I don’t know if it was the stir-craziness of 4 days of being ill or what, but I just wrote my first post over at The Future of Communities that may also be my last… 
I just couldn’t add to a conversation about community transforming business et al. It made me sad. Too many smart people talking ROI and increased revenues. I hope Francois forgives me. He’s a nice guy.
7 Comments
Isn’t it all about voicing your honest opinion? People know what they are getting with you so when they sign you up - you are called Miss Rogue for a reason!
You are making a perfectly valid point though and one which should hopefully make people realise that commercial benefits are a fortunate side-effect of building communities.
I guess though, it is always going to boil down to a Star Wars-type good versus evil community versus return discussion…after all with £17.5 million losses per day, I am sure even Ford would struggle to justify investing in a community unless it could see some sort of return.
Tara - I respect any decision you make, and I appreciate your willingness to engage with the FoC project. All that being said, let me take one more stab at changing your mind
I agree with you that there are many ignorant marketers out there who will try to co-opt what they perceive as a new technique and abuse it to the point where it could make the whole process worthless for the rest of us.
Regardless, there there are wonderful uses of communities in business - some that are resulting in much better products, some that are resulting in better services and some that are resulting in better and more affordable prices for the products we buy. Using communities in business is not just about marketing, it’s about new product development, innovation, customer service and many other processes. We have to make sure that this industry does not get taken over by marketers.
As I said in my comment on the FoC blog to your post, I also believe that there are inherent protection mechanisms in communities that could very well automatically provide immunization from any abuser. In any group environment there has to be something in it for each individual, or else a group will not collaborate, co-create, or even communicate with you.
Lastly I also do believe that there are many well-meaning companies and individuals out there who would like to get the insights from people like you on how to do it right…and sure, many will ask about ROI and other corporate-speak like that - unfortunately that is just how we have conditioned a whole generation of business leaders.
Thanks for this, Tara. Much of what you wrote really resonates with me, and I’ve shared the article with my compadres at Flock.
I think you havwe hit the nail on the head Francois when you say…”unfortunately that is just how we have conditioned a whole generation of business leaders”…
Community is a relatively new phenomenon to the mainstream business world and the only way they know how to evaluate it is by using standard “old-school” metrics.
Given time, as business leaders understand the best way to sell to someone is by NOT selling to them, different metrics will evolve…the next question (and I believe it is an important one) is…how will the research companies evolve with measurement of satisfaction and other such subjective terms in keeping with the hands-off approach of community marketing.
Hi Paul - in my travels to try to get the program for the community 2.0 up and running and also to get the Community management and marketing Council of the ground I have found many companies that are struggling with the need for new metrics. I see that, along with strong ethical guidelines as the potential top priorities of the council if we get that association off the ground.
As it relates to communities, the person who so far seems to have the best answer to metrics is John Hagel. He thinks that we should replace ROI with ROI - except that the new ROI stands for Return On Information. That ROI needs to be calculated and monitored for both the company that engages communities but perhaps more importantly for the users who participate in those communities. If those people do not get a good return on the information that they give you, they will stop doing business with you.
Great point Francois. The interesting is the constant customer-centric approach in translating the informaiton received.
I guess traditionally, businesses would look to gleam short-term sales gains from such community feedback, whereas now/in the future they should also look to give something back short-term as a short-term response to feedback.
It makes me wonder whether the marketing plan as we know it is null and void - how can something that needs to be so responsive be planned in advance?!
You’ve got me as a new subscriber Francois…you make great sense!
“Using communities in business is not just about marketing, it’s about new product development, innovation, customer service and many other processes.”
Amen. Remember that a community should be customer-focused, not company-focused.