In the lead-up to the Engage Your Community conference earlier this year, we conducted an online survey in which 66 organisations from the Tangata Whenua, Community, and Voluntary sector responded. That’s a small sample, and probably biased towards those interested in attending such a conference, but the results were still interesting.

For example, the respondents clearly use internet a great deal. Consider these sample responses:

• 81% said they use the internet to communicate externally either somewhat or extensively
• 69% said they use it for promotion/publicity either somewhat or extensively
• 66% said they use it to collaborate externally either somewhat or extensively
• 100% said they use e-mail either somewhat or extensively
• 75% said they use websites either somewhat or extensively

Furthermore, they plan to use it more in the future: 84% said they are somewhat or very likely to use the internet more next year.

However, the respondents admitted they have little knowledge or use of newer “social media” or “Web 2.0” applications. For example:

• 47% said they have never heard of or are only vaguely familiar with blogs
• 61% said the same about wikis
• 94% said the same about RSS feeds
• 8% said they use blogs either somewhat or extensively
• 2% said they use wikis either somewhat or extensively

The obstacles to using a wider range of internet tools are also interesting. Some of those that stand out are:

• Lacking understanding of how they work (68% said this is a major obstacle; 23, a minor obstacle)
• Can’t afford them (40% major, 42% minor)
• Lacking needed technical support (53% major, 30% minor)
• Lacking staff to manage them (51% major, 42% minor)

A major reason we initiated the Webguide and the Engage Your Community conference was to address the first obstacle (lack of understanding). The second and third obstacles are also interesting. Most social media tools are either free or low cost and most of the difficult technical work has already been done. So, we think that once people understand a bit more about how the tools work, they’ll see that cost and technical support are not really major barriers.

The last barrier (lack of staff to manage) is very real, however. Groups and organisations need to be sure they have a plan for sustaining any major new initiative, because there will of course be a learning curve and someone (or some group) will need to put in the time to make it have long term value.

Read a complete summary of the survey results.

This blog post was contributed by Ted Zorn, Chair of Waikato 2020 Communications Trust, and Professor — Management Communication, Waikato Management School, University of Waikato.

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