Every once in awhile I get an indication that various “weighty” Quakers come to my “Quaker Ranter” site, usually because of a group email that someone sends around or a post on some listserve. What’s fascinating is that few of the insider Friends ever spend much time looking around: they go to the one page that’s been referenced and then – swoosh, they’re gone, presumably back to their email or listserve. There’s a profound lack of curiosity about what else I might be writing about. These institutional Friends never post comments and they rarely even send any feedback by email.
This contrasts very sharply with the bulk of traffic to my site. Dozens of people a day come in off a Google search. Unless it’s a bad match, these seekers spend time on the site, clicking all around, following links to other sites, coming back, reading some more. Not everyone comes in via search engines: some follow links from elsewhere while others read the RSS Feed or just come in ever few days to see what’s new.
Part of the difference between “institutional” and “seeking” users is in their use of search engines. Many establishment Quakers don’t know how to use them or don’t think to use them. A website marketing proposal of mine was almost nixed recently when a committee member learned that search engines bypass a site’s homepage to return results from inside pages. I just assumed that everyone knew by now how a search engine works. I use Google dozens of times a day; it’s hard for me to imagine anyone navigating the net without it. It must almost be like they’re using a separate medium. Both of us are using the internet as transmission conduit, but that’s like saying both a newspaper and a personal letter use paper and ink for transition: while this is indisputably true, it doesn’t begin to speak to the different use and the depth of audience.
I wonder if the internet divide represents an even more significant divide between institutional insiders and the rest of us. The insiders might be staff, committee clerks or just very involved Friends but they share a certain way of understanding their world. First off, they have their ideas all figured out already. There’s a lack of curiosity here. They aren’t searching for new writers or new ideas. They will only consider something after some other Quaker institution has recognized it, a Catch-22 situation that the military refers to as “incestuous amplification.”
Any project outside of the established recognition zone is invisible. Even ones that have become dominant in their field are acknowledged only begrudgingly. In the last ten years, Quaker.org has done more for outreach than just about any institutionally-sponsored program or committee. Yet I know of establishment Quakers who still think of it as an upstart, and truly believe their puttering about is more important, simply because their organization has been around longer. In truth, many Quaker websites get so little traffic as to be next to non-existent.
The insider’s primary point of reference is institutions. Power comes from knowing how ideas, proposals and decisions flow through these organizations. A good idea is only good if it’s made by the right person and vetted by the right small group first. Sometimes I’ll hear of the gossip of some group scheming within some Quaker institution and I always have to laugh: like, WHO CARES? It’s a small bunch of people scrambling over crumbs while the world ignores them. There’s a whole other world of Friends and seekers out there building their own culture and connections, or trying to.
This Quaker Ranter site is primarily for those still curious, for those still interesting in building something real, for those wanting engaging conversation and stories. I actually prefer it to be a little bit “underground,” unknown or forgotten by institutionalists, for I think there’s discussions we need to have and the open internet is a good place for that.
More
I’ll be editing and adding to this post over time as I see more patterns of site use. I’m curious if others have seen surprising patterns of internet use. Oh, and by the way I should cop to being a Quaker insider myself, though I always try to keep the big picture (i.e., God and the Spirit’s commands) foremost.
Hi. You have a great blog going here. I am interested in Quakerism, but cannot make it to meetings so I’m happy to find a good Friendly blog to read. 🙂 By the way, I added you to my blogroll, ok?
Hey Martin,
First, I hope you know but it’s worth repeating that I’m a big fan of yours. I greatly appreciate all you do in your day job, and when I stumble across reminders of how much else you do with the rest of your time, I’m even more grateful. I did not know until just now about quakerquaker.org, and it seems like a great idea. I hope I can find time to spend more time there. (I hope other FGC Advancement and Outreach committee members would like to know about the Outreach section. So I hope we will let them know about it. Mmm? A link from the A&O page perhaps?)
Second, regarding your post about insiders vs. seekers using the net, you ask some very interesting questions. And it exemplifies one of the things I appreciate about your labors so much. Your study of this sort of thing is very valuable, and the insights you draw from these efforts are very helpful.
Third, however, I find myself stumbling a bit over your conclusions, which I trust are preliminary. It’s a worthy enough thesis, and you may be right. But there’s a tinge of judgmentalism there, which by itself is fine in this context, but I’m not sure your judgments are warranted. Are there alternative explanations? So, let me pose some queries.
