What small churches can teach dog rescue groups.

Check this out. My friend Chuck Warnock turns up the most interesting articles on small church development and posted this link on Facebook. Contrast this pastor's experience at Chik-Fil with the dynamics in most rescue groups. How often do you feel YOUR group -- rescue, church, or whatever -- is this happy to see you?

http://trc.divinity.duke.edu/2009/12/why-chick-fil-may-love-my-daughter-more.html

http://trc.divinity.duke.edu/2009/12/why-chick-fil-may-love-my-daughter-more.html

Empathy and rescue: science

I need to start following my own advice. I tend to wait until I have a well-thought-out long blog post that's been through multiple rewrites rather than posting the shorter notes that occur to me more often. 

The "uncanny valley" -- saw a post by David Hinson on Facebook and spent some interesting time wikitrailing it. The more robots resemble humans, the stronger the positive reaction to them -- UNTIL they look human enough to look wrong. Then there's a strong negative reaction. But THEN, as "humanness" is increased even further, a strong positive reaction reemerges. Has implications for rescue groups and community in developing empathy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

And interesting stuff on the effect of luxury goods -- among other things -- on empathy.

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/leader-board


And here: the chemical basis for empathy. http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/01/men_women_and_empathy.php

Transition from "Other" to "Us".

Community is about "us", and making this transition is critical to formation. Check this video out. Brilliance.

How to do, "It's not about you?"

A friend of mine -- thanks, Marti! -- posted this. It's an interesting approach to the "it's not about you" neutering program I talked about a few notes ago. Will it work on the hardcore? No. Will it raise awareness amongst those who aren't even thinking about it? Yep, I think so. Good job.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG6dAnIMDys

See Foot. Shoot Foot. Foot hurt. No surprises.

Ran across another seemingly-intractable community-at-odds situation within the Greyhound world: the Grey2K anti-racing organization and the Rescue community.

Grey2K is the relative newcomer in this world. Had they sought out a focal point to relate to the existing legal industry, they might have garnered some agree-to-disagree street creds. But it appears to me that they've blown it by demonizing the scads of GOOD folks and trainers and fans and owners in the larger Greyhound world. Not sure how they can come back from where they are now.

Well, actually, I do know how they could make a comeback from it. And how they could move toward building consensus. But based on what I've seen, the odds of the organization listening to good advice aren't high. Factual misstatements and deliberately misleading characterizations aren't a good way to persuade the undecided.

Now, in case you don't know this about me, let me just tell you up front that I've got six Greyhounds myself. A few retired racers and other assorted orthopedic cases, oops pups, and various bounce backs. I've had Greyhounds since 1998 and I love everything about 'em. Have even written a bunch of novels featuring them. Go check out dogbooks.org.

But as crazy about them as I am, I understand they're dogs, not furry little substitute children. I also understand that they love to run and that they're competitive about it by their very natures.

Grey2k proclaims: "Greyhounds are treated as simply property!"

Ah. Yes. Actually, that is the state of the law. Property laws apply.

But then again, we know how well this shrill PETA-style approach works. After all, that's why none of us eat meat anymore.

Oh. Wait.

Need some answers, folks. Not sure that Grey2K has 'em.

Spay/Neuter: it's not about you. Or is it?

I was working on my spay/neuter and community-building program the other day and ran smack-dab into an assumption I'd made -- or perhaps just an issue I hadn't thought out thoroughly.

We talk about spay/neuter as a single issue. But is it, really? Are you certain? More importantly, is it one issue as it relates to building community? That's important, because from community comes consensus.

For most of us in shelter, rescue or adoption guarantee programs (let's just call this Rescue), spay and neuter are the same issue. The differences are in the medical issues.

But outside Rescue, there's difference in initial reactions to spay and neuter and there's also a difference in the way that men and women react to them. Note -- this is anecdotal data and needs further validation.

Women tend to think about spay and neuter in the same way. If they're strongly opposed to one, they're strongly opposed to the other. If they're neutral on one, they're neutral on the other.

Not so with men. They tend to be more opposed to neuter than to spaying. How many time have you seen a guy wince when you talk about neutering his male dog?

