The COMcast ic forecast -- chance of storms

. . . with possible improvement if COMmunication improves

Jay Deragon's post Can Comcast Reverse the Storm suggests that Comcast has the opportunity to be a leading brand that leverages the tools of the web for improvement of service and innovation of propositions to their customer base, both personal and business. He suggests that they could be customer service trend-setters and thought leaders, which would be a great improvement over their current ranking by a 2007 J.D.Power survey, that ranked Comcast second-to-last only to Charter in customer service for cable and satellite TX providers. Bob Fernandez, in article in The Seattle Times that Jay quotes, discussed this survey, and noted that in the February issue of Consumer Reports, Comcast ranked ninth of 10 big telecom companies. It was sandwiched between Time Warner Cable, at No. 8, and last-place Charter Communications.

I first got engaged with Comcastic customer service with a post by a (local to me) Nashvillian, named Mark Kerrigan, in a fabulous demonstration of the use of webtime by corporations. Mark was frustrated by the local Comcast office's attempts at customer service, so he went to the best distribution channel he had available -- his blog. Mark had a follow-up appointment (after a three day wait) scheduled from 8-11 AM. He wrote, the breakdown in communication became apparent when someone from Comcast called at 9:28 on the day of service to “remind” us that we were scheduled to have a service tech come out between the hours of 12 and three! I read that post and thought, "good for him, he's demonstrating the communication style needed in The Relationship Economy -- talking out in the open." And the next day, Mark blogged again, and it blew my mind (not that he's not that frequent, but what he was writing :-). Mark reported a phone call from Frank Eliason,with Comcast Corporate. Mark explained how it felt to know he was speaking with someone who could actually do something about the service (or lack of service) provided.

Shortly before this, I had been working with Mike Orshan to start a series of initiatives called The Conversation On . . ., on Facebook, and we had posted the first 50 or so companies from the Fortune 100 (and begun a website, too) to try to organize "the good, the bad, the new, the old, the newsworthy and the hopes regarding the United States number 84 company in revenue." Seeing an opportunity for traction and momentum, we pushed the Comcast group to the front of the line for development. Check out the Facebook Group for more -- if you join, you could be member number 440!

But webtime wasn't over yet with the Facebook group addition . . . the Comcastic Twitter initiative had just launched. Two Comcastians, known as @wscottw3 and @ComcastCares (Scott Westerman and Frank Eliason) started responding to Twitterposts by Comcustomers (who were "venting" about Comcast) like they were personal account managers. I saw a variety of high and low-profile technology folks being helped, and even saw some Twittered follow up posts. Take a peek at how messages are passed on Twitter by @mjlambie, @chrisbrogan, @bloggersblog, and @jowyang. if you aren't familiar with this technology. You can see more at The Comcast Tweet Scan. Scott and Frank are doing so well in addressing the issues that they are getting referrals for both customer service and strategy!

So yes, Jay, I think Comcast can reverse the storm.

They were #84 on Fortune's list (they are #79 now)and they have one heckuvan Internet presence, too! Alexa.com Site Stats for comcast.net show Comcast.net has a traffic rank of: 123 (wow - they were 223 on March 20), and they have been online Since: 25-Sep-1997. But it would take a transition, no, a company-wide transformation, to relationship-based customer serving. As we noted in a previous post, relationship building for businesses seems almost counterintuitive. Back in the day, Customer Relationship Management was the practice of leaving the house, stopping for a cup of coffee at the local diner on the way to work, taking a break to visit with your neighbors who happened to be long-time customers, and generally engaging others in conversations about anything and everything. And that, in webtime, is what it will take to divert this storm.

So how do you engage your customers in webtime? You can use simple tools, like this mini-mashup I got from Steve Rubel to check customer service posts for Comcast (or the company of your choice). You can also search the blogosphere . . . Technorati has 541 blogs listed in a search for Comcast in their aggregated blogs, alone. Now, many of them could be spammer sites, but they all tagged their main blog with Comcast, and at the time this was written, there were individually 2,864 posts tagged with Comcast on Technorati (this should make it # 2,866 if Jay tags his).

But searching these sites, whether manually or automatically, is not the solution. There must be something better!

Imagine a public access portal set up strictly for Comcast communications. In that portal is a live blog collector and a live Twitter stream (among other cool tools). The posts are searchable, sortable by keywords, and threadable. A potentially disgruntled Comcustomer finds the portal (shouldn't be too hard with the search tool of choice) and searches for their specific issue (no service, delay in responding, blocked file transfer, late technician, etc.). They locate an ongoing thread, and see that others, perhaps others in their area, are experiencing the same problem. In this example, the threads will serve as a FAQ section that is updated in real time. Instead of making a new call or sending another email, the Comcustomer can say "me too" by tagging the post or thread with their location or adding a simple comment.

If you really want to kick your imagination into high gear, envision a webcam of the technician speeding to your location . . . That's the webtime way!

What do you think?

Disclaimer: The author is not a subscriber to any cable or satellite TV provider, and has not been one since 1990. Though this may indicate that he does not know much about these providers, it does not indicate that he's unable to know a storm when he sees one. And this, my friends, is a storm!

comcastcares

4score and . . . how would Lincoln do on Twitter?

I received a call today from a friend who asked for assistance in brainstorming a two-and-a-half hour presentation on a topic she was very familiar with. She doubted that she could keep the attendees' attention for that long, though she knew the material.

My first suggestion was "engage them."

So how's that done? First, you have to get their attention. Next, you have to have something they are interested in. Finally, you have to find the intersection of what they know and what they are comfortable talking about in public. Combine all this with getting them to talk more than you, and you have a winning formula for interactivity!

As long as you keep it brief.

I'm not a natural at this. Many of my colleagues (see either my LinkedIn profile or my Hotlist for some examples) will tell you that the combination of time working for the government combined with my legal training and my current focus on education is not a good breeding ground for brevity. As an introvert, I don't necessarily enjoy the time where I am the only one talking, but I do know how to tell you everything I know about (your topic here) in 3 hours or less. But I recognize that brevity is good in this fast-paced, attention deficient world.

Can you feel my my pain?

I learned from Brian Solis, that technology and thought leader extraordinare Stowe Boyd has begun training others on brevity. Stowe told the world that he is posting a schedule of the times that he will make available for meetings with companies at the Web 2.0 Expo, and he is not going to accept email-based proposals to meet, only Twitpitches.

