Btr11 summary
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The #btr11 project sought to experiment with social media platforms over 10 months to improve knowledge exchange between researchers and other groups. It held online and in-person events, built an online discussion space, and used Twitter to engage approximately 45,000 people. An evaluation found that the project helped participants better understand which platforms engage different audiences and increased understanding of Below the Radar research, but was less successful in building ongoing engagement around the research issues. Key lessons included choosing dissemination versus discussion strategies, testing different platforms, and developing trust with target communities. Risks included discussions not aligning with goals and participants feeling challenged online.
Btr11 summary
- 1. Discussion Paper E Summary Summary of #btr11 – an experiment in knowledge exchange through social media Amy Burnage and Roxanne Persaud The project… and debate the issues, with the support of TSRC research. The project was funded by The Third Sector Research Centre’s (TSRC) Barrow Cadbury Trust, and launched through Beyond the Radar project (#btr11) sought to an “impact event” event in July 2011, which experiment with a range of social media was hosted by Department for Communities platforms over a 10 month period, to improve and Local Government. The project ran for the processes by which they engaged with 10 months, held 5 online events and 2 ‘real individuals on knowledge exchange life’ events, built a website space through programmes. For TSRC, the aim was to Civicrowd for resources and discussions, and ensure that issues around the ‘below the used twitter for social reporting and radar’ (BtR) research, which had been discussion through the hashtag #btr11. developed by TSRC researchers since 2008, Through twitter, news and information about was shared and explored across policy, September 2012 the project reached approximately 45,000 practice and research communities. The goal people, the Civicrowd space was accessed of #btr11 was not to decide on solutions or by 1,652 people, and over 120 people achieve instrumental goals, but to provide a directly contributed to the online events. space whereby multiple voices could discuss
- 2. The evaluation…. Outcomes The paper associated with this summary1 Potentially, the most practically valuable offers an evaluation of the #btr11 activities, outcome of the project was the improved by first seeking to gain a better knowledge and understanding around how understanding of digital knowledge exchange different audiences responded to different and then applying that understanding to the platforms through digital knowledge exchange. A key message from one human dynamics that emerged through the organiser was that; ‘I know now which project. It achieved this through using social networks and groups I can access through exchange theory to build a thematic different tools for different purposes, and framework, supported with a discussion have a much better idea of how they are around social media and “sharing likely to contribute’. Through this increased communities”. With this clearer picture of understanding, #btr11 succeeded in its digital knowledge exchange, it used primary goal of engaging with “more voices” numerical and text data (collected through and was able to introduce people beyond the various analytical tools, participant original event participants to TSRC and the interviews, transcript analysis and Below the Radar research. Moreover, it was observation) to situate the #btr11 activity able to provide spaces where individuals within the social exchange themes of could discuss and debate important issues accepted practices, sharing values and across professional and geographical exchange relationships. Within these themes, boundaries. The Civicrowd online discussion the evaluation team identified and highlighted with the Big Lottery CEO and other large key lessons, choices, risks and outcomes, to sector funders serves as a particularly provide TSRC with a resource for further successful example of this, through a model experimentation, and to serve as a starting that could easily be replicated in future point for others interested in developing their events. own knowledge exchange programme A weakness of #btr11 however, was that it through social media. was less successful in building a unifying purpose to create momentum for on-going The learning… activity within TSRC’s communities of Through the evaluation process of #btr11, interest. Feedback suggests that while the some interesting and valuable learning has project created a valuable space for been developed. The narrative style of the community feedback and discussion, it didn’t evaluation has reflected the experimental translate to a completed cycle of dialogue nature of #btr11, as well as the loose, around the BtR research. This limited the voluntary nature of social media itself. To project to individually valuable “below the summarise the nuanced and complex nature radar” debates, rather than shared ownership of the project’s dynamics and processes; the around the research implications. learning has been loosely themed around That said; the primary response to the project outcomes, choices, risks and lessons. demonstrated significant levels of support 1 from participants and stakeholders, who saw Available on the TSRC website or upon request from Amy Burnage ([email protected]) and Roxanne value in the notion of academic-community Persaud ([email protected]) knowledge exchange, and repeatedly used
