Young Association Professionals (YAP) yapstar.org

I've  been meaning to write a blog post about this for a long time, and suddenly realized it was really a topic that belonged here in YAP.

Nina Simon is one of my all-time favorite bloggers - she writes Museum 2.0, about the advent of the social web and how it's changing museum experience.  In this post, she writes about the concept of the Exclusivity Paradox.

She talks about how we always say "anyone can join!" and we promote our online communities (like YAP) by saying how welcoming and open we are.  Which I have absolutely done!

" It's common to have low expectations with regard to the number of people who will create content in participatory platforms (online media-sharing sites, contributory projects, story-sharing exhibits). In social media, the rule of thumb is 90-9-1: 90% spectate, 9% comment or rate content, and 1% produce content. On sites like Wikipedia and YouTube, the ratio of spectators to producers is even more pronounced; on sites like Flickr or Facebook, the ratio is lower.

1% is a pretty exclusive club. And yet ironically, we spend most of our time with participatory projects accentuating how open they are. We think we must design these platforms to be as open and welcoming as possible, so that everyone feels able to contribute content.

But the truth is that very few people participate as content creators. Only some people are motivated that way. And so I wonder if we wouldn't be better served as designers by accentuating the uniqueness of these creative participants. Think of Harry Potter. Not everyone is a wizard in J. K. Rowling's world-in fact, very few people are wizards. The thing that's captivating about Harry Potter, and Willy Wonka, and Jedi knights, and X-Men, is that they are part of a special, highly exclusive club. They have some innate ability, deformity, or lucky moment that vaults them into secret societies where their full talents are expressed and appreciated.

And so imagine if, instead of launching a community project and stating, "this is a place where anyone can contribute," you launched and said, "Only one in a hundred people will share something here. Are you that one?" The idea that the user might be someone special, someone in the minority, is evocative and immensely appealing. If everyone can do it, why bother? If only YOU can do it, the motivation goes up."

Nina's post has a lot more to it, and a really fantastic discussion in the comments (including a lot more about Muggles and Wizards... :)

What I find interesting, though, and what I think we've done really well here, is to have both at the same time.  We're totally open, and yet we're a special club. We've shown that diversity and exclusivity can co-exist.   We have a culture of "specialness" - flare, t-shirts, our own language ("YAPstars", "YAPpy hours"), special collectible invites to our infamous parties... even a couple of groups devoted to the awesomeness of certain people - and we'll be finding many other ways to develop and promote and share that secret ingredient.

I think the other big piece of this is the "social object" piece.  The fact that people are in here for a specific reason, which may change at times, but there are several action items to connect around.  We're not just in here because we define ourselves as young association professionals and that's it.  We're in here to study for the CAE exam, to find a job, to find other local YAPs, to discuss specific topics, to experiment.  There are things to DO here.  So yes, there is the theoretical 1% of the commmunity which are content creators, but I actually think that 1% might be higher here because there are so many smaller ways to be that content creator, inside certain areas of the group.

Anyway - I'm probably talking in circles here.  But I'm interested in your perspectives on the exclusivity paradox - did you join because the group was open and friendly, or because you could be part of a special club, or just strictly for resources, or for any other reason?  And once you got here, do you agree that we manage to be open and exclusive at the same time  (and does it matter?), or do you see it differently?