Corporate ClueTrain

In taking this class, reading these books and observing the Sun blogs, my goal is to help organizations "get a clue" by understanding how to use blogging as a tool to promote two-way communication with their constituents, ultimately resulting in loyal customers, vibrant online communities, and social capital.

In corporate/pr speak, corporations need to do a better job building relationships with consumers, or their publics, using an authentic voice. In Cluetrain talk, "Loyalty to a company is based on respect. And that respect is based on how the company has conducted itself in conversations with the market. Not conversing, participating, is not an option. If we don't engage people inside and outside our organization in conversation, someone else will. Start talking (p. 73)."

The end result of the conversation will be social capital--loyalty--to the organization. Nan Lin (2001) has written about social capital and defines social capital as “investments in social relations with expected returns in the marketplace (p.19).” He quotes Levi-Strass (1949) when he says that “it is the exchange which counts and not the things exchanged (p. 146).” And, Lin (2001) says, “its motive its to maintain a group or community (p. 148).” He adds that trust is a critical component of those exchange relationships, in that it “reduces the complexity of the world (p. 148).” He also addresses how a firm can utilize its reputation “to mobilize the support of others for both instrumental and expressive actions (p. 150).” Grunig (1993) suggests that a firm “earn a good reputation early, because it is difficult to replace an existing reputation with a new one (p. 135). Grunig (1993) examines the fuzzy concept of image, and suggests that a firm must be concerned with more than just public perception of its image, but must be concerned with the substance of its relationship with its publics, as well. Grunig (1993) correctly identifies that “although it may be difficult for large organizations to communicate personally with all members of their publics, they have means other than the media to communications with publics (p. 123.” When Grunig (1993) wrote this, blogging was not widespread, but today, blogging nicely solves the problem that he identifies that prevents an organization from forming a relationship with its public.

Grunig (1993) differentiates between symbolic and behavioral communication. Symbolic communication is quest for positive images (Grunig, 1993); concerned with what an organization communicates to its publics—one-way communication about its image. He contrasts behavioral communication as a longer-term strategy of building substantive relationships with publics based on: “reciprocity, trust, credibility, mutual legitimacy, openness, mutual satisfaction, and mutual understanding (p. 135).” Creating blogs or online communities have the potential to build all of these attributes with an organization’s publics by sharing information in an authentic voice.
In examining whether or not a company should encourage blogs as a way to communicate with their constituents, the best avenue to build social capital, then, would be the blogs that promote an exchange of information, or work to create a dialogue between the company and its customers, thereby reducing the complexity of the relationship, building one that has greater trust. This is precisely what the communities on the Sun website are doing.

Lin (2001) argues (contrary to Putnam) that social capital in cybernetworks is increasing due to increased access to information and technology as well as the ability of people to reach out across boundaries of time and space. Howard Rheingold (2003) in "Smart Mobs" observes that "Trading knowledge isn't new. ...one of the most attractive social innovations enabled by virtual communities was the way members could serve as information hunters and gatherers for each other" to provide collaborative filtering (p. 116). "Reputation is even more important in commerce than it is in conversation (p. 123)."

Tönnies would define the Sun community as Gemeinschaft, or community that has a shared belief or shared will. These Sun bloggers definitely exhibit more than self-interest (Gesellschaft) in the way that they share information, comment back and forth, link to each other, and show up on each other's blogroll.

The potential of this social capital and conversation is to create “a group of people who care about each other more than they have to (Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999).”