21st Century Organization

Enterprise 2.0 Summit Hannover Report & References

Thanks to Bjoern Negellman, Kongress Media, (organizer) and Simon Wardley (event facilitator), I was a privileged presenter, in the inaugural European Enterprise 2.0 Summit convened as part of CEBIT, March 4 in Hannover.   (Given COMDEX no longer operates in the United States, experiencing the CEBIT scale and vendor commitment was eye opening.)

Blog reports from Emanuele Quintarelli, François Nonnenmacher, Martin Koser and Robbert Homburg tell the event story that began with Simon Wardley reminding us how technology forces drive change, followed by Dion Hinchcliffe's keynote and Euan Semple's BBC lessons. Scenes from the event are captured on Flickr.

For me the event nuggets came in descriptions of serious business wiki applications by:

• Kenneth Lavrsen, Motorola A/S, wiki-ing quality standards documentation
• Wieland Stützel, Fraport AG (Frankfurt Airport), cross organizational knowledge sharing
• Diego Gianetti, BTicino S.p.a. (an Italian producer of communication, distribution and energy control systems) describing "Sul Campo" a sales force community of practice
• Cedric Blum, Société Française de Radiotéléphone Service Client (a French mobile carrier) explaining how using a wiki helps customer service solve customer problems and get more from IT

For those who stayed late into the day here are the books mentioned in my session introduction:

• Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks
• Rob Cross & Andrew Parker, Hidden Power of Social Networks
• Ron Burt, Structural Holes
• Lowell Bryan & Claudia Joyce, Mobilizing Minds
• Dan Tapscott, Wikinomics

Also referenced were:

• Patti Anklam, Net Work author
• Valdis Krebs, pioneering ONA practitioner
• InnoCentive and Harvard researcher Karim Lakhani et al's investigation of factors in problem resolution
• Procter & Gamble's Connect & Develop program

My presentation builds on a co-authored article "Learning through Participation and Connecting Intelligence". and two Inside Knowledge Magazine articles, Broadcasting innovation: organising to connect intelligence and Prediction Markets: Co-creating an organization's future (to be published).

    

     The Valdis Krebs admonition cited:

"You do understand Metcalfe's law does not work for social networks, right?“

came in response to reading our "Connecting Intelligence" article and Valdis's concern we had not made this point clear enough.  Metcalfe has openly asked us all to better understand the power of his law applied to social networks here . Colleagues and I have just completed an investigation of Facebook Groups in Business that points to the complexity of social network growth as Metcalfe discusses.

Thank you to everyone involved with Kongress Media's Enterprise 2.0 Summit for the rich conversations that I look forward to continuing, especially with Simon Wardley regarding his newly minted term:

"STRUCTURACTION"

Slides from my presentation are posted to Slideshare here.

   ~ Jenny Ambrozek

Using a Wiki to Co-Create an Article: Paying Attention to Uluru

Thanks Chris Carfi for sharing our lessons learned using a wiki to co-create an article on "learning through participation and connected intelligence" for Knowledge Tree, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework ejournal.  (My June 29 post provides context.)

Working with co-authors Victoria Axelrod and Kiki Mulliner on this article was a privilege and the lessons learned Chris Carfi points to from our article submission was just the beginning.  Rich conversations happened throughout with my co-authors and the group of people we approached for insights, and others who found us during the writing process. See the Acknowledgements page in the wiki. My sincere thanks to all.

Those distant from the oldest continent may be unfamiliar with Uluru the world's second largest monolith, and World Heritage site in the heart of Australia. I'm fortunate to have visited, and driven the 9.4km circumference at dusk, marvelling at the landscape that is sacred to the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, the Aboriginal people of the area.

Photo Stuart Edwards 2006 Wikimedia Commons License

Uluru came to mind as we collaborated in the wiki and worked on the article.  Why? Because while Uluru impresses as it rises over a 1,000 feet above the desert plain, what's even more impressive is the unseen estimated two thirds lying below the ground.

I've participated in online email based Yahoo and Google groups and been conscious of the significant activity that happens behind the scenes in private exchanges.  I was paying close attention during our article writing collaboration because I realized our wiki "Recent Changes" made very transparent when we were, and were not active.

