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?