Hi Dave
DD a BIG CIC Engagement Operating Model.
This is not, IMO a forum issue
I agree it’s not just a forum issue, and I don’t want to personalise the problem. I’ve tried to say this privately and gently, and I’ll repeat it here in a constructive spirit: the biggest opportunity I see is for a small shift in how we use the tools you already drive so well, especially email and outward comms, so that they consistently feed the operating model you’re describing rather than rendering it irrelevant
DD the success factor will be engaging more people
Yes – especially if that engagement happens via mechanisms that let people engage with each other, not purely as recipients of emails from the centre that invite replies back to the centre in email. We need to nudge that energy into new habits in shared spaces, the engagement you’re aiming for then has somewhere to accumulate.
DD Website (BIG CIC)
- Role: Credibility and structured understanding
Yes.
DD Events (Eventbrite + delivery)
- Role: Activation and engagement
Yes.
DD Community Forum
- Role: Working environment (core of the system)
YES. And it doesn’t take much imagination to describe how that could work – but so far we have circled the idea without exiting into a consistent behaviour pattern that makes it real. Your Engagement Operating Model gives us exactly the kind of frame we need to evolve to do that. We do have to evolve it.
DD YouTube
Role: Amplification and longevity
Yes.
DD CRM (Email + tracking)
Role: Orchestration and re-engagement
Yes.
DD Forum Operating Model (Critical Layer)
The forum is not for passive discussion. It is for active development.
Each key thread should have:
a clear purpose (“what we are trying to produce or resolve”)
a named facilitator or lead
We did try something like this in the past, and it didn’t take off then. My sense now is that the idea is still right, but it needs to evolve in step with how we use email/LinkedIn/website so that the “active development” you describe is continually being reinforced by the rest of the system, not set up as a separate, fragile an irrelevant layer.
It has a real chance to evolve if we also adopt some of the surrounding patterns we’ve been discussing (email as signpost, threads as homes for work, small visible wins, etc.).
DD Community / Forum Lead (Simon)
Yes. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fulfil that role and lobbying for the barriers to success to be removed. To prime the pump, I’m willing to pick up the theme‑lead role in all areas from a forum/ Comms angle to get things moving until an equally engaged, more appropriate person wants to take on a specific theme – at which point I’m very happy to hand over immediately or support a phased transition.
DD Immediate Next Step (Pilot)
Select one theme (e.g. Information & Data or Strategy):
Run a 4–6 week engagement loop:
For me it’s not only that. A single, well‑designed pilot might be useful Where we have people who all understand the how and the why. We don’t. So this is the "you can pre-plan your way out of chaos to social cohesion type mistake. Social engineering on this (tiny) scale doesn’t work like that; what we need is creation of momentum through involvement and thus some group learning to develop shared habits then planning will be useful.
I’m happy to lead that pro-temo but I can’t succeed while you keep centralising all the communication in email.
Email has to follow what you said it’s role was above and not keep straying into the roles of the other elements you identified above.
Then I think well be able to deliberately build momentum incrementally through involvement across connected places, with your outward comms rhythm reinforcing that by consistently pointing people back into the shared work rather than holding the conversation in email.
I recognise and genuinely applaud the transition steps you’ve started to take in the last few days – they’re in the right direction. There’s still more needed to drive solution rather than status quo.
Even if we improve everything, success isn’t guaranteed, but in the current pattern it feels like we’re making it much harder than it needs to be.
DD also - I think the post presentation is a bit flaky sometimes :-)
Yes, fair point – and the whole thing has been provided for free for well over a year. For around £150 a month we could move to one of several other, in some regards, better solutions – so there are definitely swings and roundabouts here. I’m open to that conversation too if it helps the model you’re sketching above actually become our working practice.
DD Hi All
to advance our goals (whatever we agree them to be) there will be some workstreams.
This was where things struggled last year. This was one of a number of threads where people claimed an area, were reminded they wanted it, were reminded again and even gently implored to act – and still nothing really materialised. See https://big-exams.logicalmodel.net/flarum/public/d/45-sequence-of-starting-actions
I’m not claiming I have the key to success, but I am hypothesising that I can see an anti‑pattern we’ve repeated a number of times and are still following. I’d really like us to use your Engagement Operating Model as the moment we consciously step out of that pattern.
Caio
Simon
