Activism and creativity among the generations

As many of my friends may know I am involved in a number of civic events, ventures, committees, and organizations. In general, those that deal along mainly traditional civic lines tend to skew higher in the age and maturity bracket. Those that tend to involve more creativity and less formal ties tend to attract a younger audience.

By traditional I am referring to neighborhood associations, business associations, and some advocacy organizations. By more creative, less formal organizations I am referring to social organizations with a civic flavor such as bike party and riding groups, pop up type groups such as food carts groups etc., and groups seeking to create something new in their city whether it by an art event, food crawl, or spontaneous music event.

 

Traditional - I remarked to a friend the other day that the neighborhood association in which he is affiliated with skews predominately to older, retired, empty nesters who have lived in their home for over 15 years. Missing in his civic group are parents, singles, or single parents under the age of 55 or 60 years.

 

Creative -  Likewise in other groups in which I belong, they involve mostly singles, single parents, a few with children, and if they own a home at all they may have only been living in it a short while. The funny thing is both of these organizations are effective in their own ways, but they might as well be on different planets as far as how they get the job done. So I'll start off by highlighting organization and social characteristics of each.

Characteristics of traditional groups consisting of older members.

1.  Not as constrained with time so informal and formal face to face meetings predominate.
2. Authority is more specialized and hierarchical.
3. Decisions happen slower, sometimes out of a perceived need to be right or 100% accurate.
4. Tasks are delegated with long lead times.
5. Research takes longer.
6. Meeting are more formalized, members roles specialized.
7. Media and Communications are less effective (posters, fliers, phonebooks)
8. Groups are less diverse. Generally easier to have face to face with someone like you.

 Younger groups tend to rely on some of the techno/social changes that have taken place over the last few years; therefore

1. Meetings are less formal
2. Participants are generally multitasking during meetings
3. Less hierarchy more collaboration. Far more use of online collaborative tools.
4. With more use of online social, office, and graphic arts tools participants produce media faster with more input from the group.
5. Communication is generally faster with the ability to choose between documents, emails, texts, collaborative tools, and smart phones.
6. Communication to members, constituents, or stakeholders also use a diverse set of communications tools, usually instantaneous. This also tends to get the word out to a wider more diverse audience.
7. Instead of only using libraries and government agencies, younger groups tend to do more research online.
8. Informal meetings and decisions can be handled online. Less need for more formal meetings.

  

One of the reasons the discussion amongst myself and members of more traditional groups started in the first place was not only the lack of age and other diversity in the participants but it has been getting harder and harder to attract more participants and get critical input from the community. Between careers, families, and just a tough job market many younger residents just don't have a lot of time to devote to civic affairs but that doesn't mean they still cannot participate.

 

A new way to advocate - Last year while attempting to advocate for a certain transportation policy decision with the county it dawned on me that we didn't have the numbers to get our message across. Traditional you get the phone tree ready and start dialing enough people to show up wearing your color of choice to show solidarity in the crowd. Some of those in your group will speak within their allotted two minutes of public comment.

In our case we didn't have a large group and we had to skip the colored T-Shirts but we were affective. We were able to make our presence felt on all fronts; a letter write campaign to the media, traditional snail mail and emails to elected officials, and phone calls to elected officials staff members.

One interested participant while working (coding) at home was able to view the Supervisory meeting from the comfort of his home while also looking after his child. He as able to contact supervisors staff through phone and email. In all with a greater email, phone, letter, and public comment input we were able to call it a success. In this case a physical presence was always needed.

Likewise your group can also be respectful of their precious time by using online surveys, calendars, email-blasts etc. One group I know just published their last paper newsletter. Formal board meetings can also be divided between the more mundane agenda items, and that portion of the meeting devoted to informative presentations and a social hour. Invite those with limited schedules to come for the speaker series or the social hour. That way those pressed for time will fit it easier to stay for just the "fun" part

Of course now days your are seeing more electronic media in the form of online petitions. Twitter has also been very effective. Last fall when General Motors ran ads in a UCLA student newspaper showing cyclists as "40 year old virgin" stereotypes, the cycling community responded quickly. In just over 24 hours GM had announced that they were pulling the ad.

  Don't rely on the same (static) web page that you have been using for the last ten years (yes this happens). Use your web page but also consider Twitter, Facebook, wikis, Google Docs or other types of social or cloud based computing. Figure that (at least here in the Silicon Valley) your readers may be seeing it on a mobile device (Apple iOS or Android). Again use surveys, accept civil comments, use forums, what ever helps to provide a two way type of feedback.

 

One neighborhood association president I know complained when a candidate city council had misrepresented their endorsement of the candidate (their bylaws forbid them to endorse any candidate for any race), I asked her if she had a web page on their site that publicly and specifically stated just what they endorse she said that they had nothing like that. With that page they could easily link it to Google +, Facebook, or Twitter posts to easily let the community know just where they stand.

Now if you have traditionally used one or two key members to get out the monthly newsletter now is the time to consider a more looser communications policy. Allow for additional members to collaborate and respond. Take advantage of the "Wisdom of the Crowds".

 

So if you belong to a civilly minded group that skews to the older more traditional way of doing things. Try to include younger, more time pressed individuals and families that would love to contribute but need some flexibility. Allow them to contribute in small doses in other ways and ask for their opinions outside of formal meetings. With greater numbers of committed members you'll achieve greater success in your community.