I helped her (in a small way) by creating a blog to record her experiences and notify others of the problems with complaining about Axa Health.

The latest I hear is that Axa are now delaying the ombudsman process so let’s hope that the blog can remind the company of its duties to protect its reputation better than it cared for this customer.

No related posts.

Lots of traditional organisations are facing a huge challenge at how to adapt to the new activism that has been unleashed thanks to the power of the web. They are trying to tap into this new activism but grappling with how to turn their existing members into activists for change. Failure to do so means less activism and a lower profile than insurgent campaigns. To them, the stories told by Clay Shirky, Seth Godin et al must feel both tantalisingly close and desperately out of reach.

But this isn’t just about the up-rooting of traditional organisations as the winds of change sweep away the old and bring in the new. The new movements which deliver one-off activism, observed by Shirky and Godin, are also struggling; with how  to create longevity and lasting impact. If they fail to turn activists into members, they lose influence to the next group of insurgents.

No one has yet found out to use the internet to create lasting change. Every prolific social networker wonders what having 10,000 followers on Twitter really means. The Twitter evangelists will point to Barack Obama as a successful campaign for social change thanks to social media, forgetting Howard Dean’s defeat 4 years earlier. But as Alan Rusbridger mused, if The Guardian could only monetise their Twitter followers, newspapers would not be in crisis.

Or on another level, Twitter may be a great way of organising a single campaign to prevent the deportation of an asylum seeker but it’s not going to deliver justice to all asylum seekers. That requires a sustained effort. So people concerned about his deportation need to be directed towards the campaign for Gary McKinnon (for example) .

The challenge then for new movements is turning the one-off activism into a more meaningful, long term relationship to deliver lasting change (healthcare reform, for example). For them, too, membership must feel tantalisingly close and desperately out of reach.

If we do not have a concept of activism that builds long term relationships with like-minded people then we won’t create sustained momentum for change. Prosaically, reinventing the wheel each time will become as tiresome as going along to the monthly Labour party branch meeting and big picture, governing the country becomes more difficult as thousands of single issue groups refused to compromise.

I don’t believe that membership in the traditional sense is an outdated concept. It’s by belonging to an organisation that we help shape our identity in our communities. With membership comes ownership (nominal or actual) which means responsibility and accountability – a greater sense of purpose and richer sense of belonging.

But if organisations with membership models die, then we will all be left bowling alone and (to extend the analogy to breaking point) merely opting in to having companions at our convenience. Anyone who only calls friends when they want to go out will gradually find no friends to go out with. An activist group succeeds not just because they are united by a cause but because bonds of friendship are formed that transcend a specific campaign.

So the challenge is this: how do traditional organisations reform so that memberships become active, so that they can compete with the single issue start-ups and how do single issue start-ups reforms so that they can translate one-off activism into meaningful long-term engagement?

I’m not aware of any easy answers. It will require experimentation and failure – and learning from both. It’s will be about using the tools of the internet to their full capacity and rediscovering how social movements are embedded in communities. It isn’t easy but the prize is lasting influence and power.

Related posts:

1. Is Compass successful in engaging its members?
2. Four challenges facing organisations online
3. Labour Party reform isn’t about GCs

I will be a Liverpool FC for ever. I don’t have a choice about that. But the new membership scheme not only fails to make me feel more of a part of the club but actually makes me wince at its crass, pathetic attempt to promote my club to its own fans.

I’d always wanted to join a Liverpool fan club when I was younger (I was a young boy who liked joining things) and snapped up the chance to join an official supporters club when it launched. It went through a number of different guises and I drifted in and out because the benefits were so marginal. To get 10% off a club shop which was then too small to fit more than 10 people in and without a reliable catalogue mail order system (this was early 1990s before the internet) was not particularly useful. I joined one of the more recent versions, principally to make sure I was on the season ticket waiting list (10,200 last time I asked) and to get a fancard to be able to buy tickets.

I joined the new one (originally called ‘Belong’ but now called ‘All Red‘) to try and get priority on ticket purchases – the holy grail in a 44,000 seater stadium.The re-brand was sensible because to call it ‘Belong’ would bring it in breach of the trade descriptions act. I joined on the 13 July, through the online purchasing system. I got an automated receipt which didn’t feel like a welcome to a club (see below) and even referred to my ‘purchase’ with yet another brand name.

Receipt I received on joining

The membership pack arrived last week – or over 8 weeks after joining the club. It was well put together with the packaging forming part of the presentation box. The contents were naff; I can think of no better word to describe a red hat and a scarf which lacked a club logo (the sort of thing that would attract comments on the Kop) and a mousemat – who uses a mousemat? The DVD interview with Benitez might be ok – but I haven’t watched it yet because I suspect it’s the outtakes of the interview he did for LFCTV at the end of the season**. It certainly didn’t feel like an exclusive or behind the scenes insight. There wasn’t a membership card because apparently last year’s are sufficient.

In fact, last year’s scheme included the all together less embarrassing key ring of the club’s crest (which I still have) and a little branded notebook (smart emough that I use it to record thoughts on the game).

