very dangerous: if the process has the effect of sanctioning of the Coach’s selection, members will lose faith that their opinion counts for anything, not bother taking part, and thus Pick The Team gets dropped. This was one of the core principles of MyFC and though it’s not critical for every member, there are many that would that would not renew next February if it was dropped. If their mechanism doesn’t correctly aggregate the selections it risks fielding an unsuitable lineup, again suggesting it should be dropped.

Now if they opened up their mechanism, even if only to a select group of statistics geeks, they could check that it produced a “good” average lineup. The solution I proposed had some problems when you had a split verdict (unlikely scenarios but couldn’t be ignored), but in discussion with others I’ve found other ways that bring a diverse set of selections closer to an single “average” lineup. And from that, it’s really not hard to accept the Coach overiding some positions, as long as he tells us afterwards why this was done and therefore improve the information we have for next time.  And of course if he overrules us and gets it wrong, perhaps he’ll learn something.

It’s not that hard, is it?

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…

The Magnificent 7 ride in to town!

Well actually, one catches a train, one other hops on a bus, and the rest are already in the saloon: 5 out of the 7 newly elected board members have prior involvement with the Club or Supporters Trust. The numbers are made up by a charistmatic local, and one member who’s been heavily involved since early days by contributing the online community, forum administration, voting procedures etc.

This has angered some, and given rise to conspiracy theories, countered by accusations of sour grapes. It seems to have surprised everyone, not least the board members themselves. Most people voted for a “balanced board”; unfortunately with a vast choice of candidates (many of whom appeared to have no distinguishing characteristics or skills) they did not vote for the same people.
There’s some great statistical analysis on the forums, which seems to show that:

1) most people wanted 2 candidates who were local / already involved with MyFC. Because there were only a few of these candidates, their share of the vote was higher than a “random” candidate.

2) most people voted for at least one “international” candidate. But because no single candidate stood out as “the international choice”, these votes were spread between them all.

Hogswell suggests that proportional representation would have produced the balanced board that most people favoured, but of course this would require Kent/UK/International to be different “parties”. This could be something the Society considers in future, but until the board get to grips with the day to day running of the Society, there’s no real mandate for this. Those that argued that “there should be international representation” could never make a convincing argument for why this was so, whereas the argument for having local members, especially those already involved in the club, was more obvious to most.

Footy19′s analysis shows that higher turnout wouldn’t have changed either of these two factors, and therefore the result would have been the same.

So did the Wisdom of Crowds apply? Perhaps, but only within the context of the information they were provided. There was a lack of clarity about the duties of the board and the role they would play in communications between the Club, Members and Operator, so it’s no wonder that the “average” choice was to keep things in safe hands.

There’s also an assumption amongst the less geeky members that the Operator is qualified and able to nurture a unique online community, without realising that there’s no template for this. There are many examples of collaborative projects on the Internet, but those of us that understand the web need to explain to those that don’t. The Society isn’t going to appear overnight, we need to create the Republic of Football where we are.

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.