Twitpitches? That means 14o characters or less to get his attention? Is that possible? The title of this post is over half that long! Sarah Perez from ReadWriteWeb credits Stowe as the inventor of Twipitches . . . so who is going to start the training program?

Brian says he knows that it’s a huge amount of work to shift from a blast mentality to a one-on-one pitch regiment. . . it’s time to change things up. Make the time to invest in relationships with those who can help you tell your story.

Wow! So in order to build relationships with some people, we have to take less of their time? That sounds a lot like a digital elevator speech.

So I got to thinking, how would Abraham Lincoln have pitched the Gettysburg address on Twitter? (the original is here -- it's 271 words -- I'm not counting all the characters)

Here goes:

87 yrs ago we sed all menR equal-Now weR fighting. Lets honor the dead so this nation under God is free & govt of by & 4 people won’t perish

What do you think?

Completely and totally unscientific . . . but Facebook beats LinkedIn and Myspace for growth

. . . and, I'll bet more Twitterers have Facebook than LinkedIn and more Facebook than a MySpace (or at least they talk about Facebook more).

(corrected)

According to Twist, which displays trends on Twitter, Facebook is discussed a lot more than MySpace (at least in the past week).

And there's a whole lot more being discussed about Facebook than LinkedIn, in the same time frame, too.

Is that relevant?

I think it is when you look at the March 2008 statistics, that show MySpace has or is reaching the saturation poinnt and Facebook is doubling year-to-year (no, I didn't plot this out month-by-month). According to MarketingCharts.com, MySpace is up 8%, while Facebook is up 98%. LinkedIn managed a 319% increase in the same period.

To confuse these results even more, see what we, the users, reported to be the 100 best Web 2.0 applications. Over 1.9 million votes were cast to select these Webware 100 winners in the Social space:

What did we miss? Perhaps the OpenSocial initiative is working better as a marketing strategy than an implementation plan? :-)

So what has changed in the past year, since the 2007 Webbys?

What do you think?

Freelance Security probes on LinkedIn - Rickrolled?

I got this email today . . . from CSIS Security Group [kas@csis.dk]

Dear LinkedIn user: Meet Mr. John Smith!

You have a profile on LinkedIn.com and you have chosen to connect with "John Smith". This itself is not a problem, if it wasn't for the fact, that John Smith doesn't really exist (in real life). The profile was invented as part of a security experiment in pitfalls of Social Networks to determine and illustrate potential risks using Social networks, such as LinkedIn. The presentation was just released on the Fraud Europe conference in Bruxelles today.


We decided not to release any detailed information about who and how John Smith got connected with in his network. However, we felt obligated to inform all Linkin accounts hooked up with John Smith about this piece of research and the release of the final edition of "Social Networking Risk - Who Do You Want to be Today?".

With the paper being released we will delete the "John Smith" profile!

If you've not already guessed it, you're receiving this e-mail because you are linked with john Smith. We hope this will be a leason learned and nothing else ...

All data harvested during the past year, will be deleted. We will also inform LinkedIn and asking them to remove the profile.

You can download the presentation given at Fraud Europe conference at the following URL:
http://www.csis.dk/dk/media/LinkedIn-Threats.pdf

The technical paper, used as background for this presentation and released in January 2008, can be downloaded here:
http://www.csis.dk/dk/media/LinkedIn-V2.pdf

Best regards,

Dennis Rand, Security- and Malware researcher CSIS Security Group http://www.csis.dk

---
CSIS Security Group
www.csis.dk


A Google search for "LinkedIn CSIS Security Group" found Martin Lynge Hansen at http://www.linkedin.com/in/lynge . . . maybe I should Rickroll him? I flagged him and linked to this post.

linkedin.john@gmail.com LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/linkjohnsmith

what do you think?

UPDATE: I posted it on my blog, and flagged the profile to linkedin as misrepresentation -- it's gone now, go figure.

Thanks LinkedIn, but with over 3,000 connections how many got the email and how many flagged the profile?

I found one other who posted this, see Uncommon Sense Security.

More on a search for linkedin.john@gmail.com:

http://www.linkedseo.com/list.php
http://www.meta-guide.com/malta/cse12.asp

The online version of office suites, or a hostile takeover?

In a previous post, we noted a tendency toward focusing on specific social networking sites, and suggested that in the future many of us will simply be using what was "learned" in these sites to just be more social -- out in the open, on an Internet without walls. The people we relate to, the relationships we have with them, and the use of available communication tools are the keys to success in this space, not “the site.”

I'm looking for Unified Communications 2.0, and we aren't there yet.

In the meantime, it is important to find transitional points, since we don't yet have a functional cross-platform personal portal, where all of our documents, email accounts, instant messaging clients, microblogs, and friend updates can converge with our videos, personal learning, and VOIP communications accounts.

So where do we find this virtual office suite?

Steve O'Hear recently highlighted the Facebook apps he calls a few shiny gems that can help you turn Facebook into a super-charged personal assistant. Steve listed and discussed many third-party applications that promise to help run your business, including accessing your LinkedIn contacts. But in this time of economic uncertainty and build-it-so-you-can-sell-it mentality, do we really want to invest time in a Third Party App?

I know that Jeff Pulver recently alerted the world to his Facebook conversion, but should the rest of us follow along? He contrasted the experience of Facebook to LinkedIn by identifying the former as a wealth of opportunity for vibrant interaction between users and groups of users, and at once more rewarding and more nuanced and meaningful. And Jeff is still living on Facebook, though his "community" appears to be limited in number by Facebook (a month or so ago he was maxing out at 5,000), and community (they have a limit on the number of groups you can join, as well).

So should we move all our stuff to Facebook? Andrew McAfee (and others he credits) posted an overview of how Facebook can be used as an organizational intranet. Ultimately, I think highly sensitive documents could be linked within Facebook and hosted on a protected server, but security is not my only concern. Facebook for business is still close to Web 2.0 (or as Doc Searls calls it, AOL 2.0, or AOL done right). So what do we do when we truly have a virtual presence that is unrestricted by the gated community mentality? What's the cost of conversion then? I'm all for mashing up as many parts of my life as possible, but I'm not convinced Facebook (or LinkedIn, or any other gated community) is the place to do this. What happens when they make decisions based on their needs, and not on ours?

What do you think?

The CIO versus the CMO - slow and steady (with the right strategy) wins the race!