So -- IF this is true, as politically incorrect as it might be, what does that say about our approach to building community? Seems to me that we've got some serious reframing work to do in terms of humans personalizing the issue of removing testicles. Too much identification.

Neutering -- it's not about you.

But at the same time, isn't it a failure of empathy -- or sympathy? -- that allows humans to abuse and neglect animals in other ways? And the cure for that is developing the empathy or sympathy, just the opposite in a way of what we much accomplish in regards spay/neuter.

How do we reconcile those two faces of personalization?

As my friend Jer DuFresne says: the conversation continues with you.

The Black Belt Guide to Internet Presence

Short digression: one of the questions I get asked most often is how to make effective use of social networking to build and reinforce communities. Too many people are spending hours doing it all manually when it's not all that difficult to maximize your presence by interconnecting everything.

If you've been looking for ways to reduce your workload by interconnecting your blog/Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn and bookmarking sites, you might want to check out this ebook. It'll save you a ton of time.

That last chapter on "Advanced Friendliness" will give you some resources to take it all to the next level. Some of it I'm just putting to use myself for the first time.

Here's the link to the ebook. It's $25. You know how fast stuff changes so updates are included free for a year. Click here!

Geography and Time: You are where and when you are. Or are you?

There are a host of mechanisms in place for building and strengthening communities and I'll talk about those shortly. But first, a few more words on identifying the common interest necessary to build a community. While we talk about the common interest, keep in mind two underlying principles that can potentiate any common interest: time and place.

Geography

1. It's hardwired -- or at least firmware wired.
   
2. And it's a freebie, since it solves a lot of communication problems as well.
   

Always look at your group first to see if it can be characterized as a common geographic one. For instance, the spay/neuter issue might be reworked as part of a larger program of livability issues for a particular community. Martial arts folks already have this on their minds, since student recruitment tends to be driven by geography, at least initially, more than style or reputation.

Downside: by its very nature, limited. But that can be ameliorated in part by exploiting time and adding in additional strands as focal points.

Time

We've all got a past and a future and that's true of geographically-based groups as well. For instance, most martial arts, for instance (mistakenly or not), maintain some semblance of a link with their origins. All style of karate, for instance, originated in Okinawa. By definition. The word has lost that connotation in the broader community, but that's actually what karate means. That focus, of geography of origin, can serve as a focal point.

Alumni organizations would be another example of a geographic community extended by a time strand.

Similarly, FUTURE geography can also serve as a focal point. Reaching out to future residents -- or representatives of future residents, e.g. the idea of preserving the area for your grandchildren -- is also a way to expand the common interest.

Finally, find ways to interest people outside of your geographic community in the existence or issues of your community. This is not the same as expanding your geographic community. It is more along the lines of serving as a model for others -- or a bad example. "This is how we did it," versus, "This could happen to you."

Next: Causes

Spay and Neuter and the Martial Arts

I've been spending a lot of time thinking out and planning the strategy for spay/neuter programs through community building. Taking a break from it for a while, I was reading a few websites within the karate communities I follow.

Boy, talk about schisms -- karate groups are as bad as churches, rescue groups, or just about anyone else. And yet there's so much in common between all the groups, or at least so it would appear on the surface. After all, in the situation I'm thinking about, all the groups practice the same style of karate. It would seem that there's an immediate focal point to support a continuing community.

But is there, really? What is it about karate (and church administrative structures, for that matter) that lends itself to schism and infighting? Or is there really a functional community just characterized by infighting?

At least part of the problem lies in attempting to impose a foreign culture in the guise of learning an art. Many elements of martial arts that are traditional in their native lands simply don't survive the trip across the ocean. That's especially true, as Michael Massey points out in his work, when traditional martial arts are filtered through an American military mindset.

In the next few weeks, I'll be coming up with a checklist/flow chart for identifying some of these problems.

A practical exercise in community

Reducing euthanasia rates through aggressive spay/neuter policies is a practical exercise in community-building and changing. Those of us in rescue, who follow the euthanasia rates and know how many dogs and cats are homeless have a hard time understanding the mindset of people who don't spay and neuter their pets. How do we influence people whose mindset we don't really get? The local open admission shelter provides FREE spay/neuter aka S/N services to all county and city residents.

