The Social Customer Manifesto

The Forrester "Social Computing" Paradox

Charlene Li gives an overview of Forrester's new "Social Computing" report. Key "tenets of social computing" outlined by Charlene:

• innovation will shfit from top-down to bottom-up
• value will shift from ownership to experience
• power will shift from institutions to communities

The third point is the one that caught my eye in particular, as it seems to be another point of validation on the idea that we are moving down this path:

Transactions => Conversations => Relationships => Communities (much more behind the link)

And then we get to the heart of the matter. Charlene:

"As I often stress, it's not about the technologies but about the new relationships that users will form. Technologies will come and go, but the power built on the relationships created by social computing will endure.

To fully appreciate the value of social computing, companies have to let go of control. That means letting customers control the brand if you're a marketer, and it means enabling new enterprise tools that IT can't easily control to attract and support employees with high social computing needs. In many ways, this is the source of the great distress that I routinely hear from corporate managers." (emphasis added)

Now the paradox...the report is only available to Forrester clients. If anyone has a copy, I'd love to see it.

The Social Customer Manifesto Podcast 3FEB2006

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Summary: Leif Chastaine and Christopher Carfi discuss Yahoo's strategy, Google's censorship, the remix culture and customer "co-creation" of products, the American Marketing Association's "Ahead of the Curve" session in Scottsdale, and this week's RIM/BlackBerry update. (33:06)

Show notes for February 3, 2006

The audio file is available here (MP3, 32MB), or subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically have future shows downloaded to your MP3 player.

00:00 : Intro

01:04 : Yahoo "quits" the search race? Or do they?

09:08 : Google image censorship and strategy

16:30 : The importance of customer "co-creation" of products

27:30 : RIM: "Non-final" judgement regarding BlackBerry is just that

31:45 : Social Networking: Ahead of the Curve (Scottsdale)

32:23 : Wrapup

Links:
Dave Taylor ("What do Yahoo, Apple and Ferrari have in common?"), Yahoo quits, Yahoo gives up, Yahoo content to be Google's footstool, Yahoo gives up race with Google, Steve Rubel, Google image censorship, Paul Greenberg, BPT Partners, customer co-creation, NTP="No Tenable Patents?", RIM patent dispute, AMA High Tech Trends in Marketing

The Social Customer Manifesto Podcast 27JAN2006

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Summary: Leif Chastaine and Christopher Carfi discuss the American Marketing Association's "Ahead of the Curve" session in Chicago, the marketing challenge for RSS, Salesforce.com taunts and tempts Siebel employees, launch of the "Healing Space" health and environment blog, and this week's RIM/BlackBerry Supreme Court decision. (33:32)

Show notes for January 27, 2006

The audio file is available here (MP3, 32MB), or subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically have future shows downloaded to your MP3 player.

00:00 : Intro

01:10 : Recap of the AMA's Ahead of the Curve session: High Tech Trends in Marketing

02:40 : What is RSS?

Metaphors:
Google search for RSS metaphors (n.b. and yes, actually these are "similes" and not "metaphors," we know, we know...)

"RSS is like an API for content"
"RSS is like selling dogfood over the internet"
"RSS is like Tivo for the web"
"Explaining RSS is like explaining sex. You just don't get it until you do it." (also here)
Dave Winer

11:45 : Salesforce.com to Siebel employees: "No Future"

19:30 : Healing Space health, wellness and environment blog launched

25:15 : Supremes won't intervene in RIM BlackBerry / NTP dispute

33:50 : Wrapup

Links:

Bill Flitter, Stowe Boyd, Randy Moss, Michael Sevilla, TheCradle, Salesforce.com, Siebel, Paul Greenberg, Todd Pesek, EarthHealers, Naturaleza Foundation, eco-tourism, Craig Williams, Howard Bashman, Research in Motion, BlackBerry, Ross Mayfield, Davos, BlackBerries a matter of national security

Live From The Gleacher Center

In the session at Ahead of the Curve.

Stowe just finished up a great overview on blogs, blogging and podcasting, and now Bill Flitter is just finishing his presentation. The big take-away for me ... RSS is still too complex. It's too complex to explain ... too complex to subscribe ... too complex to "show" what an RSS feed is ... too complex to communicate how and why it matters.

Once we get beyond the early-adopter crowd, what are the capabilities and metaphors that are needed to enable RSS to become so ubiquitous that we don't need to go through the nitty-gritty details? (In other words...I don't want to know how the internal combustion engine operates, I just want to reliably get to my destination.) Back in August, 2005, Chris Selland wrote:

"RSS is still very much the realm of early adopters (which is why only early-adopter-focused companies like Audible, Woot and HDNet are using it). But as RSS readers become more powerful and more ubiquitous - and particularly as they become more closely entwined with e-mail applications - expect the use of RSS to dramatically accelerate - much of it at the expense of e-mail."

This is still on-target.

Randy Moss is now up presenting the first part of the social networking discussion, and talking about directed apophenia, and leading into a group exercise. Everyone in the room is up at the front of the room, showing their connections to the others in the room, via past experiences, hobbies, hometowns, schools, products/brands they are passionate about, and the like. (By the way, Randy's book recommendation of the day: The Hidden Power of Social Networks by Rob Cross.)

Randy: "It's critical for organizations to host communities. If a company does this, they're the good guy, they are the one who is providing the network for individuals to connect." (bravo!)

Michael Sevilla from Umbria is now presenting a state of the blogosphere preso. Now moving into a discussion of promoters and detractors, and is highlighting the Qwest's Terms of Service flap. (Michael was affected by it.)