And since joining, I’ve not had a single chance to buy a ticket that I couldn’t have purchased elsewhere. As this article in The Times makes clear the new scheme is basically a money making exercise. But in the current climate, I don’t even mind. I want Liverpool to have more resources to buy players. It would be great if Rafa had the resources with which to compete in the transfer market with United, Arsenal, Man City or even just Aston Villa. It’s just that All Red is particularly bad.

What’s particularly frustrating with all of this is that Liverpool FC is, in my experience, excellent in its dealings with fans. Yes, there are the gripes over the operation of the ticket office. But senior club staff have met with fan groups such as Spirit of Shankly and when I wrote to David Moores (then chairman and majority owner) as a teenager, he called me personally for a chat. When I tweet @lfctv I usually get a reply. On my wedding day, my best man organised a personalised certificate of congratulations signed by the first team squad. The people in the ticket office have always been good to deal with, the stadium tour people great; I even get on with the stewards I recognise from European trips. So if the club can do it so well so often on a day to day basis, why is All Red so crass?

Perhaps it’s difficult to create a single scheme for all fans in all parts of the globe with so many different experiences, different ages and expectations. But it must be sensible to give some careful thought how to treat the fan who goes to matches 5-10 times a season but can’t get a season ticket. And to develop a membership scheme as de-personalised, unwelcoming and off-hand as this one really takes some doing.

Any of the following must be possible and – although corny and slightly manufactured, would all be good value for money at twice the price:

• The birthday card from your favourite player
• The invitation to watch reserve team games at a discount*
• The exclusive monthly email with analysis from Kenny Dalglish
• The regular competition to win a chance to play on the pitch at half time
• Or even just countless ‘exclusive opportunities’ to spend more money?
• At little cost you could even get exclusive emailers / letters with diaries from some of the more high profile reserve team players or former pros

And if you wanted to be really clever, you could even use the purchasing history to target people by geography and match-going experience so that you didn’t offload crap merchandise on people who regularly go to Anfield, offered targeted travel opportunities for supporters from overseas and tried to get non match going reds from around the country to go to see them play when possible (even a: you live near Peterborough, why don’t you go to see Liverpool reserves play Peterborough next weekend).

As ever, I’d be grateful for the chance to discuss this with someone from the club. But if not, I hope there are some lessons for other organisations who are looking to generate revenue from people not directly involved but with a keen interest. If you want a model of how not to do it, this is the best I’ve found.

* My mistake – that’s already a benefit. Apologies.

** I’m told that the interview was specially recorded as an exclusive. This shouldn’t be under-estimated because I understand from other things I have done for sports bodies that getting access to senior managers and players is not a ‘given’ – even for the in-house media.

NOTE: The team behind the All Red membership scheme have responded to some of my criticisms and put the scheme in its wider context. You can read their response here.

Related posts:

1. All Red membership scheme: LFC responds
2. Liverpool v Leicester City FA Youth Cup Preview
3. Liverpool v Wolves FA Youth Cup analysis

I’m loathed to criticise Compass because past history suggests it results in personal attacks from its officers. However, I think it’s an important debate to be had. The internet has unleashed a wave of participation and, in some instances, channelled that participation into meaningful, lasting activism. After years of presuming that membership organisations were dying, the web suggested they could be rescued. So what can we learn from Compass about how organisations can engage with people to affect change?

The election results reveal that 20 people stood for its management committee and 23 for its youth committee. In total, 237 people voted  – or just 6% of the membership. That’s slightly less than a trade union general secretary election but roughly similar to Labour’s NEC elections (as far as I can remember). The winning totals ranged from 90 first choice preferences down to just 5. The election victors were largely people with personal profiles, separate to their involvement in Compass.

However, it’s a more complicated picture than that. Compass has 25,000 supporters and over 4000 members. More than 900 activists have signed its statement calling for a high pay commission. And thousands of people a year have signed petitions, statements and attend Compass debates and events. So it’s not that Compass isn’t successful at engaging with people.

The finances of Compass don’t appear to be publicly available. But assuming that all members pay the full rate (£30 a year), plus a bit for organisational membership, Compass raises about £150,000 a year from its members. Assuming that all events break even, they must earn something around £10,000 a year in ticket sales. So the activism that they encourage isn’t just limited to reactionary things – or armchair (or computer screen) activism.

It’s certainly brave that Compass have a level of membership democracy. Some of those who run older membership organisations would rather not. One senior trade unionist used to tell me that if she were to start a new trade union, she would make sure there wasn’t any internal democracy. It’s also in keeping with their political ideals. But it’s an expensive exercise to run internal elections. Indeed, one of the barriers to primaries in parliamentary candidate selection is the cost of organising them for constituency parties.

So why isn’t Compass able to engage members more deeply? One reason might be that there aren’t significant benefits to being a member. The website says that you get invited to events, get monthly emails, get to debate on their website, campaign on issues – as well as taking part in its democratic structures. As a non member of Compass who currently gets invited to more events than I can attend, receives regular emails (including a ballot paper) can comment on the website and join in their campaigns – the benefits to membership appear marginal.