1) Purely out of curiosity… how exactly do you decide who is an insider and who is a seeker? by how they find the site? how they use it? in either case, or any other, couldn’t users you put in one group actually come from the other? (or do you know who all the insiders are and how to identify them, you insider you? 😉 )
2) While you can objectively observe how rarely insiders stick around on a site, how can you really know *why* they don’t stick around? To say they have a lack of curiosity sounds like a judgment to me, being one who highly values curiosity. Is it possible they have a high level of curiosity, but just very little time? (That would be me! But am I an insider? Mmm. Just in case someone thinks I am, I just had to post a comment!!)
3) While I have little doubt that many Quakers don’t use search engines much, can you really conclude that’s the reason for the difference? Is suggesting a skill deficiency on their part a putdown? Is it simply possible that for the specific purpose that brought them to the sites in question, they did not need a search engine because they knew where to look? And does your way of identifying who is an insider bias your observation of how they use the site, for example if how they got there has anything to do with it?
4) It is certainly possible that the insiders could think they have everything figured out or that they could be more open to new ideas and new writers. And that would be unfortunate. I very much share your concern about insiders versus the rest of us (or them, as the case may be). But at the beginning of that paragraph, you use the word “might” but by the middle you have switched to affirmative declarations of what is. Is that jumping to a conclusion? Would it be more effective if left as a query rather than an accusation?
5) By the end of your piece, has it become a rant rather than the research inquiry it started as? Given the name of your site especially, ranting is your prerogative. But would it be more truthful to make a clearer distinction between what is objective research and what is rant?
I totally share the concerns you raise about institutionalism, and I encourage you to continue to raise them. However, those concerns and conclusions do not follow (at least clearly and convincingly) from the analysis you have presented on web use. Might both purposes (analyzing how the web is used and raising the concern) be better served by maintaining a clearer distinction between them? Your analysis might be more convincing and lead to more practical and effective insights. And your concern might have greater weight if grounded on a more solid foundation of experience that better demonstrates the concern than a potentially shaky web analysis in its current form.
So, let me offer an alternative thesis that might explain the difference you observe. I don’t mean to advocate for it but simply illustrate how the same objective evidence could just as easily have a different explanation. Let your ongoing research test this thesis as well as yours.
Could it be that the insiders using the sites in question are driven by a very specific purpose whle the seekers are in fact driven by curiosity? The insiders might be undertaking a very specific task relating to their “inside work” like doing committee work. They might know quite specifically what they are looking for and when they have found it, they continue on with the task at hand. In contrast, the very purpose of a seeker is to explore.
This alternative thesis does not necessarily contradict your concern. It may in fact help make a stronger case for it. In short, do those of us who are busy with insider work fixate so much on the task at hand that we are not present to the diverse blessings that are there for us if we but look? Does this fixation mold our perception of reality in a way that leaves us out of touch? That’s not really different from one core piece of your message, but it’s grounded in what you do objectively observe. Still, it stops short of ascribing causes for their behavior, such as a lack of curiosity or internet know-how, which I suspect you do not know experimentally.
Well, I really was too busy to stop and share this. I really do have to cut back on the committees I’ve signed on to. It does skew my experience of life, and it is not simple. I hope this has been of some use. Sorry I can’t stick around and explore your site more!
Thanks for all you do.
Ken
Hi Ken,
You raise good questions. There’s no way to put numbers on any of this, it’s just the accumulation of a mass of anecdotes and those rare moments when I have been able to identify particular people in the tracking logs. None of this really has to do with Quakers, its just the world I know well enough to make this type of observation.
The important thing is not the thinking-out-loud details and debatable opinions of a blog post but the larger message that the decision-makers in any media or outreach project need to remember that they are separated from their target audience by fairly significant cultural differences. There’s a natural tendency for people to design a project that might appeal to themselves. A constant polling and double-checking of assumptions make it more likely our work will reach out further.
In web design we have the additional situation in which even a very logically-designed website might not get used in the way we expected it. One way to question ourselves is to look to see how sites are actually being used and to draw any inferences we can from the data.
I know that there are people who rarely use search engines – don’t think to – whereas I must run three dozen google searches a day. That’s going to give one a radically different experience of the internet. The experience is also going to be different for those who do a lot of Instant Messaging; or those whose primary experience is an intensive online community like Myspace; or those whose internet use is primarily made up of email or music downloading. I could write more but I have to go catch a train. Thanks for commenting in.
I have wondered at various times if “Quaker institution” is (or should be) an oxymoron. Can Seekers of Truth, believers in Continuing Revelation, etc. be content with something that almost by definition is intended to maintain something in place.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with maintaining something in place.
