Presentation.a cup of tea.v2

organizing a community of (untapped) leaders

how a cup of tea and a mobile phone organized 20,000 personal support workers into highly

successful changemakers

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Finding our leaders in the crowd


If you want to find 20,000 people who don’t want to be found...ask somebody who knows how. I’ve spent 25 years as an investigative journalist, identifying, locating and convincing people who don’t want

to talk on camera to do just that. How? By building on ‘word of mouth’ TRUST and by networking...smart.

Smart networking raises $425,000


In 2008, my team helped raise $425,000 from a tiny dairy’s customer base to recapitalize the company. This was entirely done through exploiting known networks...and collaborating with the new networks we discovered.

Tapping the right network

effective network(just like mobile

phone web)


One of these three networks scales. The other two don’t. A doesn’t work: that’s one person inviting a guestlist to a party. B is you inviting six business units to a conference. C scales because it depends on the right person starting the chain. It’s all about having the “Queen Bee” who knows everybody to connect with help us.That’s how we earn a cup of tea with our PSW prospect.

Converting a trust network into action

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“Queen Bee”/“village elder”

cup of tea

mobile phone giveaway

video interview

social media

^^


(‘WIFM’ => ‘what’s in it for me?’)“Queen Bee”/village elder” + mobile phone = invitation to cup of tea (“help her own”, “pay it forward”)cup of tea + mobile phone = trust trust => video interview/storytellingvideo interview => social media networks...where we discover another “Queen Bee”/“village elder”...and the cycle starts again.

The “Queen Bee” inspires the rest of the hive


We’re going to give total strangers a simple SMS mobile phone, so they can be in touch with a trusted person in their life...and that person is a “Queen Bee”/“village elder” who believes in SEIU. This story—how we built trust networks, one cup of tea, one mobile phone at a time, to help the least of the least of the workers in our province—will resonate with all our stakeholders—volunteers, clergy, students, activists, politicians, media. How will the stakeholders know? They’ll’ve see the short, compelling videos starring a handful of our PSW prospects, telling their own story in their own words.

A community of untapped leadership


How do get those videos? We’ll say to the people in these trust networks: we want to film your inspiring stories: you’re a community of untapped leaders---we want the world to know your truth.

Those video interviews we’ll share off the web---stakeholders will learn from this...and be inspired and join the movement.

What’s in it for SEIU? We get new members... and (maybe) SEIU’s task is eased a little with publicity-hungry politicians when we’ll make the national news as media innovators using developing world tech strategy to help minimum wage workers find dignity and worth in their work

A call-tree carries the message


Caregivers already use calltrees. With an SEIU SMS mobile phone in their lives, they’ll network on SEIU’s behalf, sharing our story along their own network. And when they’re comfortable with that process, we ask if they trust us enough to share their story with us. Everybody’s in touch. Everybody’s coming to the tea...build relationship, give ‘em a phone, ask ‘em for an interview

The win


(once we’re at the tea) Here’s what our Queen Bees say: we are here to support you. You have a team. We’re your team. It’ll take a while to build but one day we’ll see we’ve found 16,000 PSWs and brought 10,000 into SEIU by lighting up a network no one knew was there—a network that was just a cup of tea and a mobile text away.

Your story should be heard


Why will the women we’re reaching out to trust us? Because someone in their network they respect has made the intro and recommended us: we’re being invited into a trust network and need to respect that.And it’s also because we’re giving voice to them: not to us. It’s all about them. This is a critical, trust-building moment in the organizing process. Because when we tell our own story and we’re heard, we’re empowered to listen to others like us...and help them.

The power of SEIU’s story: belief in something better


Once we’ve won their attention, tapped into their everyday---what’s the call to action?PSWs aren’t desperate for more information about SEIU. They are up to their eyeballs in information. They want to believe—to believe in SEIU, SEIU’s goals andsuccesses, to believe in the story SEIU tells…once the PSWs make SEIU’s story their story, we’ve tapped into the powerful force of belief in change.

Change isn’t easy.


New worker-friendly legislation, winning media attention, changing minds, impassioning hearts: none of this is easy. Nor is reminding ourselves it’s not about us. It’s all about them. Not us. Them. So when those SMS phones start to text us back with YES for a cup of tea, we’ll know...

‘it’s for you’


Thank you.

Presentation.a cup of tea.v2

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