Being absent from the wiki was not a good indicator of whether or not work on the article was proceeding.  At times yes, it was, when we were travelling or engaged in other pursuits. But invisible through the wiki, especially as the deadline approached, was the flurry of email exchanges between the co-authors and the smart people in our networks we were tapping for insights, as well as phone calls, blog and Facebook activity. Not to forget the hours each co-author contributed to independent writing and editing to emerge the article.

We didn't track time devoted to each activity, or what part of our effort ultimately was most valuable for producing the article. However, if organizations are to increase proficiency in using collaborative tools like a wiki, based on our experience I seriously encourage paying close attention, gathering data to track the process, and allowing time to reflect on what worked and didn't.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Creating Value Through Interaction: Gardening, Listening, Understanding & Letting Go of Control

Since being a recipient of a Dave Snowden fireball in response to my suggestions in  responding to Euan Semple that the kinds of changes organizations confront implementing any new technology, I'm taking stock and looking for the value in these interactions. (I've discovered in some circles being the target of Dave's differing perspective is a badge of honour.) 

Introducing "The Social Life of Information" in 2000 John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid write:

"The way forward is paradoxically to look not ahead, but to look around."

I'm looking around to see:

1.  Gardening

Simon Wardley used this term describing his experiences using a wiki:

"So as an organisation we are needing to introduce "gardening" structures in order to maintain it's usefulness."

and Euan confirmed:

"One of the things we discovered with our wiki is that some people, often our librarians, liked gardening!"

Forum hosts in the earliest online days were charged with:

• FEED - respond to contributions to fuel participation
• WEED- remove the trash, and
• SEED-  start new threads to nurture fresh conversations.

I hadn't paid attention to "wiki gardening" as accepted use so thank you both.

2.  Listening

Euan Semple's closing comment here was:

"How many managers do you know who feel listened to at the moment?"

So how can participatory tools be used to promote "listening" in organizations?

3. Understanding & Letting Go of Control

On his blog Euan Semple writes:

"How many managers do you know who feel really listened to by their staff at the moment?

How many managers feel really understood by their boss?"

It will be interesting to see what comments emerge.  Will "misunderstood managers" contribute or are they so busy trying to survive in "misunderstanding" organizations they have no time to participate in conversations like this? Or because they work for "control freaks" are unable to express their experiences only?

Dave Snowden cast aside my suggestions for the changes organizations confront as "deeply flawed" and a "list that could have been produced anytime in the last 100 years (and has been)."  Perhaps we need look no further than Euan Semple's observations about "managers not being heard" and argument for liberating "control freaks" for why the list has longevity.  While technology buffets organizations people inside them, especially in positions of control, are reluctant to change.

John Seely Brown and Estee Solomon Gray wrote in the first "Fast Company" Magazine, October 1995 "People are the Company" and

"Organizations are webs of participation. Change the patterns of participation, and you change the organization. At the core of the 21st century company is the question of participation."

The arrival of participatory media tools challenge and demand organizational change but because "People are the Company" do not guarantee it.  Looking around perhaps "gardening", "listening", "understanding" and "letting go of control" offer clues to the way forward.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Bronwyn Stuckey Day 5: Virtual ethics, norms and civil rights

I have been wondering how to conclude my somewhat staggered guest visit and how to say what I take from the current interest in MMORPG and virtual worlds. I have to say getting my head back into this after tramping the wilds of the south Island of New Zealand and Stewart Island was very hard. I plunged back to a 'reality' of sorts when I started facilitating online workshops for teachers and academics using the 3D virtual world and game space Quest Atlantis in their classes. The promise and concerns such environments hold for teachers are or should be shared by all organisations embarking on use of these environments.

What currently attracts them?

• Innovative ways to motivate and excite clients (learners)
• Providing interaction in social contexts outside the usual formal contexts
• Scaffolding independent decision making without dumbing things down
• Providing competition in a supportive environment
• Exposure to a diversity of cultures, languages and perspectives.

What concerns them?

• Regulating online behaviour
• Understanding the boundaries
• Maintaining a duty of care.

