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Note: This article is adapted from Clay Shirky’s keynote address at the NTEN Annual Conference on April 27, 2009.

Before Robert Fulton made steamships profitable in the mid-1800s, there was a man named John Fitch who invented the first steamboat. It set sail on the Delaware River in the late 18th century. His ship successfully harnessed the new technology of steam to propel the now familiar paddle wheel.

But here’s the catch: The model seen in the top drawing was actually Fitch’s fourth attempt at designing a working steamboat. His first model is shown on the right. You can almost follow his thought process: “I know that boats are propelled by oars, I have access to a new steam technology that can power things, so I will use steam to power the oars of a boat! Brilliant!”

Is your organization doing the same thing? Are you taking your current operating model and merely adding the new technology of the internet? Well, Clay Shirky argues in his book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations that it’s going to take a bit more effort to fully embrace everything the internet has to offer. In many cases, it’s going to involve the redesign of your operating model: Toss out the oars and invent a paddle wheel!

Perhaps your organization is already using the power of online social media. That's great. Or maybe you're hoping Facebook and Twitter will slowly fade off into the sunset? Shirky makes the case that online social media is here to stay and it’s powerful. But it can be scary, too. By embracing social media, your members and supporters will be able to talk to one another without you. That means that you’ll have to get over the fear of losing control. It’s a daunting concept, but the good news is that it’s easy to test it out.

Shirky suggests a few tips on how to thoughtfully experiment with social media:

1. Commit to fail informatively. Give it a try. Don’t spend more time talking about how it may or may not fail than it would take to just try it in the first place.
2. Poll your constituents. Chances are that your members and supporters are already spending time on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
3. Don’t hire a consultant (apologies to our readers and volunteers who are consultants!). Instead, talk with your employees. Find out where they spend their time networking online.
4. Find that person in your organization with the one big idea. Ask him to step out of the room and then quickly lock the door. Don’t allow him to come back until he has 50 medium ideas or 100 small ones. To get to a large and good system, start with a small and good system. Of course you can’t let all 100 of those small ideas blossom, so try picking the best 6 or 7 and test them out.

The power of social media is transforming the way in which nonprofits accomplish their missions just as steam power changed the way ships once traveled. It may take a redesign of the organization’s operating model to truly make it worthwhile, but don’t be afraid to give it a try.