Susanne Dansey’s Blog

There have been a few comments made by respected members of the community regarding the current state of our international network. Vlad talks about how the waters are muddied with those who engage in conversations that they don’t contribute to which helps fuel the ‘noise’ that can be created through endlessly long conversational threads on forums. Chris continues on a similar thread and even David is wondering about the current state of our community… 

When I tapped the community properly back in 2005 I realised that the potential for an organic organised group of professional business owners and influencers was a bit like a souffle. If managed properly you get great results due to the get up and goers who you could attach yourself to as they went forward regardless of who was with them. Their positive outlook and understanding that ‘more heads are better than one’ allowed for others to embrace the viral effect of the community and use it to good effect. These proactive people became leaders either in their field, their local IT group, or they became a positive influence on those who wanted to listen. They understood the idea of paying it forward with the goal of recouping the greater rewards somewhere down the line when others were ready to return the favour. Some became leading lights and still are great ambassadors of our profession. This is energising and exciting and the possibilities are endless…

But the souffle is a delicate creation and the group was, and still is, an unknown quantity and nobody is answerable to anyone else unless there is some form of legal or goodwill handshake involved. Because of this, if the leading lights dim every now and then, there is no one person or group obliged to carry the torches and the community loses the verve for which we all were attracted to. For those plugged in enough (usually the ones who have embraced the community to help cultivate it whilst making shrewd business ventures within it) they have been able to take a piece of it and develop it with the help of others. I’ve seen this happen with the Scottish groups and it works because they’ve responded to the few but savvy members of the original groups and moved with something that will give those involved a real ROI. SMBTN plugged into this as well and their paid membership scheme allows them to regulate the calibre of their partners as well as the information that is exchanged.

 To me, it’s a bit like looking down the Christmas card list and evaluating the type of card I want to send them. I have a few friends who still need to return some of my belongings to me (loaned and borrowed in good faith) who can have the generic robin or Victorian snow scene and then there are others who I want to give the sparkliest and better quality cards to.

The community is similar in this way, a few weeks back I was called, emailed, and IM’d several times about questions that had nothing to do with my job. My community partners were turning into my clients and asking me before taking time to do a quick search on the Internet. It is important to think carefully about how to use other people’s time; most of us are helping others achieve financial rewards and sacrifice their own business time to do it. Always keep in mind the thought of how it feels to end up realising you were inconvenienced and not establishing a new opportunity.

Whilst I don’t mind helping those who help me, I get calls from strangers who ask me questions that make me wonder how they could run their business without the help of others. Now don’t get me wrong, I like being contacted by anyone who realises the value of the information they are taking from others; what I don’t appreciate is a call out of the blue and then to never the favour reciprocated.

Last week we were trying to solve an increasingly perplexing hard drive problem and we spent a fair bit of time browsing the Web. We found a forum site with the exact problem we were going through and started to scan through the message thread…

… pages and pages later we were still scanning…

… lots and lots of people contributing to the thread but always asking the same question, one guy must have spent a good hour typing up how he found the problem, went through all manner of efforts to resolve it and then found he was back at square one - thanks for telling us how you got from A to… well A! Message traffic in forums like this creates noise that you can hear but can’t actually listen to. The increase in the frequency of this occurance merely discourages others to contribute or re-visit to help maintain the overall momentum.

In addition, sometimes the silence can be oh-so deafening and therefore the aim is to contribute something that will help establish a self sufficient network of successful business people. 

As I stand down from leading the Kent Group I can reflect on what I have achieved for others so far and be proud of it. I have a great collection of friends and business partners that I know I can rely on and they on me.

With some of the recent leader changes to the groups in the UK I think we have some exciting times ahead of us. The Midlands group looks to have a great year ahead of it under the direction of Vijay and his band of Merry Men (did you like my local reference guys?!) and Mark is set to follow in the footsteps of Richard who made a fantastic contribution to the group and still does to the community.

But if your leader stepped down from your group (be it SBS, a forum, or any other group), would your organisation be able to still stand and build on what it had achieved so far? My role is now to help with my local group and the community on a UK level whilst giving myself enough time achieve all the other plans I have for 2007.

The leading lights such as Susan, Vlad, Tim, Chris, Amy, Steve, Harry, Karl, Wayne, and Dana don’t have to contribute to the forums and they don’t have to blog or produce key resources for your business, but they do. They do it because, well let’s face it, the community can be quite addictive when it’s going forward (who doesn’t like to be involved in an achievement?) but sometimes something as simple as a quick note to say THANK YOU goes a long way. Take these guys (and there are plenty more) away and see what’s left of the community. Everyone owns the community, if you chose to participate and contribute, make sure you do exactly that.

If I could pan the community, I would guess that right now there would be a lot less gold left to take than the grit I had to sift through. It doesn’t have to be like this and it’s so easy to turn it around.

Look at the community as a new way of working - feel free to paddle your own boat, but there’s no harm in looking up to check you are paddling in the right direction or even share a boat with others now and then to help get to your destination quicker.