VERY interesting. Now going through things that one can do with OpinMind. For example, blog sentiment of Microsoft and Apple. (N.B. Kind of a neat tool, but it does not seem to have a deep listing of sources. Hopefully it'll grow more over time.)

fin

(top photo: UChicago)

Sooooooooooooey!

In a cruel twist, the first casualties of the Everyday Hogwash contest may be project's sponsor, SunRocket, and GMD Studios, the agency driving the project. High-profile blogger Steve Rubel, who just yesterday announced that he was one of the judges of the Googlejuice machine contest, has very publicly pulled out, stating "The Everyday Hogwash contest plays into [the] 'online lynch mob' meme that I have been trying to refute. I am going to back out as a judge. It's simply not consistent with how I feel about the overall balance of the blogosphere."

Steve's change-of heart was driven by a well-worded missive by Andy Beal, who may win the first great irony award of 2006 for his post. Beal:

"How many of you were offended with the Forbes article that labelled bloggers as an 'online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective.'

Well, contests like 'Everyday Hogwash' certainly don't help. The contest encourages bloggers to complain about businesses in hope of winning prizes. That's terrible.

Why do we want to encourage just the complainers? Why reinforce the negative image of bloggers? Surely the sponsor SunRocket could get the same publicity by encouraging both negative AND positive comments?

I think this reflects badly on SunRocket, so, ironically, consider this my entry to the contest."

NYTimes: Thomas Hawk Gets Revenge Over PriceRitePhoto

Back in November, Thomas Hawk ordered a camera online from PriceRitePhoto. There were several "problems" with the order, according to PriceRitePhoto...most seemingly stemming from Thomas's unwillingness to succumb to the pressure being put on him to buy extra memory, batteries, extended warranties, and the like. Things got heated on both sides, the fulfillment of the order was dragging on and on, and words were exchanged. Eventually, the PriceRitePhoto manager, Steve Phillips, gets into the act. Thomas:

"So today I checked on my order online again and saw that it had not been routed to shipping and called the company back again. Four times I was put on hold for a substantial amount of time and had to hang up and call the company again. Finally I was able to connect with an individual who said his name was Steve Phillips. Steve Phillips abruptly told me that the camera was out of stock. When I protested and told him that it was confirmed online yesterday and verbally by his sales rep he refused to budge.

At this point I thanked him and informed him that I would be writing an article about my experience with his company. It was at this point that he went ballistic. He first told me that if I did this that he would not cancel my order but just never fill it. If I cancelled it he said he'd charge me a 15% restocking fee. When I told him that that would be unethical he went nuts. He accused me of trying to "extort" him and said that he was going to have two local police officers come over and arrest me. He then went on to say that as a "professional photographer" I should have known better than to try and buy a camera this way and that he was an attorney and would sue me if I wrote an article about my experience."

Thomas wrote up the story, it was picked up by Digg, BoingBoing and others, and it became a phenomenon. Again, Thomas Hawk:

"I think that the popularity of this story comes in large part because the message resonates so strongly with all of us. Although in a sense it is the classic tale of David and Goliath retold, it is much more than this. We all have at one point or another in our lives been bullied and most of us have been defrauded or ripped off. The fact that so many times in the past there was nothing we could do about it makes us feel all that much better about the fact that in today’s internet and blogosphere we actually CAN do something about it.

Out of all of this, hopefully more than anything, this story will serve as a reminder to shady businesses everywhere that in the end fraud and abusive behavior towards customers does not pay. Perhaps I’m being overly idealistic here and perhaps this incident is the smallest possible blip in the greater world of internet fraud -- but one thing I do know is that the power of the consumer is growing. And in a new world today with tools like blogs and Slashdot and Digg the consumer is empowered in great ways that they never have been in the past."

Now, in the span of just a few weeks, the story is in The New York Times (reg. req'd, excerpts here) and the PriceRitePhoto warehouse space seems to have been abandoned. Additionally, according to the article in the Times, no one has picked up PriceRitePhoto's mail in over two months. (Note: It also appears the PriceRitePhoto has been trying to reinvent itself as Barclaysphoto on Ebay, and has also registered Barclaysphoto.com.)

Thomas, I salute you. And to all the PriceRitePhotos of the world...well, there are some dishes best served cold.

(slingshot photo: http://www.mwart.com, hat tip: jeff jarvis)

Uhaul: No Truck Availalble

Seeing a lot of folks coming in today from a Google search of "uhaul no truck available" who are hitting this old post -- Uhaul: Never Again. Sweet.

Amazon Rant

danah: "One of the things that i hate about the whole online vendors thing is that we've lost customer service completely. What happened to the customer is always right ethos? What happened to being really conscious of valued customers?"

Customer Servant

From today's mail bag...

"Hi, Chris:

I work for a company whose business it is to handle things like technical support for large outsourced [customer support] contracts. No, I don't speak for the company. I'm just a lowly customer servant, trying to bring a little intelligence, and a lot less duplicity and BS to the job.

While I'll concede that a lot of the people working in customer service are idiots, and thus do their own part to bungle the experience for callers, I'd also like to point out that, in a lot of the cases where we'd like to help, our hands are tied.

If the almighty client says to do something, or not to do something, we have to obey, if we want to keep our jobs. And most of us like to eat on a daily basis, and we're just trying to avoid being demolished by the client."

Amanda writes the Customer Servant Blog (tagline: "Bringing a little humanity to customer service") and is actually thinking about doing a little experiment herself.

"I’m going to have the suits sit down at computers with no mice, and scroll through those with their keyboards to find the information they need."

Virgil Ditches Jeremy Zawodny, Leaves Him To Navigate Dell Hell Alone

Surprise! Another chronicle of Dell support follies.