How best to influence the non-S/N people? And why? There's a mismatch of community identities at work -- the first step in influencing is to form that community bond, that focal point.

Education might change minds, but probably not.

If that doesn't work, the next technique is to identify another focal point that both the pro-S/N and the anti-S/N have in common. Often, the pocketbook is a persuasive factor, showing how much the necessity for controlling an overpopulation of animals costs each of us. There are other possibilities as well, some even more powerful, but it takes some thought and research to pull those focal points out AND establish the transition to the attitude toward S/N. It would be excellent, for instance, if pro-S/N were linked to "support our troops". While supporting the troops is a focal point that most folks will rally toward, the connection to S/N is not strong enough or even sufficiently evident (yet).

But establishing that linkage is not the first step. The first step is to list out the particular community focal points that link otherwise opposed communities.

Just in passing, one parallel might be the pro-life and pro-choice factions in human communities. The positions are essentially irreconcilable and education and cogent arguments are likely to have little effect. HOWEVER -- there are things that both sides can agree upon. That adoption is a GOOD thing, for instance. That we need to provide an alternative for desperate parents to abandoning infants, e.g. providing "no questions asked" alternatives for leaving newborns in a safe environment. Those need to be the focal points of both groups.

What are the implications for the S/N issue? More thoughts on that later. For now, it's sufficient to say that we've got to identify those community focal points before we can hope to effect true change.

Community and Culture

Community is the emergence of cohesive groups from random individuals. Communities will have at least one trait in common. It may be geographic location. It may be a language. It may be an interest in a certain breed of dog or type of music. Whatever it is, good or evil, it will exist. The common interest is like the speck of dust in the air around which a raindrop coalesces or the bit of sand in an oyster's shell.

Community happens. The primary ways of creating a community are identifying a common interest and establishing a way for those adherents to communicate.

Culture is the egregore or meme that emerges from that coalition of individuals. It is the way the individuals relate to one another, other communities and the rest of the world, none of which need to be consistent or reconcilable. Extreme xenophobes can be insanely vicious to outsiders yet kind to one another. In a more mundane example, anyone who's ever been involved in animal rescue knows that each group has certain members who should never be allowed out in public. They're the ones who're incredibly compassionate to animals (the focus of the community) but oblivious to the feelings of their co-rescuers.

Communities can be created. Cultures can be built from ground up as the community is created or influenced in an existing community. How you do both of those depends on what you want to accomplish.

Tomorrow, I'll talk briefly about forming communities.

And by the way -- if you haven't seen this, go watch this short video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

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Building a community

Google got it right – there are really only two things you need to build a community (aside from a nifty logo with primary colors). All you need is

1. a common interest and

2. a way to communicate with others who're interested in it.

Now, remember, we're talking about building a community. Not about the resulting culture.

When I was at the Naval War College, I found the whole issue of the Kurds a fascinating one. The mountains almost always yield fierce fighters and the Kurds are no exception. If they were able to engage in more coordinated activity, they'd be an even more powerful force in the area.

But those same mountains that make them fierce fighters also block direct line of sight communications and the most basic radio communications. They have, at some level, a common culture. They have LOTS in common. The issue is communication. Best way to unify the Kurds would be to drop a bunch of satcomm gear in.

So suppose your problem is a good deal more mundane than unifying the Kurds. Suppose you're starting a new dog rescue group. If you're a breed rescue, you've already got that unifying interest. If you're a mixed breed rescue, you'll find your community is much stronger if you can define that unifying interest -- small breeds? Large mixes? Family dogs? Whatever it is, you want that unifying interest quite definable.

Your next question is how your adherents are going to be able to talk to each other. Phone? Email? Monthly meetings? Provide multiple paths, even paths that aren't entirely of your liking, to ensure that th needs of all types of members are met.

Do this intentionally up front -- define the common interest and allow for multiple ways of communication -- to create the strongest community.

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Is it ethical to intentionally shape cultures?