- 3. the spaces and events to share their stories. not who says it or how they say it. Therefore, while the discussions were not Negotiating the social media landscape to always what the organisers expected; find events, platforms and individuals that comments from every online event expressed support this approach requires significant appreciation and relevance to the time and “filtering”, but is vital to build a participants’ interests and work. By providing project that audiences trust. gateways for engagement between disparate and previously unconnected networks, Risks groups and individuals; #btr11 enabled it As with most knowledge exchange projects, participants to benefit from new relationships, #btr11 faced a number of risks that were which has resulted in partnership work negotiated through their social media outside of #btr11. strategy. On the whole, these risks were managed well and were not problematic, but Choices are worth anticipating at the start of future In terms of future experimentation, the digital knowledge exchange projects. The evaluation process has uncovered a few key major practical risk for #btr11 was that choices that knowledge exchange motivations of the project participants did not practitioners must consider during the design always match the expectations of the of any social media project. The first decision organisers, which occasionally skewed the that should be made is whether the primary conversation away from the original aim. This strategy of the project is one of dissemination difficulty, experienced on all social media and response (a two-phase approach) or of platforms, is one which organisers must discussion (a single phase approach). This accept as a natural feature of voluntary, will affect the tools that should be used and informal participation. the numbers of individuals you will likely A secondary risk that was emphatically connect with. The key to understanding raised by contributors in the context of which platforms to use is to test a range of academic knowledge exchange, and other social media tools and learn how your target projects that involve “experts” or decision- communities interact with them. makers, is that those with perceived higher Secondly, as organisers, there is a need to authority can feel challenged or defensive in understand how trust in your project can be online meetings with their stakeholders. developed with your communities of interest. Academics in particular need to accept the For some audiences this will mean building a risk of making their research vulnerable and strong digital brand by packaging and allowing it to be challenged. #btr11 accepted delivering information in an accessible way, this risk and dialogue around the issues was for others this will mean spending time generally healthy. However, in future work building relationships and facilitating personal where relationships are potentially more contact. For the latter, which was preferred fraught, it is important to encourage by the communities that engaged with #btr11; participants to see academics, policy makers text-based discussions can break down and funders (for example) as community status divides by avoiding traditionally laid- members with interesting and insightful out rooms (or webcams) directing contributions, rather than expert sources of participants towards “big names”. This authority. encourages value to be seen in what is said,
- 4. Lessons In terms of building on the #btr11 project, the audiences that were identified through the The most useful conceptual lesson emerged project could be improved further through that from this evaluative process was that, using social media analysis tools to map and when asking the question “why should I monitor TSRC’s position within the broader share”, social exchange theory emerged as a network to engage (both directly and digitally) new and interesting framework for designing with other ‘grass-roots’ or ‘below the radar’ and assessing knowledge exchange projects. audiences. To maintain interest and For knowledge exchange practitioners, a engagement in the project; a strong number of other important lessons can be drawn out of the #btr11 experiment. conversational twitter presence would be useful throughout the project (not just around The clear lesson from project was that social events), referring participants directly back to media offer a promising set of tools for the Civicrowd space for more “ideas knowledge exchange, as they can support championing” and regularly including links informal interaction, the discovery of mutual on email newsletters. Finally, based on the interests and the subsequent development well-received video and Slideshare elements and management of relationships. This is of the impact event, further use could be supported in the key narrative from #btr11 made of spaces like Civicrowd or others in participants, who reinforced the notion of the ‘social media landscape’ to offer video, social media being a ‘toolkit’. In order to podcasts, slides and on-going discussion discover which tools work for a particular forums, in order to engage people in project, attempts must be made to exploring and questioning specific research understand and adapt to the preferences of issues/findings. Importantly, this would your audience. Without the time and support the breaking down of normal resources to conduct heavy consultation with institutionalised ways of communicating for a target community, experiments like #btr11 academics, diminish the traditional “top provide effective opportunities to explore the down” dissemination approach, and promote responses to different tools. a cycle of dialogue around research and its Alongside this practical exploration, digital implications. knowledge exchange projects must also #btr11 demonstrated a highly successful discover what sparks interests and brings project that generated real “process impact” people together. #btr11 had a very clear theme around a range of community issues, in beginning to change accepted practices of and attracted a relevant audience for the BtR academic-community knowledge exchange. debates through identifying key partners. Further experimentation across formats However, in order to move from providing would give organisations such as TSRC a gateways for bringing “new voices” together better idea of how these positive towards building beneficial, longer-term relationships and dialogues could be exchange between these voices, additional developed to increase the take-up of ideas resources and strategies would be needed. and build momentum for action. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. © TSRC 2012 This paper is part of the Third Sector Research Centre – Briefing Paper Series see www.tsrc.ac.uk for more details and a copy of the full Discussion Paper E. The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Office for Civil Society (OCS) and the Barrow Cadbury UK Trust is gratefully acknowledged. The work was part of the programme of the joint ESRC, OCS Barrow Cadbury Third Sector Research Centre