Once upon a time there was a Fortune 500 CMO who, boasting how he could generate business better and faster than anyone else, was forever teasing the company's CIO for his limited contributions to customer acquisition and retention. Then one day, the irate CIO answered back: "Who do you think you are? There's no denying you're fast, but even you can be beaten with the right strategy!" The CMO squealed with laughter.
"Beaten in a competition? By whom? Not you, surely! I bet there's nobody in the world that can win against me, I'm so good at what I do. Now, why don't you try?"

Annoyed by such bragging, the CIO accepted the challenge. A competition was planned, and the next day at dawn they stood at the starting line. The goal was to generate new business by engaging new or lost customers. The CMO had been honing his craft for several years, and his marketing team was the best in the business. The CIO had only recently begun testing a strategy that included reaching out to customers and potential customers to engage them in communication -- even building relationships . . . It started when he realized that this strategy produced the best crop of employees, and he was interested in testing to see whether it worked for company business, as well.

The CMO yawned sleepily as the CIO trudged slowly off to his office to send a Twitter message to his team. When the CMO saw how painfully slow his rival was moving, he decided, half asleep on his feet, to have a quick nap instead of rallying his top-notch marketers. "Take your time!" he said. "I'll have forty winks and catch up with you in a minute."

The CIO's team got busy, posting on their well-read, cross-linked blogs, updating the internal and external technology wikis, and brainstorming (on Skype, and Free Conference Calls, of course) ways to get the word out. One of the team members had his video camera, so the team shot a quick (amateur) video announcing the challenge, posted it on YouTube, and then posted it on their blogs and their networking profiles.

The CMO woke with a start from a fitful sleep and gazed round, looking for the CIO. But the CIO was only a short distance away, having barely moved at all while blogging for the third time that day on Social Media Today and Always On: The Insider's Network. Breathing a sigh of relief, the CMO decided he might as well have breakfast, and off he went to eat at the new Cinnabon he had noticed across from the mall. But the heavy meal and the decaf latte made his eyelids droop by the time he made it back to the office.

With a careless glance at the CIO, now engaged in a webinar with over 100 new contacts from LinkedIn and another 75 from Facebook, the CMO decided to have another snooze before rallying his team for a winning last-minute marketing push that afternoon. And smiling at the thought of the look on the CIO's face when he realized the CMO's intellectual superiority, he fell fast asleep and was soon snoring happily, with his feet kicked up on his desk.

The sun started to sink below the horizon, and the CIO, who had posting (and linkinng) to related posts in the blogosphere since that morning, was getting up for his last Jolt. At that very point, the CMO woke with his own jolt. He could see the CIO walking toward his office from the break room and off he dashed. He set up an on-the-fly conference call with his team at record speed and gave them all news of the challenge, his tongue dragging, and gasping for breath. Just one strong push and he'd be the winner. He called a handful of his fellow CMOs and asked them to negotiate some quick dual-branding strategies so he could claim a superior follow-on strategy, and typed up a press release in a matter of minutes.

But the CMO's last minute leap was just too late, for the CIO had beaten him with his slow and methodical relationship-building strategy. The CIO's team was just shy of having 500 new relationships that day -- a third of which were with former customers, and over 150 had placed rather large orders. Poor CMO! Tired and in disgrace, he slumped down beside the CIO who was leaning against the wall silently smiling at him.

"Slow and steady (with the right strategy) wins every time!" he said.

This contemporary re-write of The Tortoise and the Hare, one of Aesop's Fables, was designed to provide you with a glimpse into the paradigm shift that business has to make in order to survive The Emergence of The Relationship Economy.

What do you think?

Can I have a Coffee Lite Frappucinno and some FREE WiFi? Apparently the answer is YES!

I just got an email from ATT (where I get my home and mobile phone service with DSL Internet) and they announced that I could go get free wireless with a cup of coffee!

I am pumped!

A search of the ATT.com site (and even Cingular.com which autoforwards) found nothing on a search for starbucks . . . maybe only the marketing department knows . . .

But the STARBUCKS site is touting "free Wi-Fi access for qualifying AT&T customers and any Starbucks Card holder" - Heck, I have both!

I wonder if that's why they had the company-wide store closure the other day? Is this another example of Customer Powered Service?

Earlier I was reading a very indepth article on branding. In it, Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, said Brands are perhaps the most intuitive example of cheap interaction’s atomizing hand. Yesterday, they were a potent source of advantage. Today, the game has changed: investing in traditional brands is yielding fast diminishing returns, and leading more and more players directly into value destruction. That’s why it’s not just revolutionaries like Google, but also mass-market giants like Nike and P&G, who are rethinking orthodox branding.

I'm thinking ATT might be going into the coffee business, so they can compete with McDonalds . . .

What do you think?

Absolutely creative programming

I received this in an email this morning. It's pretty cool, and definately creative.

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands . HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany . In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. Turn on your sound too.

This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer.

HEMA - online winkelen

Are we teaching open social networking?

Another discussion in the open!

The NY Times recently hosted/posted Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog: "Has social networking technology (blog-friendly phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) made us better or worse off as a society, either from an economic, psychological, or sociological perspective?"

A collection of thought leaders (Martin Baily, Danah Boyd, Steve Chazin, Judith Donath, Nicole Ellison, and William Reader) responded with some pretty insightful ideas, and there has been much discussion in follow up.

As note in my comment there, I see a tendency toward focusing on specific social networking sites. This limits the ability to examine and understand the phenomenon. MySpace replaced Friendster as the leader by offering what we the people demanded, and Facebook, LinkedIn, and others are trying to (and succeeding in their efforts to) redefine the space. The collection of people we relate to and incorporation of communication tools are the keys to success in this space, not “the site.”

These sites may not last forever, but we have always been engaged in social networking — now supported by technology. The top 5 SN sites could crash and burn tomorrow and we would still do what we do. It’s a revolution, and it’s here, now. Let’s usher in The Relationship Economy!
http://carterfsmith.blogspot.com/2008/01/revolution-called-relationship-economy.html

In response to the Freakonomics Quorum, Paul Glazowski has a recommendation for parents: teach kids (as well as yourselves) as much as possible about any and all networks. He observes that though a percentage of Web users find them useless, redundant, and banal, tens of millions have found such services to expedite tasks - for work or personal purposes - and essentially streamline their lives significantly. There is, after all, something important to saving time and energy.

