We’re taking the wrong pulse.

The people we’re trying to reach are comparing their experience with our Jewish communal organizations against every other organization and company they are dealing with in their day-to-day lives.  We don’t get a free pass to have mediocre customer service or out of date information on our web site, or poorly formatted e-newsletters.

In today’s marketplace, we’re competing for attention.  People don’t allocate 10% of their attention for Jewish causes, they put their attention where they find quality, value, social capital, and authenticity.

Thus staff and board members of Jewish organizations would be wise to expand their gaze, and learn from examples in other nonprofit organizations and the for-profit world.  Even the trends that big corporations are responding to are applicable to local Jewish organizations, and today can be accomplished with no additional out-of-pocket dollars, and little (sometimes saved) staff time.

As Shel Israel writes in his new book Twitterville, companies like Dell and Comcast have pulled their reputations out of the gutter by putting real people out on the front lines of Twitter to listen and respond.  Innovative companies like Zappos have made this culture of “paying attention” part of their company ethos.  There’s a lot to learn from these guys.

Want to learn more?  We’ll be giving away a copy of Twitterville soon.  Next week we’ll be asking you about how you listen and pay attention to your community, and how you’re using social media to do so.  Start thinking …

What other companies or organizations do you see as useful models for us to learn from?  How have they inspired you?

While many people think the word “marketing” refers to trying to sell something, it’s really much more beautiful than that.  We can look at the Jewish community in 2 different ways.  Commonly, we see institutions which are trying to get people to become members, attend events, and make donations.  Through a different lens we see groups of people with common interests, needs and locations coming together to form communities.  And as these communities grow, they need some structure to support their activities.

The mistake we make in thinking about marketing and communications is that we put the institution first, when we should be putting the individual, and the community needs first. It is a subtle but important difference.  The exciting thing about “web 2.0″ — both the technology tools and the culture evolving with it– is that it brings us back to the centrality of the community over the institution.

Our Learning Network session tomorrow for Darim member congregations is a first step in examining this shift.  “Communications” are more than a standard issue bulletin and the phone tree.  Communications today is about weaving together the community.  It’s as much about listening and responding as it is about hawking your wares. If you are a member can can’t attend our session you can find useful resources and an archive of the webinar in Dirah.  If you’re not yet a member of Darim you can learn more on our website.

Coming soon – some reading recommendations for rethinking your assumptions about marketing and communications. Stay tuned.