Session 4: Discussion of the Book "Grouped" by Paul Adams

This session was facilitated by Irene Lehrer Sandalow, who was brought on board to The Jewish Education Project in the Day School Department. She is managing a program called "Parent to Parent," in which day school parents are brought together and empowered to evangelize on behalf of their children's schools, especially through social media channels, in an effort to create community and boost interest in day schools through word of mouth. Irene found the book "Grouped," thought it would be useful for her work, and introduced it to the rest of the staff. Rebecca Saidlower, Associate Director of Marketing for the agency, also helped lead a discussion that brought the concepts in the book down to earth using the real-life example of promoting the Young Educators Award. The following are the notes taken during the session.


Book Discussion:
"Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends are the Key to Influence on the Social Web"
March 29, 2012

Introduction:
POP of Discussion

Purpose: Learn how ideas are spread through social networks and how it applies to our work
Outcome: Gain new tools and tips to deepen our impact in our work at the Jewish Education Project
Process (aka Agenda)

• Large Group: highlights from the book
• Case Study: Jewish Ed Project Young Pioneers Award with Rebecca

Can we apply some of the lessons learned to promote this award?

It was a very rich conversation around the ideas that the book promotes and how it applies to our day to day work. We specifically discussed how we can use these ideas to promote the Young Pioneers Award. Here are some highlights of the conversation:

-The book challenges Malcolm Gladwell's theory of the "influentials." To effectively reach people, you need to market for small groups of friends. (Not, for example, the "buzz moms" in synagogues.)

-Importance of building trust with the people you are trying to reach. More people are likely to trust their close friend's opinion rather than somebody who is not so close to them, even if they are a more trustworthy source.

- Interesting that our social connections follow a common pattern: 5-15-50-150-500. It is hard to have connections with more than 150 people. 150 is a physiological limit of our brain.


-People are averse to change. To change attitudes, you need to change behaviors.

-We can observe "Group Think" with parent groups. People take advice from their close friends without checking if they are right.

-We are more likely to connect and do things with people who are like us, share similar interests, religion etc. Adams calls it "homophily". (Some of us call it "Tribal Bias.")

-We are more likely to share information when we are emotionally triggered by the content.

-We feel strong emotions when the value proposition of our decisions are reinforced or challenged. If the reasons of why we made a certain decision is affirmed by what we observe, we feel especially content. If the value proposition of our decision is challenged, we feel deceived. This brings to question about the importance of the "integrity of our message." More and more of our marketing culture uses grandiose language like " groundbreaking", "most innovative", etc. But can we deliver on that promise? And if we don't, why does it say about our brand? The Kony 2012 documentary was a very powerful social media campaign, but after it came out that he lied about some facts, it hurt the credibility of the film for a lot of people. This is true, even when the documentary accomplished what it meant to accomplish.

- To develop trust, you need to personalize the communication. This is especially true in emails. If an email is addressed to a small group or to the email recipient, we are more likely to read it or take action on the email.

-If the content you are promoting is part of their life and natural environment, people are more likely to talk about it with their friends.

- The Young Pioneers Awards outreach strategy needs to be more "social." Take advantage of Pinterest. Create a message about the award that would make people want to talk to their friends about it. We have the start from the institutions'/ educators'/ community's interest. What are the needs of the educators? We need to built a culture around the award, consider the timing of the outreach etc. It cannot feel forced. Before launching the award, we should ask input from the different staff members.

- How do we get people to share information without asking them to share it?

Move away from the idea of finding "influentials." It is neither cost-effective nor efficient. We are all influential in different contexts. You need to find everyday people who are passionate about what your brand does, and market to them. They will go on and tell their friends.

We need to find people who are passionate about our work. These people are not necessarily the "influentials." This idea is reinforced with the principles of community organizing. Community organizing campaigns are successful because the people who are involved are passionate about the issue, not because they are especially influential in their community.

Some questions that came up in our discussion:

• How do we balance the need to be authentic and transparent with the fact that we are making missteps?
• How we measure what we discussed today?
• How do we change people's environment, attitude, and behavior?
• How do we create content that is most meaningful that people will want to share?

Session 3: Information Overload

Intro: Who is suffering from info overload syndrome? Why? What are the symptoms?

We all are. It makes us dizzy, gets us confused, and forces us to shut down.

We deal with it by being very particular about what information we take in, when, and from whom. We back off. We get outside.

Text study:

1. R. Joshua said: If all seas were ink, and all reeds pens, heaven and earth scrolls, and all mankind scribes, they would not suffice to write down the Torah I learned, even though I abstracted [from my masters’ teaching] no more than a man would take when dipping the point of a painting stick in the paint tube.
(Shir haShirim Rabba 1:3; William G. Braude’s translation)

2. What was Rabbi Akiva like? A worker who goes out with his basket. He finds wheat, he puts it in; barley, he puts it in; spelt, he puts it in; beans, he puts it in; lentils, he puts it in. When he arrives home he sorts out the wheat by itself, barley by itself, spelt by itself, beans by themselves, lentils by themselves. So did Rabbi Akiva; he arranged the Torah rings by rings. (Avot de Rabbi Natan ch. 18)

3. "On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, "Make me a proselyte, on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot."[1] Thereupon he chased him away with the builder's cubit that was in his hand.[2] When he came before Hillel, (he also asked Hillel to teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot) Hillel replied, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah while the rest is commentary; go and learn it."[3]
(Talmud in tractate Shabbos 31a)

What do these texts have to say about information overload?
Text 1: There has always been more information out there than we are capable of taking in.
Text 2: Sorting. Being deliberate. Personal style - Akiva's way of organizing info may have come from his coming to Judaism later in life. There is value in the process of collection, holding info, and sorting.
Text 3: Summarizing, but also getting at the ikar. Immediacy.

(These texts have a flow - dealing with big ideas, categorizing them, getting at the essence, and back to dig deeper.)

Clay Shirky argues that we're not suffering from information overload, but filter failure.

What is the difference between info overload and filter failure? Do you agree with Shirky?


Information overload is part of the human condition. We need filters, and we get them from the beginning. "From the time we are born, there is no unmediated experience."

"Program or Be Programmed" - addresses issues of who is in control of our filters and the information we ultimately get.

Example of the Omnivore's Dilemma - I can eat anything, so how do I decide what to eat? Kashrut is Judaism's answer; a filter for making that decision.

Our filters are increasingly social - the online world is catching up with our habits/behaviors on-land. Google Plus is a perfect example.

Tachlis/Examples: Filtering good information


Social Bookmarking on Diigo with Marni

• Allows you to collect, store, organize, and share links
• Share with colleagues - create a group to store interesting information
• Bookmark links quickly and easily with browser plug-ins
• also allows for annotation

RSS Feeds with Arnie

Watch the video tutorial from Common Craft here.

• Bring content from interesting folks together in one place, organize it to your liking
• Skim headlines, read synopses, or dive into full articles
• Curate content for your networks

More on RSS feed and examples of good blogs/publications to follow here.

How else do we deal with information overload? What are the implications of info overload for our work, from our perspective and that of the people we work with?