Do You Get A Bonus For A Long Term Commitment?

Steve Garfield: “I subscribe to people.”

Bryan Person elaborates:

“Video blogger extraordinaire Steve Garfield, whom I ran into last night at a meetup of the Web Innovators Group, has a saying that I realy like: “I subscribe to people.”

And I’d suspect that most of us would say the same. While the blogs I read and podcasts I listen to need to offer compelling content on some level for me to say interested, what also ensures that I keep reading and listening are the people behind that content. As you get to know the content producers as people — either through the tidbits about their lives, interests, and passions that are revealed to their audience along on the way, or the personal relationships you develop with them on your own — you can’t help but want to read about and listen to those passions day after day, week after week.”

Ditto. Not just for blogs and podcasts. For business, too.

And life.

Over The Horizon

David Myron: “If business professionals would pause for a moment to analyze how their short-term actions can negatively affect long-term customer attrition rates, many would likely do things differently.”

Can An Online Community Be Too Inclusive?

Jay Solo, originator of the venerable Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC) “traveling” weblog writes:

“I have been contemplating a ‘reboot’ of Carnival of the Capitalists for some time, on the idea of revitalizing and improving its relevance and quality. That is why I’ve allowed the list of upcoming hosts to dwindle, because what is expected of hosts will change, and their quality and discretion will need to be more consistently high.”

He goes on to enumerate how the CotC has changed over time. Jay:

“When we first started CotC, the rules and guidelines stated that a host could leave out an entry for any reason, or no reason at all. Nobody took advantage of that, and being all inclusive became the de facto and then de jure rule of hosting.

Currently the only reasons for excluding an entry are:

  • It’s off-topic, where on-topic is a huge range that all too many entrants still manage to skirt.
  • It’s not substantive and substantively original text by the post author.
  • It’s an additional entry from the same blog the same week.

It’s considered verboten to limit the included entries the best so many entries.

It’s considered verboten to exclude everything on one topic, like not including any economics posts.

It’s considered verboten to use something like a number or letter ranking system to say what you think of the entries, even though it is acceptable to be more subtle in highlighting the best and downplaying the worst.

It’s considered verboten to exclude an entry because of the type of blog it’s from, like one you feel is “too commercial” (which would be ironic given what carnival this is).

It varies from week to week, but in general, the content of CotC is widely perceived as lower in quality than it was in the early days. I regularly field e-mails from hosts who are startled when the look at the entries so far for the week and find them to be dreck. What can they do? Can they leave out the dreck? Is there an editorial policy?”

An interesting question: Does making a community more “accessible” inevitably result in lower quality? Or are there ways to increase accessibility and at the same time not dilute the traits that gave the community value in the first place?

What do you think?

(cross posted at the future of communities blog)

photo: pantagrapher

Social Networking For Business

The following is an article from the current issue of CRMGuru, where I was asked for my thoughts on a trend that CxO’s should be thinking about in 2007. Would love your thoughts.


Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Social Networks

By Christopher Carfi, Cerado Inc.

Social networking was big in 2006. Really big. Really, really big. MySpace has more than 50 million members. Google bought YouTube, a video-sharing site with a heavy social component, for $1.65 billion. Facebook, a social networking site for college students, is rumored to be courting buyers with a price tag in the billions as well. However, most of the social networking action in 2006 was in the consumer space. I predict 2007 will be the year when the social network becomes a critical part of the business landscape. Customer-facing executives and CSOs and CMOs in particular need to be aware of this fundamental shift that is on the horizon if they want their companies to succeed in the wake of this transition.

Deceptively simple, online social networks contain great power. They change the online space from one of the static web pages and stale marketing messages to a live, vibrant network of connected individuals who share their abilities, expertise, and interests. Pairing this with a RocketReach email finder can help businesses connect with those who are online and want to support what businesses/individuals are offering through social media networks.

Online migration
In both professional and personal life, human beings naturally form groups based on affinities and expertise. We gravitate to others with whom we share interests. These real-world networks form organically and consist of our family, friends, colleagues, mentors, and advisors. These networks have always formed in the “real world” and, not surprisingly, rapidly migrated to the online world.

Customers have lost trust in traditional sales, marketing, and service (the three areas commonly referred to encompassed by CRM. According to the 2006 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of 2,000 opinion leaders in 11 countries, “the most credible source of information about a company is now ‘a person like me,’ which has risen dramatically to surpass doctors and academic experts for the first time.” The survey relates that in the United States, trust in “a person like me” increased from 20 percent in 2003 to 68 percent today.

The connections enabled by social networks are the glue that put humanity back into business to solve the trust problem. In other words, the organizations that will win are the ones that most easily enable individuals to build relationships and communities with people they trust.