One other possibility is that engagement in the management of the organisation doesn’t mean very much. As we learned in the debate about the ‘How to Live in the 21st century‘ initiative, many of Compass’ campaigns emerge from current affairs rather than member-led initiatives. That’s almost certainly the best way to run a political campaign – but lacks the extra layer of grassroots authenticity.

Some of this is inherent in Compass’ origins. It was formed out of a statement drafted by a range of thought leaders in the Labour party before becoming a formal organisation by Neal Lawson – who always tops the ballot of internal elections. Without Lawson’s drive, vision and inspiration, it’s impossible to see how Compass could succeed. But it also makes it hard to imagine members changing the organisation’s direction.

But if Compass is not able to make membership more meaningful – or re-imagine the role of members – it may find an important source of income reducing.

So what could Compass do to make membership more rewarding? Here are four modest proposals, in the spirit of promoting debate about the challenge of turning supporters and activists into members.

1. Enable deeper networking on the site between members so that people can increase their own political profile through membership – and keep it closed to non-members
2. Host private debates with senior ministers / political figures which are invitation-only and make it clear to supporters that they can only attend (or watch online) if they join
3. Present members with a shortlist of possible campaigns and engage them in the process of prioritising them, and deciding on campaign tactics
4. Identify more ways to advertise the impact members have made on the organisation’s campaigns. For example, advertising which lists their name in recognition of their contribution to changing a government policy

Related posts:

1. Compass: old ideas for new times
2. Activists to members to activists
3. 10 new members of the Bloggers Circle

There are four challenges facing organisations online and over the next few months, I’d like to dedicate some time to investigating how organisations are responding to these, share lessons between them and analyse best practice.

Each challenge has come about as the internet has evolved though some organisations are at different points in their own internet presence. They are challenges because of the equality of the internet. Fail to meet them, and someone else will fill the void.

The first challenge is getting your content online – and looking good. It was the first challenge of the internet, back in the day when copy had to be well written, graphics large and with plenty of routes back to your offline organisation.

At this stage, you promote your website through advertising. If you watch an old episode of Friends you will see that it concludes with a little strapline giving you the AOL keyword (which was, err, Friends). The challenge for getting your website right was similar to producing a good corporate brochure.

You’re getting lots of users because you are a big organisation, or a smaller number but it doesn’t matter because it’s in proportion with the number of phone calls you get.

A whole variety of organisations are here at the moment. From small charities such as the Social Market Foundation to FTSE100 companies like Amec. That’s not intended to be provocative or pejorative – there may be good strategic reasons for these organisations not doing more online.

The second challenge was getting your content profiled on search engines. Up until Google this didn’t really matter. But from 2000/01 onwards, top ranking on search engines was the critical success factor for an organisation’s website. The content may not change much, although copy could be written specifically for search.

At this point, an organisation starts to spend more money online. It might invest in some search engine optimisation advice or some search advertising. For the most experimental organisations, microsites and subdomains provide a route to improve SEO and rank more prominently on alternative (and competitive) search terms. Now your important audiences are in one place – and it’s Google’s top 10.

You start to get an audience larger than your offline reputation suggests. You can reach to a wider audience – though not necessarily a more useful one – but it reaches beyond your borders.

The Hackney Council is around here and corporates such as BP.

The third challenge is making your website interactive. Now the content really starts to change. It becomes multimedia, share-able, a set of questions and hypotheses with a comments box rather than a statement of fact set in stone.

The task of promoting the site is different because it’s spread over a number of sites – YouTube, Flickr and now Twitter. It’s about establishing your organisation’s footprint across the web and reaching out to users wherever they are. But your reaching an important audience and engaging with an influential community.

Meeting this challenge and larger amounts of money are being spent. Because despite all the free platforms available, the task of making sure your content is better than the lively amateur is tricky. And a larger investment is justifiable because more of your audience is online.

There are many more organisations here, and I’d include The Guardian parts of the RSA site and Liverpool FC.

The fourth challenge is turning volume into value. If you are LFC you may be able to fill a football stadium with your Twitter followers, but will they pay to watch your premium content? They may be Guardian readers who will re-tweet your articles, mash-up your data or help Jemima Kiss with an article. But how many of them will? And where’s the value for the publisher? And how can you get one million YouTube viewers of Susan Boyle into valuable eyeballs for ITV?

Some organisations are here by default, because they’ve chosen to follow a (controversial) paywall system. The FT for example. But many more are asking the question and struggling to find the answer.

These four challenges may be a little broad and they may flatten out some complex issues. But these are the challenges facing organisations online.

Internet advocates, such as Seth Godin and Clay Shirky, rightly praise the maginificent impact of the internet in empowering new communities. But it’s a different task entirely for traditional organisations. It can be done. But until there’s a greater focus on it, the election of Barack Obama will remain the outstanding case study for linking online activism with real lasting social change.

I want to dedicate a decent amount of time to exploring, investigating and sharing how organisations are confronting these challenges. Who’s with me?

Related posts:

1. Journalism matters but so do big news organisations
2. Activists to members to activists
3. Is Compass successful in engaging its members?