These teachers are as Gee suggests visioning new learning systems. This new virtual world technology provides opportunity for us to review our assumptions about learning and social contexts. With these new social contexts comes a raft of legal and ethical issues we cannot ignore. We have to ask what or who dictates the behaviour or establishes the norms, and when and how should we address issues of civil liberties and censorship? The program I am currently engaged in Quest Atlantis is a bespoke design of worlds and infrastructure that addresses many of the teacher concerns. But what can we expect if we enter the open space of already inhabited commercial environments where community norms have begun to develop? I don’t have answers but loads of questions.

Susan Tenby and Beth Kanter wrote on TechSoup describing nonprofit use of virtual worlds as efforts to “Change the world by working in a virtual one”. The article describes aid agencies are working and raising funds in virtual campaigns and projects similar to their efforts in the ‘real world’. The only thing is, as the nonprofit managers agree, we don’t as yet completely understand what those virtual efforts will entail. We know from the headlines that if you build it they definitely will come but they won’t always behave or react in ways that you anticipate. Nic Fulton (quoted in Jenny’s last post) reminds us we may have to be prepared for the totally unexpected. I’m sure we can all comfortably envisage how to behave in controllable circumstances like corporate meetings and talk back events when they occur in virtual worlds.

• Meetings
• Events

But what is happening right now in the open social framework of games and virtual worlds while exciting is equally dark and unknown. Take for instance this noted example of "griefing", a term that excuses sometimes heinous behaviour

So where does the responsibility ultimately reside if we decide intellectual property, ethics and civil liberties are important? In many cases I have watched as educational virtual world communities mature, the members moderate each others behaviour and norms emerge that the members own. The community becomes somewhat self regulating. But in all these environments the convenors carry responsibility for the initial regulating, policing and modelling of some basic tenets of behaviour. They are not free for all spaces with open membership and untraceable levels of anonymity nor are they open market places with competing agendas. What are the ethical considerations for organisations seeking to market, inhabit or sponsor virtual environments? And what backlash can organisations and education institutions expect from natives when they immigrate to their worlds?

• Where does the responsibility lie?
• Violence as a norm
• Law enforcers

Gamers themselves are thinking about these issues.

• Ethics in games
• Second Life - bans in marketing and PR for false claims
• Intellectual property and freedom of the press

Constance Stienkheuler sees MMORPG games and virtual worlds as “third places”. Third places were described by Ray Oldenburg, like the English pub as the sanctuaries people maintained between home and work. Places where people would find a warm and inviting community to drop in on whenever needed. If organisations are to embrace these environments do managers/convenors need to start thinking like publicans to take responsibility for keeping order to provide for the safety of their patrons? Or at least recognise that responsibility comes with the license.

I will close this guest spot formally tomorrow by returning to where we began examining the notion of 'fun' in games and virtual worlds.

~ Bronwyn

Lizzie Jackson- Day Seven: From Humans to Avatars

It is not possible for presenters and hosts to be everywhere, all the time, of course. It is possible to separate out what has to be done by ‘human hand’ and what can be done by a range of other possible options, which I lay out below.

When to use humans and when to use automatic methods can be decided by looking at the ‘flocking’ behaviours of the participants – where they go, when, and in what numbers. The trick is to deploy the humans to places and at times when they will reach the largest numbers of engagers and have the most impact.

Much of the facilitation necessary in participatory media spaces is what I term ‘low-level CRM’, customer relationship management. Repetitive questions on how to use the user interface or how to enter a competition are two examples. It’s a good idea to keep a list of those Qs and if you find you are answering them time and time again, then think about doing a Q and A, or even spending on getting an avatar which is powered by a database capable of pattern-matching the Qs to the As. 

My great friend Phil Hall is good at building sophisticated chatterbots which drive Avatars – ask him about them. Some of his work can be found at www.ikea.co.uk  Go to http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/local_home/croydon.html click on ‘Ask Anna’ and ask her to show you some chairs. Phil’s also created a bot (chatterbot) called Yhaken which will react emotionally if you insult him.  Give it a go. The best way to annoy Yhaken is to keep typing in obscenities very rapidly. Phil reckons it’s possible to create a host bot who could do some of the welcoming and low-level membership jobs. He’s up for the challenge.

Mike Orwell, one of the BBC Children’s host/moderators has also just pointed out to me that moderation can be a kind of ‘passive’ hosting i.e. some benign ‘shaping’ of the shared space to encourage a more ‘on topic’ debate can change the ambience just as a lightening of control can encourage a more ‘party-like vibe’ – good point.  I think this is a clear example of how the proper management of hosted space is a very sophisticated skill or technique.

