I tried to go to bed at 9:15 PM. My eyes were heavy. I closed the door to the bedroom. I thought about the office. I thought about the digital channel. I could not sleep. I thought about how the channel worked. I thought about the intern.

The intern was named Priya. Priya worked for the company for two years. Priya was a junior employee. Priya did not have a desk in the main room. Priya sat in a chair near the window. Priya managed the channel.

The company has a YouTube channel. The channel has many videos. The videos show the products. The videos show the team. The team thought the channel managed itself. The team thought the software did the work. The team thought the audience found the videos because the videos were good. This was not the truth. The truth was Priya.

The Knowledge Gap

Priya left the company on Tuesday. Her internship ended. Priya packed her bag. Priya walked out of the door. Priya took her laptop. Priya took the knowledge of the channel with her.

On Wednesday, the channel stayed the same. On Thursday, the channel stayed the same. On Friday, the Marketing team wanted to upload a video. The video was about the new software. The Marketing team did not have the password.

The Marketing team looked for the password in the shared file. The shared file was empty. The Marketing team asked the Sales team for the password. The Sales team did not have the password. The Sales team asked the Product team. No one had the password.

The team realized the password was with Priya. The password was a secret. Priya was the only person who knew the password. This was the first sign of the problem.

The team eventually found the password. A senior manager called Priya. Priya gave the manager the password. The Marketing team uploaded the video. They uploaded the video at 9:14 AM.

At 9:15 AM, the Sales team uploaded a different video. The Sales team did not know about the Marketing video. The two videos appeared on the channel at the same time. The audience saw two videos. The audience was confused. The views were low. The views were very low.

Priya used to prevent this. Priya kept a calendar. The calendar was not a shared calendar. The calendar was a paper notebook on her desk. Priya looked at the notebook every day. Priya told the Marketing team to wait. Priya told the Sales team to wait. Priya was the informal governance of the channel.

The Fragility of the Commons

The company channel is a shared resource. It is like a park. It is like a road. It is a commons. Everyone uses the commons. No one wants to maintain the commons. The maintenance is hard work. The maintenance is boring work. Priya did the boring work.

Astrid K. is a queue management specialist. I spoke to Astrid K. about the channel. Astrid K. looks at how people wait in lines. Astrid K. looks at how groups share space.

“A line is just a fight that has been postponed by a clock.”

– Astrid K., Queue Management Specialist

The channel did not have a clock anymore. The channel had a fight. The Marketing team blamed the Sales team. The Sales team blamed the Product team. The Product team blamed the managers. The managers looked for another intern. They wanted a new Priya. They did not want a system. They wanted a person to do the work quietly.

Priya responded to the comments. Some comments were from trolls. Some comments were from bots. Some comments were from real customers. Priya deleted the trolls. Priya ignored the bots. Priya answered the customers.

Now, the comments are a mess. The trolls are loud. The bots are posting links to bad websites. The customers are asking questions. No one answers the questions. The channel looks abandoned.

The team thought the channel was self-sustaining. This was a mistake. Nothing is self-sustaining. Everything requires stewardship. Stewardship is the act of taking care of something. Stewardship is often invisible. People only notice stewardship when it is gone.

When the stewardship is gone, the quality drops. The social proof vanishes. A video with zero views does not look good. A video with zero comments does not look good. A video with bad comments looks worse. The company needs momentum. The company needs the channel to look successful.

Building a Stable System

The team looked for ways to fix the momentum. They looked for tools. They wanted a service that did not depend on an intern. They wanted a stable system. They wanted to buy youtube views to help the new videos. They wanted the social proof. They wanted the videos to look important. This is a common strategy. It is a way to solve the problem of a slow start.

A service like Ninoba is different from an intern. A service is a system. You do not need to give a service a desk. You do not need to worry about the internship ending. You do not need to share your passwords. You give the link to the video.

The service provides the views. The views are from authentic users. The views are real. The views provide the momentum that the channel lost when Priya left. The team tried to manage the channel without a system. They failed. They spent 14 hours in meetings. They talked about the schedule. They talked about the tone. They talked about the trolls. They did not do the work. They only talked about the work.

I think about the paper notebook on Priya’s desk. The notebook was small. The notebook had a black cover. The notebook contained the governance of a million-dollar brand. The brand was fragile. The brand depended on a junior employee who was paid 17 dollars an hour.

This is a risk. Many companies have this risk. They have a person who holds the keys. The person is not a manager. The person is not a director. The person is an assistant. The person is a coordinator. The person is an intern. The company ignores the person. The company assumes the system works because the system is good.

Priya is at home now. Priya is looking for a new job. Priya has the notebook. The company has the channel. The channel is broken. The channel has 412 unread comments. The channel has two videos that compete for the same audience. The channel is losing subscribers.

The Governance of Monday

The company needs to institutionalize the governance. They need to write down the rules. They need to make the invisible work visible. They need to understand that the commons requires a steward.

I finally fell asleep at 3:40 AM. I dreamed about the notebook. I dreamed about the empty chair by the window. The chair was empty. The screen was dark. The channel was waiting for someone to log in.

“The intern governed the channel because the intern held the passwords.”

The team hired a new intern on Monday. The new intern is named Sam. Sam does not have the notebook. Sam does not know the 3:00 PM rule. Sam does not know how to talk to the trolls. Sam asks many questions. The managers are frustrated. The managers want Sam to be like Priya. But the managers never taught Priya how to be Priya. Priya taught herself.

The company wants growth. They want the channel to be big. They want the channel to reach 100,000 subscribers. But they cannot manage the 5,000 subscribers they have now. They cannot manage the queue. They cannot manage the passwords.

The channel is a reflection of the company. If the channel is a mess, the company is a mess. If the channel is quiet, the company is quiet. The stewardship of the channel is the stewardship of the brand.

I went to the office on Tuesday. I looked at the window. The window was dirty. The chair was still there. Sam was sitting in the chair. Sam looked tired. Sam was looking at the dashboard. The numbers were red. The views were down 31 percent.

“Do you have the password?” Sam asked me.

“I do not have the password,” I said.

“No one has the password,” Sam said.

We stood there. We looked at the screen. The channel was a shared resource. The channel was a responsibility. No one wanted the responsibility. Everyone wanted the results.

This is how the commons fails. It fails because we assume someone else is taking care of it. We assume the intern is the government. We assume the government is permanent.

Nothing is permanent. The internship ends. The notebook is closed. The channel stays. The channel waits for a steward. The steward must be the system. The system must be stronger than a person. The system must be stable. The system must work when the intern walks out the door.

I left the office. I walked to my car. I thought about the 9:15 PM bedtime. I will try again tonight. I will try to sleep. I will try not to think about the red numbers. I will try not to think about the notebook. The notebook is gone.

The channel is what we make of it. Or it is what we forget to make of it. Stewardship is the only thing that keeps the disorder away. Without stewardship, there is only the fight. And the fight has no clock.