I have been exchanging posts with the creative director and founder of Webjam - (that's two different people) about what a community is and what online environments are best suited for community formation. In his Neuromancer books William Gibson references the Sprawl which is the eastern seaboard of the USA which has turned into one big dysfunctional suburban mess. And in some ways its not a bad description of facebook - not much order and lots of people and groups of people interconnecting. 

The kind of communities I believe my clients will encourage me to put together and pay me to do so are not sprawls with random postings but quite intentional ones. Where there is a clear purpose and we get somewhere. Otherwise is it really work? What does the client get out of it and so on? Clients are accustomed to paying intentional communities for a product whether that is the product itself - outsourced - or a creative product like a campaign. Where the hours are timesheeted and costs are visible or can be deduced.  But the emerging social channels aren't like that at all. Which raises questions about how these channels can attract advertiser funding. 

What needs to change is our measurement methods. We don't rate a rugby team for their efficiency in bal handling. We evaluate by the number of fries and converstions down the far end of the pitch, their ability to keep possession and their ability to move the ball forward towards their opponents touchline. Managing the team better is about managing the ball not micromanaging the players. And in a rolling scrum it is often impossible to figure out who is holding the ball and who is moving it forward - it becomes a case of momentum not individuals standing in the right place or doing the tright thing. 

Social media channels work in exactly the same way.  We need to measure the forward movement of the ball - the message - not the individual movements of the players., Even a great player who reads the game perfectly - its not where he stands but where the ball is that makes the difference.  Half a century ago the equivalent was the jazz ensemble where there was a tune and choruses and people sort of took it in turns - but often played over each other and experiemented with different scales to take harmonies to their absolute limit but the whole thing hung together in a way that was totally compelling. Somehow we need to keep the jamming metaphor central. As a musician I am always worried that a 'jam' will turn into a 'noodle' where there is no discipline, no commonality and people do their own thing. But a jam is worth striving for because to get a completely programmed result you need to write a score - that isn't jamming - that's classical composition.

Measuring productivity is tough because online I may be participating in many different jams at once - which take minutes, hours or even days to play out. But the outcome is never predictable - we know where we're trying to go with it and one of the main goals is to aggregate an audience which if we're interesting enough we can do. And keep them jamming with us.

The biggest change is that it probably means that the marketing client is going to have to change their budgetary planning to something like a casino tale. The marketing budget becomes chips - and they place chips on different games- lots of them.  Which for clients used to spending 5 million with the stroke of a pen must be sheer terror. All that decision making with no idea what you're going to win at the end of it. But what marketing has been missing out in recent years is the gaming element - business leaders have been building global businesses with marketing as a cost centre following in their wake. This is a chance for marketers to get back into the game and to show they can play for high stakes and win.

For the rest of us what we need to learn is how to keep the ball moving and prove we are jamming not noodling. I'm still working on it.