I think the presumption is that parents know what networking is all about. I'm not so sure that they do! Today's younger (and many older) networkers often connect just to connect. Where did they learn that from? Is it possible that a parent would sit down and explain why everyone at their office came over last night for a dinner when all that parent does when they come home from work is complain about everyone they work with? Do we really think that kids understand (or care) why their folks stop at some chamber of commerce mixer after work?

I think we have to assume that people connect 'cause they think it's the right thing to do, but many have no idea why.

Here's an installment on the challenge:



http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=04ced4ee44c4b9104e8e

What do you think?

War of the Worlds - Spoofing Social Networking

BOOK ONE/CHAPTER ONE - THE EVE OF THE WAR

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought ofthem only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable.

The War of the Worldsby H. G. Wells [1898]

In "Social Networking Sites Linked to Poor Social Networking Skills," Barry Foy reports:

A study released yesterday draws a strong connection between websites devoted to "social networking" and the inability of their subscribers to network socially. The survey's results suggest that teenagers who conduct social activities via the internet are likely to end up singularly ill-equipped to conduct social activities.

On the plus side, the report goes on to say, many of them develop impressive skills at making pornographic videos with cellphone cameras.In the Stanford University experiment, 30 teenagers were banned from their computers and forced to engage in face-to-face social interplay for a period of three weeks. For nearly all, this proved challenging.

Among the most difficult adjustments they reported were: 1) eliminating frequent pauses they had learned to introduce into conversation to allow for advertising, 2) getting used to just how few actual human heads are highlighted from behind by customized "wallpaper" and 3) finding the cursor.

The humor is perhaps subtle (reminiscent of War of the Worlds?), but the two-pronged message is clear. First, social networking has arrived. You don't spoof things that are not working. Sometimes folks take their time to write about things that aren't going to make it (like the HD DVD that just admitted defeat by BluRay), but no one takes the time to spoof the nearly dead. Second, there may be a bit of reality in this post. How long have today's youth been called socially unaware, only to be defended by well-meaning parents and psychologists who pointed to intereaction in online social networks.

I think the problem we have here is one of transition. The old-school networking model (mostly face-to-face) required social skills like looking at someone (not their shoes) while speaking to them. It required speaking in complete, understandable sentences, not slurring, speaking in code, and using half-finished sentences. And most of all, it required actually finding some value in the relationship, not just connecting for the sake of connecting.

No matter how social we (or our kids) get, you can't learn that stuff behind a computer screen.

What do you think?

If traditional marketing won't work in The Relationship Economy, what will?

Relationships, that's what!

In Generation MySpace Is Getting Fed Up, Business week reminds us that "Social networking was supposed to be the Next Big Thing on the Internet."

The article covers a variety of noteworthy points:

• Advertising on social networking sites is growing fast. Last year global ad spending on these sites shot up 155%, to $1.2 billion, expected to jump 75% this year, to $2.1 billion.
• The forecasts may prove unrealistic. Besides the slowing user growth and declining time spent on these sites, users appear to be growing less responsive to ads, according to several advertisers and online placement firms.
• Google didn't generate as much revenue from social networking as expected.
• Many people on social networking sites pay little to no attention to the ads because they're more interested in kibitzing with their friends.
• Social networks have some of the lowest response rates on the Web, advertisers and ad placement firms say. Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them, compared with 20 in 10,000 across the Web.

So what should we be doing to get the attention of the people formerly known as the audience? Perhaps we should treat our markets as conversations . . . perhaps we should engage our customers in dialog, getting to know them before we tell them what we have "just for them." Possibly, we should stop selling, and start listening . . .

In The Relationship Economy, the first step is the relationship. We are sick and tired of the push-marketing model, and are demanding that the pull (our pull) be implemented. The days of build it and they will come are gone. We want you to build, make, and provide stuff that we tell you we want. We'll only tell you in a conversation. The only way you will get it is if you are listening.

That's how relationships work.

Take a look at the new model, brought to you by some of the Cluetrain Manifesto authors.

The updated theses (numbering is not a mistake -- he skipped a few) as posted by Charlene Li - Josh Bernoff at Social Media Today.

1. Advertising as we know it will die.

2. Herding people into walled gardens and guessing about what makes them "social" will seem as absurd as it actually is. (Facebook is his example.)

3. We will realize that the most important producers are what we used to call consumers. (Yup.)

4. The value chain will be replaced by the value constellation. (Many connections.)

5. "What's your business model?" will no longer be asked of everything. (What's the business model for your kids?)

6. We will make money by maximizing "because effects". ("Because effects" are what happen when you make more money because of something than with it.) E.g. search and blogging.

8. We will be able to manage vendors at least as well as they manage us. (Agreements between companies and customers shouldn't be skewed in favor of the companies.) At Harvard Law they call this VRM -- vendor relationship management -- which is what Searls is working on (projectvrm.org).

10. We'll marry the live web to the value constellation. (The Live Web isn't just about stars. Relationships of anybody to anybody.)

What do you think?

THIS CANNOT BE REAL! TSA - DHS Site has been hacked!

THIS CANNOT BE REAL. There's no way that a bureaucracy-laden government agency gets it . . .

I happened across a New York Times Article that covered what they purported to be a blog that was sponsored by the Transportation Safety Administration. The article claimed that the site has links to independent bloggers and real news reports, including negative ones. Allegedly, the site even allows anonymous posters and publicly-viewable comments.

"A whole lot of our employees are really anxious to engage with the public," Mr. Hawley, the Director of the TSA was "quoted" as saying. The NYT writer reported that after the blog went up on Jan. 30, many reader responses were angry and sarcastic. But later, a greater sense of civil discussion set in.

Here's a look at the alleged blog, in case you are inclined to assist me with my quest to root out the real owner. It's called Evolution of Security, and claims "This blog is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process."

P-Lease . . . do they expect us to believe this nonsense? Having spent several years working in one government position or another, I can tell you that the last thing any government agency wants is to hear what their "customers" think about their "service." It's not like they need to make anyone happy. What would we do if we didn't lke the "service" we got from the TSA -- go to another airport in another country?

OK, just for the sake of argument, let's pretend that a government employee did ask permission to run with a public blog. The process for approval is so archaic with the government that you literally would rather try to get God and Congress to agree on something. Form after form, approved by no less than five levels of leadership, would have to be completed, reviewed, returned, and resubmitted. The Internet hasn't been around long enough for this to have received approval -- especially in an election year!

And then we're talking the likelihood of accuracy for those posting -- the "meet our bloggers" section shows that none have more than 5 years with the organization. R-i-g-h-t!!!