It seems from research by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass (The Media Equation) and from further research from Nass and Brave that people are happy to have an emotional relationship with either a user interface or even a very polite and friendly button if the object has enough sociability. What did you think of Yhaken? Did you feel some emotional response? 

People seem to want organisations providing sophisticated interactivity which has user-generated content, collaborative or immersive environments, to ‘interact back’. It’s not really fair, right, or even just, not to interact back, certainly not neighbourly. Organisations that hide away behind interactive content are missing out on a very useful relationship, on audience ideas and enthusiasm, and on merely enjoying exchanging thoughts.  They are missing out on audience intelligence and feedback, from which they could improve their content in a kind of progressive beta test which continues to evolve to suit the needs of both the participants and the organisation itself.

Thanks for inviting me to blog!

~ Lizzie Jackson

Lizzie Jackson- Day 6: Hosted Space

The Internet is, as we know, maturing into a medium which has both media and participatory elements. Needing to put a label on what was emerging, for chapters for the PhD Thesis and to feed the research back into the Corporation (as agreed), I began to use the term ‘Participatory Media’. A paper titled ‘Overview of the implications for the BBC of Participatory Media – management, awareness, literacy and safety on interactive media platforms’ was produced for review by senior BBC managers in August, 2005.

My own definition of Participatory Media would be ‘iterative content published in hosted space, that is a shared space, facilitated by a media organisation on behalf of the public’.  The title of the Thesis is ‘Hosted Space: the mediation of interactive public service content’. The term ‘Participatory Journalism’ has been widely used as described in the excellent report (later book) ‘We Media’ by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis.

Findings from my doctoral research will begin to be released from October 2006 onwards, but the main themes are:

Facilitation: The importance of having trained facilitators in participatory media environments, whether they be members of staff or members of the public seems clear. 

Presenting, hosting and moderation: There are differences between the three roles, but they are highly complementary. Audiences want to be acknowledged for their contributions and to engage with the facilitators instead of merely viewing presenters from a distance.

Changes in time and space: Unlike linear media, participatory media offers the opportunity to both watch and engage, even at the same time. The important thing is that the participant or consumer can organise the way they want to consume, as they wish, when they wish, where they wish.

Membership culture: The relationship between the producers and the audience changes in participatory media environments. It ceases to be an ‘episodic’ one to become something which is much more ongoing.

Proximity: Participants like to feel a sense of proximity to the presenters and hosts or the organisation, and to know that someone will drop in from time to time to chat or to help organise the shared spaces.

Fear: Many presenters, producers and hosts do not feel comfortable ‘interacting back’ to the audience/members (we need a better term!).  They may need to learn how to engage with the participants and it is a particular skill.

Control: Participatory media environments mean that there is more of a sharing of control between the producers and the participants.  Sometimes the producers will editorialise, and it may be the participants do the editorialising at other times; there may also be a sharing of production. Without the presence of skilled facilitators, the changes in control will be difficult to manage.

Hosted Space: There is a new sense of the existence of a place which sometimes is closer to the domain of the producer and sometimes closer to the place where the participants ‘inhabit’. Mostly the space is probably somewhere in between.

Presence: I spoke to many of the Celebdaq traders and asked them whether they felt the presence of others when they were buying and selling shares and chatting to other traders online – many said yes, they definitely had a sense of others being present. They also said the other traders who they knew well had the ability to stir up much stronger emotions than their purely ‘real life’ friends.

How can presenters and hosts manage to be ‘present’ on an ongoing basis as well as being able to facilitate the episodic content of any live events or transmissions (be they televisual, textual or aural)?  I have some thoughts which I will put forward tomorrow, in the last part of my guest blog.

~ Lizzie Jackson

Lizzie Jackson- Day Four: The Interactive Presenter Scheme

In 2002 BBC New Media and BBC Talent ran a scheme to recruit five ‘Interactive Presenters’ and I asked if I could oversee the project. It would run for six months and the presenters would work in a new studio which was capable of running a live chat (real-time text) with video. They would receive training and be put on placements with production departments. 

