Engagement

I keep seeing engagement. Not the down-on-one-knee kind of engagement, but the building relationships with your donors/customers/clients kind of engagement. The engagement that social media affords us, and the 'next' thing for marketing and sales. West Elm doesn't just want to sell you a new couch, they want you to consider their sales people friends. That kind of engagement. There are job postings now for Engagement Manager. There are articles about engagement strategies. It must be trending on Twitter somewhere.

For four years engagement was part of my job title and a huge part of my work. It still is, even though the word dropped from my title. I think a lot about how to get people to do stuff even though I/we have no authority, how to build a sense of community, and how to connect the dots and connect the people working on those dots.

This article made a lot of sense to me. I don't love the video and the kid's soccer team as an analogy. What kind of scum bag wouldn't put a six year old in a soccer game for four weeks? Lame.

Back to the point... I liked the four roots he describes and I can see them woven throughout the work that we do at the Open Space Council.

And that's all I have to say about it right now.