One of the first questions I always get is whether it's ethical to intentionally shape the culture of a community. The idea that we might be able to make choices about the culture we live in seems to smack of some sort of mind control.

But look – it's a given that folks are going to form communities. It's hardwired as a survival bias and the internet hasn't changed that..

If you're operating on an old MBA mindset, it's the high tech/high touch matrix and today we're seeing that folks will seek toward that corner of the matrix that maximizes both. Beginning with the very earliest internet message boards and progressing through microblogging, people formed communities in even the highest-tech of environments.

So – there will be communities, and they will have their own cultures, their ways of being together and dealing with issues. The question really is whether we let it develop randomly or attempt to make choices about what sort of community culture we want.

We already choose to shape cultures as we build communities. The most obvious example is boot camp – everything is taken away, radical environment and lifestyle changes, and elements of the new culture are introduced. The same processes, albeit in a far less traumatic and dramatic fashion, can be put to work in any community.

I saw a sign the other day at a grocery store: "Everyone speaks to everybody every day." That's a tool for influencing the culture within the store, for building communication structures between all levels. In theory, that means fewer unpleasant surprises for management because the habit of communicating is already in place and reinforced.

So is it ethical to choose to reinforce and develop positive community values? Who decides what are positive values and what aren't? What's the difference between developing a community culture for a business and branding? Is it less ethical or less effective if a profit motive is involve?

Before we can answer any of those questions, it's important to understand the difference between culture and community. I'll talk about that tomorrow.

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Intentional Culture: the Beginning of the Theory

Old joke: ask Marines to secure a building and they’ll clear the interior, establish a perimeter and controlled access points. Ask folks in the Air Force and they’ll negotiate a three year lease with an option to buy.

Looking back, I can trace my interest in cultural analysis to two major events in 1991: the Tailhook scandal and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Both were important to me because my specialty in the Navy was antisubmarine warfare. I’d spent most of my time on active duty in SOSUS and other ASW commands, including VS-41, the Replacement Air Group for Viking S-3 aircrews, where I’d taught passive acoustics to newly-fledged TACCOs.

It wasn’t until 1994, while at the Naval War College, that I was given the opportunity to explore the issues of cultural clashes and differentiation as part of an Advanced Research Project. Professor Holman supervised the project and steered me toward a number of book on the cultural differences between the different branches of the US military. I spent months reading cultural anthropology and developing a framework for analyzing the differences in military culture that would evolve within the now-independent member countries of the USSR. Fascinating stuff!

Once the framework was in place, it seemed fairly obvious that if we understood what creates culture, we should be able to influence how it develops. At the time, I was fascinated by the theory that the Navy could have reduced the probability of the Tailhook scandal by more effectively analyzing and influencing the culture within naval carrier-based aviation. Could women have been introduced into the mix as carrier-based pilots – and combat pilots – in such a way as to make them “us” rather than “not us”? Or was the harassment of the women at Tailhook similar to the treatment of other junior officers and thus evidence of a level of acceptance? Was this a rite of passage gone wrong or one that was simply inappropriate in civilian terms? If so, how could the Navy effectively integrate “other” into combat pilot ranks without blundering so massively – and overreacting, perhaps?

Throughout history – and fiction! – there have been many attempts to develop mathematical representations of group dynamics. One of my favorites were the Lancaster equations, supposedly capable of predicting victory in war (there’s more to it than that, but that’s the shorthand version.) (SF buffs will immediately think of the Foundation series and the effect of the Mule on the equations.)

Here’s what we know: people form groups. Always. The degree to which they crave closeness of association and to which they identify with the group are a function of the individual.

This is why Twitter and Facebook are so astoundingly popular. Their popularity is entirely a function of the inherent human drive to establish community.

Why is this important?

Because intentionally focusing on the process of assimilation and the solidness of the group unity can have profound effects on the development of the community, which has huge implications on the sense of belonging in all sorts of organizations: volunteer organizations, the military, and in commercial consumer bases. You want people who feel like they belong. Belonging – and, closely related, ownership – are very very good things for any organization.

Don’t leave it to chance. Create intentional cultures.

More later on the process of creating community and culture: why it matters and how to do it.

Cyn Mobley