The URL appears to be spoofed to http://www.tsa.dhs.gov/blog/index.shtm, but I have friendly hackers who are checking into the validity of this. It is also possible that the DHS site itself has been hacked, but I think there would be a little more craziness posted . . . and wouldn't the media have covered this by now? Slashdot covered an incident like this at LAX TSA about a month ago. I wonder why they haven't done a follow-up! Others in the blogosphere have hit on this, but they appear to be buying into the cover-up.

As a taxpayer, I hope that our federal law enforcement agencies swoop down on the perpetrator of this fraudulent site. As a periodic flier, I would love to believe that the crappy attitudes we find so often on the other end of the x-ray machine might somehow change for the good. As someone who believes in the power of The Relationship Economy, I hope that the corporate world takes a serious look at the hurdles they will need to overcome and uses this as an challenge!

This can't be real . . . can it?

What do you think?

What are the economics of relationships in The Relationship Economy?

In order to grasp the economic value of relationships, let’s take a look from a business perspective.

Kevin Kelly's Customer Control
Kevin Kelly (1998) suggests business owners:
1) Create what the customer wants
2) Remember what the customer wants
3) Anticipate what the customer wants
4) Change what the customer wants.

Before you judge the message, consider it in the context of a hybrid type of business, not a traditional business, and not a business in The Relationship Economy. Kelly’s message indicates that businesses control the relationship – do they? In The Relationship Economy, it will be the consumer that holds the controls, and they will hold the economic power, as long as they demand it.

Go Daddy's Money Spots
In a recent media censorship challenge, Fox Television rejected an advertisement that included references to a slang term for a woman’s “private parts.” The ad, at Go Daddy Hot Spot, was one in a history of risqué ads that seemed to get more “exposure” than they would have had they been aired.

Go Daddy had issues in previous years http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/personaltech/175700416 http://humor.about.com/b/2006/02/05/go-daddys-banned-super-bowl-xl-tv-commercials.htm but apparently isn’t getting the message . . . Or are they?

The company proudly lists the timelines for ad rejection from 2008, 2007 and 2006 on their website, and many bloggers have covered their adventure.
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2005/02/godaddy_ceo_fig.html
http://www.faniq.com/blog/Go-Daddy-Super-Bowl-Ad-Rejected-by-Fox-Because-it-Used-the-Word-Beaver-Blog-6107
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/blog/JDeragon/site/posts/?bid=25541
But only one that I found shows data to indicate that this was a bad move:
http://www.internetfinancialnews.com/financialblogtalk/news/ifn-6-20080208SalesGeniecomGoDaddycomDamageBrand.html

What do you think?

The Denver Post - Work, connected by social networking

Another company who gets it! A reecent article in The Denver Post - Work, connected by social networking - reports "'Web 2.0 and social networks, blogs, wikis, tags, all shifted the way we can all connect and share with each other,' said John Kembel, co-founder and chief executive of HiveLive. 'Either from a competitive point of view or the effectiveness of doing business with each other, people realize they need to bring different communication tools to the business.'"

This in a services organization . . . what a concept! I am sure that they considered the "wasted" time spent by employees "trading photos and recipes," and realized that community building was far more important than bean-counting.

As one of the team leaders noted, ""It's kind of like walking into someone's office or cubicle, where you can see pictures and other things about them."

What do you think?

The next big things in wireless | CNET News.com

The social-networking craze has come to the mobile phone, and the topic promises to be a hot one at Mobile World Congress. There's a whole session dedicated to social networking at the show. And there will likely be a lot of announcements.

Let's hope some of them are aimed at making social networking useful for business!

The next big things in wireless CNET News.com

What do you think?

Share and Share Alike in The Relationship Economy

Sharing Knowledge can and does occur in our social networks. We’ll cover these more later, but for now let’s look at how the two can intersect.

•Knowledge is central to economic development with new technology.

•The development of new technology doesn’t just happen, it depends on initiatives.

•Development begins with the recognition of a need, and it results in change

• Change to the way we do things.
• Needs are often recognized when a few people get together and discuss their wants and desires.
• This happens often when people network.

•Self-organizing networked social systems generate shared knowledge

•This shared knowledge can benefit many of the network members. The only thing that limits knowledge dissemination is the method used to transfer the information and the limitations or restrictions placed on it by those who hold the knowledge.

•The Internet circumvents imbalanced relationships by removing restrictions for those who seek information.

•How many industries have we seen opening up since the Internet became an integral part in so many people’s lives?

•Automobile sales were one of the first to experience the infiltration of informed customers, thanks to Edmunds and Kelly Blue Book

•The insurance industry has likewise been affected

•Mortgages and other loans, stocks and other investments, even simple banking transactions can occur with an institution we never physically visit.

•The medical field is experiencing an increase in informed patients with companies like WebMD

•And there are many more, and more to come.

So what’s in it for me?

In The Relationship Economy, the sharing of knowledge (like the sharing of many other factors) will produce revenue. Another way of saying that is by sharing knowledge you are engaging in economic development. Let’s examine economic development from a two different perspectives.

Personal economic development benefits the individual, who must acquire and implement the knowledge, and their family, who benefits from contributions by all of its members. We are all part of an organization of some kind, so let's look at it from a wider perspective. Organizational economic development benefits the smaller groups, like one’s team or section, which also benefits the individual (and their families). Economically benefited individuals and groups ultimately benefit the whole organization. And from an even broader perspective . . .

Community economic development starts at the local level, where projects including workforce education and development are launched and nurtured so they can raise the income of those (individuals) in need. At the state level, economic development includes a variety of cooperative projects and strategic expansion initiatives. Sometimes there are regional developments that engage in economic stimulation – often these are cooperative operations with private and public organizations. When economic development occurs on a national scale, there are multitudes of players involved. Projects at this level take a significant amount of planning

But we don’t like to change!

It’s difficult to get people to change – even if it is in their best interests. It can be even more difficult to get groups of people to change. Ultimately, in order to provide an environment for change there must be an identified need.

Some examples of needs (or wants) resulting in change include:

•Open Source software

Open source is a software development method that uses distributed peer review and transparency of process. The need that brought about the The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

The OSI is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to link different open-source community constituencies. http://www.opensource.org//

•Creative Commons licensing

•Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. Individuals can use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses.

