By Beth Kanter and David Wilcox (Designing for Civil Society)

Note: An improved version ot the came can be found at http://socialbysocial.net

The Social Media Game was played for the first time at the UK National Circuit Rider ConFerence January 2007 following a presentation by Beth Kanter and David Wilcox.
 
When further developed, we hope that the game will be useful to those with roles (*) such as circuit riders, technology stewards, social reporters, buzz directors in helping individuals, groups, organisations and networks plan how to use social media.

The purpose of this first simple version is to trigger conversations about what social media tools may be appropriate in different situations, and further explore the issues raised in the presentation by David and Beth.

Here's general instructions on how to play the game in which groups invent an organisation or network and then each took one of three challenges:


Props:
 
Instructions (as below)
A pack of cards showing different social media tools. Each card has an image (so they can be easily distinguished), a tool description, and a possible issue or question for discussion. A figure -1, 2, 3- indicates a notional cost in terms of cash, time, commitment. There are blank cards so people can add ideas. See Text of the cards.
Scenarios - one-liners about a group, organisation, network or other situation in which tools may be used.


Text of the cards:

EXPLORATION. Staff are encouraged to spend time exploring blogs and other social media and leave comments. How do you answer "why bother" ?

INDIVIDUAL BLOG. Set up a single user blog. Are you comfortable to develop a voice online?

ORGANISATION / PROJECT BLOGS. Organisation uses blogs to support projects, programmes, and events. Comfortable with having a conversation with your audience? Ready to commit to ongoing posting?

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING / TAGGING. Staff search and bookmark sites with associated keyword tags. Willing to make an effort to share? Can you deal with the messiness?

VIDEO. Staff and volunteers use video clips to tell stories. Blog to embed the results?

WIKI. A wiki provides groups with collaborative publishing and workspace. Confident about collaborating?

INSTANT MESSAGING. All staff are encouraging to be available online for chat. Save time or waste time?

MOVE TO FEEDS. Increasing use of blogs and other tools mean most content can be read using RSS feeds. Will people use this as well as email?

MYSPACE. Organisation sets up a site on MySpace and networks there. Is MySpace the right space for you?

NETWORKING APPROACH. Think about connecting people in ways that work for them - then choose tools. Is the organisation too hierarchical for this?

OPEN SOURCE STRATEGY. Commitment to use in-house OSS wherever possible. In-house skills or developer budget to maintain?

PHOTOSHARING. Staff are encouraged and supported in the public sharing of photos. Enthusiastic photographers prepared to share?

PROJECT COLLABORATION SYSTEM. Commercial project management and collaboration system like Basecamp used internally. Another system to learn and integrate?

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