It seemed the ideal opportunity to find out more on what kind of new presentation, mediation, hosting, could be brainstormed over the six months the ‘iPresenters’ were with the BBC on the training contracts. Richard Berry, one of the producers within the live chat team agreed to facilitate fifteen experimental production workshops, and to video the brainstorming, role play and other exercises. Various BBC production teams also volunteered to try experiments in different types of presentation and hosting including Video Nation,the BBC’s first foray into video User-Generated Content, Top of the Pops the weekly round-up of the music charts, Celebdaq, a celebrity stock exchange, and the Interactive Television Division (who oversee the ‘red button’ services such as TV informational overlays, menus and electronic programme guides).

I decided to try and use the opportunity to do doctoral research on presenters and hosts, using the experimental production workshops as the research data. The BBC agreed to support the study and the University of Westminster thought the research was a good subject. There seems to have been no detailed research on the role of the broadcast presenter from an academic point of view, which is surprising.

The research questions I have been asking over the last four years are:

• What is the function of the broadcast presenter?
• Will the skills of the presenter remain relevant within new media forms and if so, how? 
• Does the online community host have any similarities to, or differences from the broadcast presenter? 
• What policy implications are there for the BBC in ‘hosted space’?   

The experimental production workshops generated over 50 hours of video, which is being transcribed and analysed using the first analysis programme which enables academics to code video (and audio) data, Transana.

~ Lizzie Jackson

Lizzie Jackson- Day 3: Hosts - what ought they to be doing?

Amy Jo Kim’s book Community Building on the Web made me realise the host role I had developed at the BBC to facilitate the message boards was going to be a useful one. It seemed it had similarities to a radio presenter, someone who was not seen (text only) yet who was highly visible (engaging with the members on a daily basis). The difference between the radio or television presenter and the community host was the relationship was ongoing, rather than something episodic; it was not tied to a broadcast.

As I have said already, the better hosted groups seemed happier and they posted better quality posts. I asked the members why they thought the hosts were important. They told me they were ‘vital’, crucial to their ongoing enjoyment of the shared space, that these people ‘held the culture of the group’, and organised it both geographically and across time. The hosts were the social glue.  As the well-hosted communities matured some of the members began to do some of the hosting themselves.

A host, I believe, is very different from a moderator – why? Moderators are the (rather more cerebral) street cleaners of the virtual world. It is possible to moderate an online community or digital social space of whatever kind, using a set of rules. The hosts become important when there is a borderline situation over a member, post, piece of content or activity. Only someone who has a deep understanding of the culture of a group, and of the behaviours of the members within that group, would be able to make a judgement on what to do, how to deal with that content.

I believe we need to move from a position of control, censorship and moderation to one of facilitation, hosting, and education towards self-organisation. The editing of content by a producer is the stuff of old media, showcasing good stuff and encouraging good standards i.e. facilitating and mediating is the new editorialising. There may always need to be some moderation (children’s content for example) but the less there is of it, the better.

The BBC operates an ‘escalation chain’ -  if there is a need moderators ‘refer upwards’ to hosts, hosts can refer upwards to the community manager, who can refer upwards again, if the situation requires, to BBC Editorial Policy advisors or to lawyers. This raising of problems upwards, coupled with some previous thought about what actions to take under a range of possible circumstances gives a good framework for facilitation.

It is possible to have flexibility in the amount of moderation and control which needs to happen, However I believe facilitation (hosting) – on the other hand - should always be provided.

Without someone doing some facilitation, the social systems seem to break down or simply fizzle out in the virtual world.  The same is true of the real world, of course. How many people know someone who is the social aggregator of a group or community living in your town or village?  There seems to be people who are born aggregators, other who are good contributors and some who just like to ‘lurk’.

The first virtual communities were obviously ‘housed’ in newsgroups, highly textual environments.  When the new message board interfaces came along it was suddenly possible to easily attach an image of yourself, so the personalities of the Internet, hosts, mods or engagers, began to come out of the woodwork.  I encouraged the BBC hosts to write a page about themselves and to include an image too.  It seemed only fair that those who were facilitating the space should be accountable, visible, to have a kind of ‘proximity’ to the community themselves. 