•Creative Commons can clearly identify copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved." http://creativecommons.org/

•Voice over Internet Protocol

•Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), allows you to make voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line. Some VoIP services are proprietary, others allow you to call anyone who has a telephone number, and some services allow you to use a traditional phone connected to a VoIP adapter. http://www.fcc.gov/voip/

•Video creating and sharing

•A variety of new technologies, websites, and social network domains like Facebook and MySpace, has motivated large numbers of individuals to create videos and post them on the Internet. This trend crosses the individual and corporate space, and is expected to continue to grow. Current examples include YouTube, MySpace, and Google Videos.

•Blogging

A blog (web log) is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

Network Power

The power of a network is related to the amount of knowledge held by the individual members, how much they share with others (and re-use from others), the number of others with whom they share and the capability of the network to generate new knowledge.

For an organization, the network power equation requires.

•Hire and retain people who have a high level of expertise (and therefore a large amount of knowledge).

•Hire and retain people who are natural sharers.

•Hire a diverse population of people so that the knowledge they have is varied; i.e., there is enough similarity so that they can understand each other, but not so much that they all know the same things.

•Put in place a work environment that encourages and enables knowledge sharing.

The bottom line is power is knowledge shared. Through knowledge management, you can increase the power of your organization exponentially to solve problems, to invent new methods, and to overcome physical distance.

(Smith, 2001)

Technology-Enhanced Synergy

Synergy happens when a group of diverse individuals gets together and collaborates. When forming a strategic team, it is important to find a variety of personality styles, backgrounds, and experiences. Only by interacting with a heterogeneous group can we experience the real power of collaboration. The results of these collaborations often contribute to the overall knowledge base. Previously established networks can also be used to disseminate this collective knowledge.

There have been many recent examples of technology-enhanced synergy. Though many of these exist in the software world, their application in similar models in the “real world” can be easily accomplished.

•Wiki is software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. Wiki is from a Hawaiian word for "fast." A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be created and updated. Wiki technology and style has been used to create

Encyclopedias

Dictionaries

Textbooks

News

Quotes Listings

Search Tools

Learning Resources

(Wiki, 2008)

•Open Courseware is a free and open digital publication of “high quality” educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organizations using a shared model. The consortium includes:

Defense Acquisition University

Harvard Law

Johns Hopkins

MIT

Michigan State

UMass Boston

UC Irvine

Notre Dame

. . . and many others

Topics come from a variety of academic subjects, including Philosophy, Biology, Calculus, International Relations, Adolescent Health, and Statistical Reasoning are offered – completely free. (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/)

So where do we start?

What do we need to do to create a Knowledge Sharing Culture? We need to start with making knowledge sharing the norm in our life and the life of our organization (Gurteen, 1999). We need to regularly encourage people to work together more effectively, to collaborate and to share. This will help instill the habit in the lives of others in the organization, and will go a long way toward making organizational knowledge more productive

But remember:

• We are talking about sharing knowledge and information – not just information.
• We share knowledge to help the organization meet its objectives. We are not doing it for its own sake.
• Making knowledge productive is as important as sharing knowledge.
• Changing a culture is tough. It means seeing the world in a different way, and revealing hidden paradigms like the tacit acceptance that “knowledge is power”.

It starts with you!

• Knowledge sharing begins with the individual. Each of us has his or her job, objectives, and sphere of influence.
• Sharing is about being more open in your way of work and in your relationships with other people.

(Gurteen, 1999)

We can get there from here!

The most effective way to create a knowledge sharing culture is to start at our level. The higher up we go in the organization the more effective we will be in changing the knowledge sharing culture, but we have to start where we are. We must implement knowledge sharing and show others the results.

An organization’s knowledge assets include explicit knowledge (concepts, procedures, and routines) and tacit knowledge (experience, relationships, and know-how) (Chun, Williams, & Granados, 2007). An organization’s knowledge assets develop over time, and can be difficult to manage. Quite often the knowledge needed to solve a given problem already exists within an organization, but locating the person, document, or server holding the knowledge is challenging. Many of us have our own methods for knowledge management. Is your desk covered with sticky-notes? How do you retain knowledge that you know you will need some day? Hopefully some of the ideas you have seen here will help you in your quest for knowledge sharing!

What do you think?

References:

Chun, M., Williams, M., & Granados, N. (2007). Managing Organizational Knowledge: Insights offered from the Southern California aerospace industry for managing knowledge assets. Available at http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/072/knowledge.html

Gurteen, D. (1999) Creating a Knowledge Sharing Culture. Available at http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Creating_a_K-Sharing_Culture_-_Gurteen.pdf

Smith, R. (2001, May 9) Knowledge Management – The Road Ahead. Presented at "Unleashing the Power of Partnerships", the 2nd Conference & Expo of the Staff Exchange Program of The World Bank Group, Washington, D.C.. Available at http://www.rgsmithassociates.com/Power.htm

Wiki. (2008, January 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:38, February 1, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wiki&oldid=187815038

Can relationships help you turn back time?

If you are old enough to remember cassette tapes, you probably remember her.

She used only one name - legally - to identify herself.

She sang with the Righteous Brothers' for the recording of 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling'.

She holds the record for the longest time between number 1 hits: 1974 (Dark Lady) to 1998 (Believe).

She was the "babe" that Sonny referred to when he sang, I've got you, babe.

And she brought us the song "If I could turn back time."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OR0U87mRsY

So can you? Is it possible to turn back time? Is there a possibility that anything or anyone (other than God) will ever be able to go backwards in time?

I don't think so.

But I do know that as our technology advances, we are sure finding ways to try to minimize the time we spend on a variety of things. Everyone in the universe has been to a time management seminar, and many of us have tried the "proven" methods of many a time-management expert.

And yet we still have no time . . .

Here are a couple of examples:

CPA
In 1997 Nat Torkington (O’Reilly Media) coined the phrase continuous partial attention. He noticed that continuous partial attention had become a way of life to cope and keep up with responsibilities and relationships. When we've stretched our attention bandwidth to upper limits, that’s a sign of “continuous partial attention.” We think that if our computer networks have a lot of bandwidth then we do, too.

Torkington (2005) proposed three sets of (relatively) contemporary Attention Cycles that address how people in our society have interacted with each other -- both personally and professionally.

He noted that between 1945-1965, we focused on an organizational center of gravity. We paid attention to that which we served.

From 1965-1985, it was all about me and self-expression. We trusted ourselves.

Then from 1985-2005, it was all about our network as the center of gravity. We trust network intelligence.