Not just kids
And don’t discount social networks as something just for young people. Although social networks such as MySpace (known for being an online hangout for the high schoolers) and FaceBook (which targets the college crowd) have garnered much press in the social networking space in 2006, other professionally-focused online networks are being used in many ways in the business and association realms, and social networking is poised for growth in 2007 in a number of areas. A few of these areas are:

  • Customer and member relationship development. Customer satisfaction is at an all-time low, perhaps as a result of reduced business focus on actual relationships and an increased business focus on CRM systems that emphasize the management of data, rather than personal connections. Online social networks allow a prospective customer or prospective member to easily facilitate a real, human-level connection with individuals within an organization. This enables genuine business relationships to form and puts an authentic human face on the interaction, changing the external perception of an organization from a sterile, faceless behemoth into a collection of individuals who are ready to help.
  • The use of the network to find experts or locate knowledge to better support customers. Only a fraction of an organization’s “knowledge” exists in databases. Another fraction exists in the form of explicit documents and reports that may be found on an organizational intranet. The vast majority of organizational knowledge, however, exists only in the heads of its members. Inside an organization, online networks with even basic profiles of its individuals’ experience, location, and interests can greatly reduce the time required for organizational problem-solving, by enabling a faster connection between a questioner and the person who has solved similar problems in the past.
  • Better service by providing customers with the “whole product.” It is rare that a single organization can provide all the pieces needed to meet and create an entire solution. For example, in addition to the fact that a real estate agent may help with the process of renting out an apartment and completing the tenant screening process (click here to learn more about such screening services), a customer would also have access to other service providers, such as a title company, bank, insurance agents and contractors to complete the procedures. By creating a strong network of complementary providers with similar philosophies and business practices, a single service provider can provide a much greater proposition to a prospective customer than an individual working without the benefit of the network. Investing in Real Estate CRM Software might be a good way to manage this and will also improve a customer’s relationship with a real estate company.
  • Creation of “all-star” teams that are right for each customer. Especially in service organizations, creating both the right set of skills and the right culture are key to creating a connection with a prospective customer. An internal social networking system enables the individuals responsible for creating relationships with prospects to pull together the “right” team to meet the prospective customer’s needs and, at the same time, pull together the unique group of individuals who will resonate with the prospect at a personal level.

As technology has progressed at an ever-increasing rate, the things that are actually beginning to bring customers closer to an organization are not technical at all. It’s an interesting bit of irony. And it’s inevitable.

Clue Unit #2 Show Notes: January 30, 2007

(click here to listen – MP3)

(click here to listen – M4A)

(click here to subscribe to this feed)

In this, our second podcast, we bring back…

  1. Introduction
  2. Announcements — conferences, news, etc.
  3. Focused Topical Discussion
  4. Conference Chatter — Anything goes

        

Today’s Topics:

  • Our inspiration to get into the business of online communities
  • What would you say to a marketing manager if you had 5 minutes to talk about online communities?
  • The controversy surrounding Microsoft sending bloggers free Ferrari laptops loaded with Vista.
  • Continue reading “Clue Unit #2 Show Notes: January 30, 2007”

    Jeff Foxworthy Does VRM

    As part of the ProjectVRM meeting yesterday, Joe Andrieu and yours truly facilitated a session asking the question:

    “What are the expressions (or perhaps “gestures”) that indicate that you might be in a relationship, instead of just a simple transaction?”

    (This was intended primarily to be in the business domain, although there is definitely a blurring of business and not-business when talking about actual interpersonal relationships.) These “expressions” are things you do, or things you feel, or real-world manifestations that indicate that a relationship may exist between parties. Please note, the relationship may be positive, or may be negative.

    Here was the list the group came up with. Can you add to it?

    “You might be in a relationship when…”

    • there are implications for the future
    • expectations
    • recognition
    • subscription
    • payment
    • tipping
    • genealogy
    • hate sites
    • strong feelings
    • recommend
    • contract
    • employment
    • ask advice
    • expose yourself to vulnerability (“trust”)
    • blacklist
    • conversation
    • stalking
    • repeat patronage
    • badmouth
    • reliance
    • federation
    • referral/introduction
    • sponsor
    • invite
    • rebuff
    • evaluate
    • hug / P.D.A.
    • advocate
    • commenting (e.g. blogs)
    • give gifts
    • find
    • respond
    • keep apprised
    • request
    • extend credit
    • support
    • vouch
    • shared experience
    • having coffee
    • conferences

    What are other expressions of relationships that you can think of?

    Clue Implementation Unit Podcast #1

    (click here to listen) (click here to subscribe to this feed)

    In this, our
    inaugural podcast, we introduce the Clue Unit podcast format which includes
    these recurring sections.

    1. Introduction
    2. Announcements — conferences, news, etc.
    3. Focused Topical Discussion
    4. Conference Chatter — Anything goes

          

    Today’s Topics:

    • The role and basis of reputation systems in online communities
  • Introduction of Joost (formerly The Venice Project), and what the beta shows about the direction of the technology and social elements of the system.
  • Issues concerning how much an organization should be able manipulate/remix submissions for projects that depend on user-generated content.
  • Continue reading “Clue Implementation Unit Podcast #1”

    IBM Announces Enterprise Social Networking Offerings

    Big Blue has announced that they are working on a new product called “Lotus Connections,” which is targeted for a late 2007 release. From the IHT:

    “IBM is planning to introduce a set of social software tools Monday that will bring the kind of blogging, idea-sharing and war-story-swapping typically associated with sites like MySpace to the corporate world.

    And you thought social networking was all about, well, social networking — and mostly among bored teenagers.

    Called Lotus Connections, the new software, which should be available to companies this year, will let employees set up virtual worlds in which they can meet like-minded colleagues within the company and exchange ideas with them, all in the name of improving productivity.

    The idea, said the IBM vice president for social software, Jeff Schick, is to “unlock the latent expertise in an organization.”

    This is fantastic validation of this market.

    (In related news, we have been seeing a ton a traffic here and on the Haystack network from the Lotusphere2007 domain today. Welcome!)

    Bonus e-Book link:
    Social Networking for Businesses and Associations (12 page PDF) (online slideshow)

    Bonus list:
    The Top Ten Ways Businesses, Associations and Organizations Can Use Social Networking