Tuesday, November 08, 2005
There will be talking on the train...
One of the first things we talked about in class was to look for a virtual community that encouraged 2-way communication, or dialogue, between its participants and/or the organization that might be involved. As you can see from the blog list, the list of Sun bloggers is enormous. Those with the most recent posts are listed, as well as their technorati rating. There are blogs listed in japanese, chinese, and from all over the world. It's "a small world after all". As Dan Gilmor says in Chapter 2, "blogs are about voice and human passion."
The Cluetrain Manifesto describes communication on the web the same way...
"Compared to this personal, intimate, knowledgeable, and highly engaged voice, which is emerging bottom-up on the Internet today, top-down corporate communications come across as statel and stentorian (p.x)."
The web is not to "gather eyeballs" but "a global set of conversations--people talking together, in their own voices, about what they care about (p. xi)."
Doc Searls' philosophy of marketing (p. xiv) sums it up:
* Markets are conversations; and
* Conversation is fire. Therefore
* Marketing is arson
In class, we discussed the word Kairos, which means "an opportune occasion for speech". Using blogs to communicate with customers is a very powerful way to allow human passion to come through, unfiltered by a marketing or public relations department, allowing those with the most specialized knowledge to share their expertise with customers who are deeply interested.
The intersection of passion, expertise, and interest should make for some very interesting conversations on the train. There are too many organizations that don't take advantage of those opportunities to let their employees shine, instead, transferring an inquiring customer to investor relations for more information. You can bet that the curiousity and conversation end there. That is like sending people to the library, where talking is not allowed (with apologies to Michael). As Dan Gillmor cautions in Chapter 4, "Businesses need to engage in the conversations that are already occurring about their products and practices." Instead of practicing crisis management, companies can be participating up-front in creating the excitement and setting the record straight about their products and services.
As the Cluetrain Manifesto observes, "Natural, human conversation is the true language of commerce." (p. xvii)
A recent survey by IntelliSeek found that "Consumers are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by word-of-mouth recommendations from their peers than by radio/TV ads." This study also found that employee credibility is higher than corporate marketing campaigns. If it is Word-of-mouth, there will be talking on the train.
The Cluetrain Manifesto describes communication on the web the same way...
"Compared to this personal, intimate, knowledgeable, and highly engaged voice, which is emerging bottom-up on the Internet today, top-down corporate communications come across as statel and stentorian (p.x)."
The web is not to "gather eyeballs" but "a global set of conversations--people talking together, in their own voices, about what they care about (p. xi)."
Doc Searls' philosophy of marketing (p. xiv) sums it up:
* Markets are conversations; and
* Conversation is fire. Therefore
* Marketing is arson
In class, we discussed the word Kairos, which means "an opportune occasion for speech". Using blogs to communicate with customers is a very powerful way to allow human passion to come through, unfiltered by a marketing or public relations department, allowing those with the most specialized knowledge to share their expertise with customers who are deeply interested.
The intersection of passion, expertise, and interest should make for some very interesting conversations on the train. There are too many organizations that don't take advantage of those opportunities to let their employees shine, instead, transferring an inquiring customer to investor relations for more information. You can bet that the curiousity and conversation end there. That is like sending people to the library, where talking is not allowed (with apologies to Michael). As Dan Gillmor cautions in Chapter 4, "Businesses need to engage in the conversations that are already occurring about their products and practices." Instead of practicing crisis management, companies can be participating up-front in creating the excitement and setting the record straight about their products and services.
As the Cluetrain Manifesto observes, "Natural, human conversation is the true language of commerce." (p. xvii)
A recent survey by IntelliSeek found that "Consumers are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by word-of-mouth recommendations from their peers than by radio/TV ads." This study also found that employee credibility is higher than corporate marketing campaigns. If it is Word-of-mouth, there will be talking on the train.
Who's on the train?
Before I do an audit of every corporate blog, I'd like to introduce you to a company that is intriguing to me--Sun Microsystems.
In Ch. 5 of "We the Media", Dan Gillmor quotes Bill Joy (who was) with Sun as saying, "most of the brightest people don't work for any one organization. Tapping the power of everyone is the best approach." You can find Sun's 1200+ blogs here. I had the opportunity to meet and interview Dave Johnson, developer of the Sun blogger software, Roller, which is how I was introduced to Sun's prolific set of bloggers. Dave created the Roller software and blogged about it as he created it, while working for another company. Sun liked the software, adopted it internally, and started asking him to make adjustments to it to suit their needs. He finally convinced them that it would be in their best interests to hire him to take care of them full-time, rather than get to their adjustments on his weekend time. In light of Bill's statement above, it is no surprise that they agreed. When Dave joined Sun, there were about 100 or so internal bloggers. As you can see, there are now over 1200! Dave takes pride in listening to "customers" to make Roller better and better. Dave is a rather modest guy but both in person and on blog, it is quite obvious that he has "a clue." I'd say that Dave is the conductor of the Sun blogs!
In Ch. 5 of "We the Media", Dan Gillmor quotes Bill Joy (who was) with Sun as saying, "most of the brightest people don't work for any one organization. Tapping the power of everyone is the best approach." You can find Sun's 1200+ blogs here. I had the opportunity to meet and interview Dave Johnson, developer of the Sun blogger software, Roller, which is how I was introduced to Sun's prolific set of bloggers. Dave created the Roller software and blogged about it as he created it, while working for another company. Sun liked the software, adopted it internally, and started asking him to make adjustments to it to suit their needs. He finally convinced them that it would be in their best interests to hire him to take care of them full-time, rather than get to their adjustments on his weekend time. In light of Bill's statement above, it is no surprise that they agreed. When Dave joined Sun, there were about 100 or so internal bloggers. As you can see, there are now over 1200! Dave takes pride in listening to "customers" to make Roller better and better. Dave is a rather modest guy but both in person and on blog, it is quite obvious that he has "a clue." I'd say that Dave is the conductor of the Sun blogs!