Torkington suggested that we are now in the time for committed full-attention focus. In this new era we feel alive by feeling engaged attention. We will use trusted filters and protectors to remove distractions and manage our space, so we can have meaningful connections.

TADD
Jay Deragon tells us that time and attention are the only factors that are becoming scarce. As we engage in techno-enhanced relationship building, we find new functions and features aimed at facilitating faster, more meaningful reach, proposed new efficiency and a host of other value propositions. These integrative technological breakthroughs will ultimately enable us to better manage our time through one interface by segment of use.

Jay calls this “TADD”, Technological Attention Deficit Disorder. With The Relationship Economy, we will be better able to balance our time and use it wisely for whatever personal and professional aim. Until then, a few of us will bear the burden that comes with learning new technology. Once lifted, the burden will become the value we can pass on to the masses so collectively we can gain more time to create more value.

So what can be done? What can we accomplish in The Relationship Economy that positively affects our time?

CIO magazine (online) provides an A-Z listing of professional and personal social networking sites (as of Jan 23, 2008). From Advogato to Ziggs each provides yet another niche and a variety of benefits, but none promises to give you more time!

So how exactly are we going to find time for networking, much less being social? And how are we going to accomplish anything in more than one place, on more than one network?

Networking, especially Social Networking, can be used to leverage time. Jay Deragon often refers to the leverage of social media as the ability to communicate one-to-one-to millions.

But we have to be careful! In many cases, our convenience in social networking may inconvenience others. Think about how we get "connected" in the networked world. We join a new network, complete a new profile, and then email everyone we know asking them to (take a wild guess . . .) join a new network, and complete a new profile. Just as Torkington (above) pointed out, Morgan (1998) observed that in The Relationship Economy, all of us will become dependent on the intricate network of impersonal relationships that possess many of the characteristics of personal relationships. These relationships are fueled by technological advances, and are a phenomenon that, going forward, we should understand, especially if we are truly dependent on them.

It's easy for network building to become a huge time vacuum -- building networks inherently appeals to our competitive nature. We find that anything (or anyone) new in our networks can grab and keep our attention just like the first time we discovered we could play solitaire, hearts, ScrabbleTM, or minesweeper on the computer. Taking the time to find our way around social networks can be just as big a time investment as the time it takes to learn our way around a new city -- and rightfully so. Many of the activities in these networks are similar to those we find in the "Real World." We can (or soon will be able to) meet people, engage in discussions, browse books, read magazines, try on clothing, drive cars and fly airplanes (at least virtually).

If we are doing these things at work, it's possible (probable) that we are wasting valuable time, and if we are on the clock, that time isn't all ours. If we are at home, it's possible that we are avoiding other things, like cooking, cleaning, watching television, helping with homework, cutting the grass, walking the dog, and any number of other parental or spousal duties (no, I won't be expounding on those for you).

So what's the fix, you ask? As with engaging in these activities in the "Real World," when we engage in these activities in the virtual world, we need to focus the majority of our actions on the results we hope to achieve. In other words, we need to make sure that what we are doing contributes to what we want to achieve.

These techno-assisted relationships are needed to combat the direction our relationship-building strategies have been heading in of late. In a previous post we addressed the business response with Customer Relationship Management, but let's focus a bit more on those business relationships. How can the technology we now have available help us save time and avoid the limitations of sound-byte communications with those who provide us with products and services?

If we can trust these relationships (which we can and will find a way to do), we can learn to rely on those with whom we have dealt with (in a satisfying transaction) in the past. Amazon, eBay, and many other e-commerce sites use this model to help us make decisions about buyers and sellers with whom we transact business. As Morgan (1998) noted, human behavior depends on our perception of risks, not (perhaps unknowable) the actual risks we are facing (p. 53). The relationships in the marketplace of old were built on trust, built up over time. The relationships in the marketplace of The Relationship Economy are built on trust, as well -- technology-enhanced trust, but trust nonetheless.

So how can I limit the time I spend on networking and still be effective?

Perhaps the best contemporary guidance available on this topic comes from David Teten and Scott Allen, in their book The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online. In the book, the authors describe several ways you can apply the concept of leverage to your networking time. Here are a couple of quick summaries.

Crossing the Action Threshold

The authors observe what many of us intuitively know - people will respond if you ask them for a favor. In case the request is worth more than your relationship with the person of whom you are asking the favor, there are other incentives available.

The Power of Many

Another example they give is public speaking -- a powerful way to reach more people. When addressing more than one person, you are exposed to, and connected with, a large number of other people, all for the same amount of effort -- plus you get the added benefit of the other people in the community sharing their experiences.

(Teten & Allen, 2007)

Separating business from personal

As with anything business-related, it is healthy to be able to separate your professional (business) life from your personal life. Though there are countless examples of successful people who lived, ate, breathed, and slept with their work, for those of us who really want to "get a life," here are a few pointers. If networking helps us save time, we have to find something to do with it, after all.

Examine the role or roles you are filling at a given time. Is that role primarily one related to your professional life, or is it more personal?

Examine your recent actions, responses, and interactions. Could they benefit you professionally? There's something to be said for being able to monetize every minute of every day, but at what point do you live to work and when will you start to work to live?

Intentionally engage in activities that are strictly personal -- for you as an individual, with no possibility of professional benefit. Sure it can be difficult, but force yourself. You'll feel guilty for a while, but you can learn to enjoy yourself.

Here's the tough part -- asking for help. Get with some of your trusted friends (yes, they can be people you work with if you are still in that rut). Tell them what you want to do. Explain to them that you want an honest evaluation of your ability to separate your professional life from your personal life. If you are able, get them to write down a few indicators that you are or are not able, and then (only after they have written them down) discuss what they see with you. Ask them to make suggestions to help you. If they give an example that you don't agree with, shut up and listen. Remember, you asked them.

Then take their advice. You do this by implementing the suggestions you got from your trusted friends. Try it for an hour, a day, a week, or (if you are really bold) as long as you can. If you couldn't get anyone to agree to critique you, look at the suggestions we made (above) and use your own imagination (if you still have it).

And then, prepare to engage in a little self-reflection. This is necessary so you can evaluate the results of your efforts and adjust, as needed. You may not get it right the first time. You may go overboard, or you may feel like you will go crazy if you don't check that one more email or make that one more phone call. It's like breaking any habit -- you have to want to and you have to be prepared to not get it right the first time.