“Continual Revelation” shouldn’t be permission to just go wherever we want
with this Quaker tradition. But yes, we need to be conscious about what
tools we use to provide that continuity. Once institutionalism sets in, a
bureaucracy’s mission often becomes it’s own maintenance and growth.
One of the neatest thing about the web is that a bunch of motivated
volunteers can organize the kind of communication network that would have
required a lot of money and infrastructure even twenty years ago.
Hour-for-hour and dollar-for-dollar, what I do with Quaker Ranter and
QuakerQuaker is more effective that any of the work I did as a professional
Friend.
Martin,
I completely agree with you that Quaker tradition shouldn’t be blanket
permission. My father was and I have been a pastor within FUM. I have also
worked with EFI individuals. My experience is that the “Fundamentalist” side
of Quakerism seems to rely too extensively on literalism and stuck with a
very exclusive and narrow view of “Christianity.” My experience with
“liberal” Quakers (with whom I have come to more closely identify with in
the past few decades) have lost a great deal of the Friends Tradition. The
inclusiveness that seems to be an underlying assumption is taken to the
point of not just tolerance but acceptance of a very wide belief base that
dilutes the power of “Friends Experience.” (Obviously biased. but I think
rightfully so, and hopefully not PREjudgemental) The celebration of
diversity and tolerance/love of enemy does not mean agreement with their
beliefs or actions but acceptance of their worth and value as having that of
God within them.
My personal belief is that the “2” sides have continued to push each other
further apart and thus further from the Center. (You know that to get 3
opinions you need ask only 2 Quakers.)
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
In Peace and Friendship,
Tom Smith
well, I’m a Canadian Quaker. I just posted for the first time to Quaker Dharma, and look for 2009 postings there but see none. Quaker outreach seems to be dying, as are so many of our Meetings here. Older and older we get, with little to encourage Seekers, including that we don’t participate in public forums any more, may march in the occasional protest, and generally go to Meetings, go home, do nothing to seek Seekers. What a shame! And what a betrayal of the values and practices so long practised by Quakers since Fox et al.
I’m dead keen on outreach, and see that rejuvenation comes with Seekers being encouraged to come, to stay, to actively join with us so that Meetins are enlivened, lives are enriched, and positive change is encouraged.
I see you have participated in the Quaker Dharma site. What’s happened to it, do you know? Diana in Victoria BC
Hi Diana: Quaker Dharma has never been a very active blog. It’s author Barry Crossno is now development director at the Pendle Hill Center near Philadelphia. I’d guess that outreach is still a keen concern of his, but he’s not pursuing it online.
If you follow the links on this site you’ll see I’ve been blogging about outreach for years and so have many others. It’s interesting for me to reread this post from 2004. At that point I was an professional Friend (webmaster for Friends General Conference) with a blog on the side. A year later I was promoted to Advancement and Outreach Coordinator for FGC and a year later let go for reasons that are long-winded and not really the “real reasons” anyway. Since then a lot of money has been spent on outreach but it’s hard to see what’s come of it.
A lot of us are working on this over at http://www.quakerquaker.org. Please come join. It’s unofficial, unfunded, all-volunteer self-organized outreach. There’s an “Outreach and Media” group for talking about outreach, but the whole site is really about sharing the Good News Friends have with the world.
There are a lot of cool outreach efforts. Quakerinfo.org is wonderful. I’ve been working with FWCCAmericas.org over the last few months to put together a great interactive map of Friends in the US and Canada which we launched just yesterday. Evangelical Friends at Barclaypress.com are doing good work. There is real interest out there, not as widespread as it should be and sometimes more fund-driven that really outreach-driven. But let’s see what we can do!
I’m not sure about the insiders vs seekers dichotomy…Because I’m an active member of a Friends meeting and I’m willing to put up with sometimes annoying Friends and try to build our in-person community often against difficult odds and in spite of very stressful job duties, does that make me an “insider”?
You know, it’s happened that I’ve responded to questions on QuakerQuaker and the dialog has ended there. I finally came to the conclusion that I wasn’t an online insider 🙂
BTW, although I can’t do the extensive online stuff you do, I think I know how to use search engines …I teach online research to college students.
–Barbara
Hi Barb: this post is over five years old. I was thinking of the Friends who had been weighty committee Friends for decades and seemed to spend much of their time with those who had also been weighty committee Friends for decades. Some of the dynamics of online use have shifted since then. For one thing we have a half-generation that has come in through the internet.
I know you certainly know how to use search engines! The internal discussion at QuakerQuaker are always a little funny. I often don’t get much out of them myself. My main concern is still the main blog feed – the editor’s picks.
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