The community responded well to the increased visibility of the hosts, and an added bonus was that it seemed to enable a relaxing of the rules. If the hosts posted, then lurkers would also be encouraged to post. If new members were welcomed, they responded by returning sooner and by being more inclined to interact with others, to leave comments or content. If there was a problem a host could remind all of the shared ‘House Rules’, then the digital social space (of whatever kind) seemed to work better for all.

Each community seemed to vary in the amount of hosting and the style of hosting they wanted, therefore it was important to make sure there was stability in the staffing.  With a non-staff host that continuity of relationship would be broken.

We began to run live chats, and the community hosts would take the interviewer role on behalf of the online community, putting the questions to the celebrity or expert that were sent in by the members. The live chat team bought a ‘Stream Genie’ and began to run a video stream alongside the text side of the live event.  The text and the stream were never in sync, that wasn’t possible, but at least the hosts were in vision at last, and moving! Pretty soon I began to wonder what the difference was between a presenter and an online community host…(more tomorrow)

~ Lizzie Jackson

Lizzie Jackson: Day Two - Presenters and what they do, have done

The early BBC presenters (1924 onwards) were recruited from the ranks of the (male) producers and researchers who were grappling with the new BBC Radio Services which were launched from studio LP0 in Marconi House in London.  They were anonymous and expected to embody the tone of the network, they were not supposed to have any personality, and they were part-time amateurs. Instructions were given out that the announcer was to think of himself as the mediator between the listener and the BBC, they were also to represent the BBC and give the impression of being a ‘friendly guide’. They were also told to be anonymous and to put the emphasis on clarity rather than personality.

The formal tone and clipped 'Queen's English" of the early BBC ‘announcers’ caused problems when the first radio documentaries began to be made as it was almost impossible to make the stiff, formal style work when interviewing the factory workers of Britain’s industrial heartland, for example.

In 1944 Britain was under threat of invasion. The BBC’s hourly news bulletins were a lifeline but the presence on the airwaves of Lord Haw-Haw and his faux propaganda bulletins put the thought into the minds of those in power that it would be very easy to put out fake news bulletins and emergency instructions.

The suggestion was made by the BBC that the most senior figures of the army, navy and air force could read the 6pm news bulletins as listeners would then know, for sure, that the news they were getting was the real thing. Memos went between the Director General of the BBC (Lord Reith) and the Government for several weeks until it was decided that it would be better to give the job to a small number of the better announcers (those who kept to time and who did not deviate from the script). It was also decided the names of these announcers would always be given in the form “This is the BBC from London. Here is the news, read by John Snagg.

In the 1950’s American presenters broke the mould by extemporising and by not even using a script, at times, preferring to use a running order instead. The Yanks brought the British nylons, jazz and personality presenters.

After the war radio presentation was streets ahead of television, with a wide range of tones of voice and of ways of interacting with listeners both in the studio and at home. Television announcing was coloured by the theatre and by the ‘Variety’ performances which were so popular at the time. Little by little it’s changed until the range of different types of televisual and aural presentation is wide. There are continuity announcers, anchor presenters, reporters, shock jocks, game show hosts, broadcast journalists and so on. They all have several things in common; presenters help us consume the content, but they also help to set the scene at the start of the narrative, they arbitrate during debates, they acknowledge the presence of the guests and the audiences both in the studio and at home.

There is more to it still. When presenters move close to the screen we instinctively know we should be paying attention that something important is going to happen. We are drawn to the face which is presented to us, filling the screen, just as we learned to do when we were a baby lying in our cot. This early learning is so persistent that new research (Willis and Toderov) is showing we make judgements about people in milliseconds from the data we get from faces. We also sometimes feel we have a kind of emotional bond with the presenters of our favourite programmes. The news announcer can give the elderly a sociable moment of the day. A child is provided with a role model and a teenager is given help formulating their own identity through a ‘para-social’ relationship, but it’s an episodic one, it happens over one moment in time.

New kinds of television or televisual forms are starting to be launched such as the BBC’s iPlayer. New versions of YouTube are certain to launch. It is highly likely that new kinds of presentation and hosting will come along, done by either professionals or the public.

Social digital spaces, of whatever kinds, without facilitation or with mere moderation, lack that link between the ‘users’ and those people behind the scenes who are producing the service. It would be an opportunity lost not to have a Craig who can come forward and be the link, on an ongoing basis, between a company running a participatory media service and the participants themselves.

~ Lizzie Jackson