If anything we've covered is totally foreign to you, don't worry. The Relationship Economy is a place where totally new paradigms will produce totally new actions and reactions. If someone tells you they have been-there, done-that, just let out a chuckle and run away from them -- as fast as you can. Make the time to build your foundation now, and prepare to reap the harvest of time tomorrow.

What do you think?

References:

Morgan, B. W. (1998). Strategy and enterprise value in the relationship economy. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold

Teten, D. & Allen, S. (2007, April 17). Who Knows Who You Know: Leverage and Focus. Fast Company. Available at
http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/networking/teten-allen/leverage-business-goals-080107.html

Analysis of The Relationship Economy Model

Businesses that capitalize on and thrive in The Relationship Economy will not use a business model that resembles that of a traditional business. The businesses that have been retrofitted for The Relationship Economy will have the basic building blocks of traditional business models, addressing their Infrastructure, Offering, Customers, and Finances, but there will be some highly unusual additions. When you think about a Relationship Economy business, think hybrid.



The Relationship Economy Business Model



Recent news from eBay indicates they are attempting to appease sellers by lowering the upfront listing fee and increasing the back-end fee for sellers. Their "success-based" model is meant to increase listings, but according to Betsy Schiffman (2008), it will do little more than enrage its merchant base. Schiffman suggests that it isn't just the fee structure that has sellers complaining: eBay also changed its feedback system so that sellers cannot give a negative or neutral rating to buyers.

Ironically, eBay's business model has been one of the most successful in the online business movement. (Somewhat) average business people can minimize risk and overhead while avoiding the time and geographical constraints that can plague traditional businesses. They often benefit from social interactions (both in their online endeavors and in the frequent face-to-face seller conferences that eBay offers). The eBay-powered businesses often enjoy a large number of bidders, and benefit from networked markets.

Networked markets benefit from the effect that causes a business' products and services to have potential value beyond that of traditional markets. This phenomenon, often referred to as
network effect, grows exponentially based on the number of additional customers who have and use the products or services. The term was coined by Robert Metcalfe, the founder of Ethernet, the most widely installed computer local area network (LAN) protocol. But eBay, and other businesses intent on surviving The Relationship Economy, must master yet another model.


The customer loyalty model is useful for those companies that, like eBay, deal with a multitude of customers and collaborators who engage in conversation around and about the products or services they are purchasing and using. Businesses who use the customer loyalty model find that cost of customer acquisition only occurs at the beginning of a relationship, while the cost of maintaining (and retaining) that customer declines. These customers are generally loyal, satisfied, less price sensitive, and are less inclined to switch providers. This loyalty manifests itself in customer advocacy, where customers openly share their convictions about the company with others. These customers refer their friends and acquaintances to the company and vice versa, often promoting a company better than the marketing department could ever dream about.

How do businesses build relationships?

Relationship building for businesses seems almost counter intuitive. Back in the day, Customer Relationship Management was the practice of leaving the house, stopping for a cup of coffee at the local diner on the way to work, taking a break to visit with your neighbors who happened to be long-time customers, and generally engaging others in conversations about anything and everything.

Over time, businesses realized that in order to make those who held the purse strings happy, they had to generate revenue beyond what they had generated before. This first led to cutting out all nonessential and unproductive activity. Go figure -- taking the time to talk to others was one of the first activities to go. Think about the last time you engaged in conversation with:

• the store owner of a place you visit at least once a month


• your barber or hair stylist


• the person who delivers your newspaper (I know, you don't talk to digital people)


• your bank teller or your financial adviser


• your business associates

I'm talking about real conversations here - beyond 2-3 word phrases and in more depth than a peripheral dialog on the weather forecast. The habits of the business world have carried over into our lives, and causing us to be very antisocial.


So what kind of conversations are we having with those we engage in business? We let them set the rules and make the initial approach. They use traditional business relationship techniques, sending us information they "know" we want, about stuff they "know" we need. We throw printed matter in the recycling bin, wear out our computer mouse (and left-button finger) hitting the delete button, and still they persist. Every once in a while we will actually speak with a human representative of the company, but it's usually after we have become very annoyed because we did not get what we expected for our money (and then had the privilege of listening to old, stale elevator music for 20-30 minutes).


Jay Deragon recently addressed these issues in his question: Ever try and reach someone with influence at a Fortune 500 Company? He noted that those that have any authority to make changes to improve customer relations are insulated from the customer. Even worse, companies that are growing will find it beneficial to outsource customer care (to people who may have less experience with the company and its products or services than the newest customer) If they really want to build our trust, they'll install a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to manage the details of our lives.

That's not a relationship!


So if we get the point, and we have the technology available, how do we get started?


Larry Weber (2007) provides us with Seven Steps to Build Your Own Customer Community.

1. Observe.
   – See what’s going on without you, who is talking and what they are saying
   – Map (locate) your customers


2. Recruit.
   – Drive traffic to your business locations -- online and offline. Lose the strategy of "build and they’ll come."
   – Develop innovative (and sincere) ways to send out invitations
   – Find and devote time to building your community & make connections to other communities


3. Evaluate platforms (conduits to others).
   – Reputation aggregator
   – Enlist someone in your organization to Blog – make the material regular, relevant and connected to not only your company's mission but also to the needs of your customers (in other words, allow comments).
   – Participate in E-communities (those developed for folks with a common interest) & Social networks (those used by members to make and develop connections)


4. Engage.
   – Your content and conversations should be engaging, meaning you are engaged in the discussion (not like when talking to someone who interrupts your favorite television show). By seriously demonstrating your commitment to customers, you will develop committed customers.


5. Measure.
   – Frequently check the level of community involvement you have, compared to the level you hoped to have.


6. Promote.
   – Everywhere you (and your customers) go, you should be there. Learn how to talk about your business (face-to-face or online) in such a way that people don't get the feeling that's all you think about, but they should realize that you are passionate about it.


7. Improve.
   – Improving your "strategy" requires (gulp) listening to users - both customers and prospects, and actually evaluating (not summarily dismissing) the suggestions they make.
   – As you come up with new innovations, test them. If they aren't accomplishing what you had hoped, re-evaluate, tweak, fine-tune, or replace them.

In many cases, the only way to get new business is to find the unhappy customers of a competitor. Hopefully you can avoid being on the losing end of this transaction!


What do you think?


References:


Schiffman, B. (2008, January 30). Ebay Sellers Riled Up About New Fees, Rules. Wired Blog Network. Available at http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/01/ebay-sellers-ri.html

Weber, L. (2007). Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons