CRM’s infatuation with all things social may be taking a bite out of its backside. Too often CRM vendors focus on outbound messaging through products like Twitter and Facebook while forgetting about Stephen Covey.
Stephen Covey?
You might remember him as the guru who told us about “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” Remember Habit 5? “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Brilliant stuff—something we all should have been taught at home though I confess I don’t recall that memo. My bad. I caught up eventually.
A recent article in The Economist brought a lot home to me. The article quotes work by Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, a Harvard Business School professor and one of his MBA students Bill Heil. According to The Economist, the researchers surveyed more than 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009 and reported results that include:
- More than half said they tweeted less than once every 74 days
- The most active 10% of Twitter users published 90% of all tweets
That last bullet should give anyone who believes in the wisdom of crowds reason to pause. What kind of crowd? Ought to be the first question we ask, followed by, who is in it? This goes right back to Covey—understand the audience before beginning your sermon. The first bullet proves another kind of wisdom; the kind that understands that membership is not participation.
Of course there are times when the proverbial (or Monty Pythonesque) blind horse could tell you all you need to know, as in when you start getting complaints that a product or process is broken. But that’s called feedback and often we confuse it with discovery.
When you really want to discover what your customers think—their attitudes, behaviors, biases, and unmet needs—it really helps to know that the data you are collecting is coming from a reasonable cross section, not the noisy ten percent. Just as there are names for processes like “feedback” and “discovery” there’s a term that describes that noisy ten percent. They’re often called outliers.
CRM’s work with social media so far seems focused in various ways on the outliers, and predictably vendors are still trying to figure out social media’s true potential. If you understand the value of communities, it should be obvious.
Nicole Adriance 
On my way to a recent conference, a stranger standing next to me in the elevator posed that question to me. Sometimes it’s the off-occurrences in life that stick with you and I’ve been contemplating the question ever since.
Chuck Katz 
I knew I had to give it a whirl, so just a few weeks ago, I sent out a few invites for my mother’s annual Christmas Eve party. First, I selected the style, a beautiful square red trimmed card with a green satin bow that shined just like the real thing. Then, I used their “wording assistant” to help me write the card and chose the envelope and I was ready to go! Within a few minutes I already had an email back from my sister telling me that this year’s evite was better than year’s past. Of course, there is nothing like getting a card in the mail, but I am pretty sure this comes close.
James Bailey 
Katie (Dennis) Adams 
heather c 
In July, I tweeted about the Pomegranate:
Steve 
Nice post … isn’t it best to know as many systems as possible anyway?!
Great post, Jack. I guess I’m at Stage 2 of the conversion process you describe. I embraced the iPod, then the iPhone, and now I’m looking into buying a Mac. I guess my thinking is – PC for work; Mac for fun (i.e. media).
Mike, I completely agree. There are a lot of things that I feel like I can only do on a PC (mainly work related) but I turn to my Mac for the fun things!
I am actually a new mac user– a friend of mine gave me his iBook G4 when he upgraded to a MacBook, something I plan on doing soon as well! I quickly found that using a Mac to surf the web, use iTunes, and manage digital photos was easier and more fun than on a PC.
I think someday I will become a Mac, but for now I am a “PC” who loves using a Mac.
Halley, I agree – being familiar with multiple systems makes a user more versatile. Mike, that is how I see it right now too – PC for work and Mac for play.
Jack,
In the spirit of computer-related confessions, I’m a Mac gal who’s currently thinking of buying a PC. My Mac just doesn’t offer me a good gaming environment and it bums me out. (Yes, I game too. Am I revealing too much?) I think it’s interesting that most folks think of Macs as their “fun” machine (see Mike’s post above). The truth is…sometimes I think of my Mac as a really expensive place to keep my music and pictures. Sigh….
That being said, I love, love, love my iPhone.
Karen, I will send you a link directly to a nice HP notebook, very powerful, very affordable – you should get what you need from it. Not much of a gamer myself, need to find something to try though.
Jack,
I love this post and so appreciate it!
It has been enjoyable to see you slowly but surely join the bright, sunny side that is the world of ‘being’ a MAC. It is a nice pastime for those of us who are die hard groupies of MAC computers and avid people watchers.
You bring up some very valid points of discussion re being a MAC or a PC. I agree that depending on what you use the device for, you could be tipped one way or the other.
Some observations from someone who has been a MAC girl since high school:
•In my experience, using a PC 100% of the time is akin to being an active member of a dangerous cult, especially if you happen to be an IT professional. Until you spend some time away from the PC environment (or until you are ‘deprogrammed’ by a Mac) you don’t realize anything was amiss with the way you have been operating.
•As a MAC user, I can totally see why it would be challenging for a PC person to come over to this side, especially if you live and die by the evil empire’s useful apps. Take for example, MS Outlook. I have completely abandoned Entourage, the MS answer to Outlook, as it is extremely frustrating and does not have the functionality I require for being effective professionally. I am sure there are many others like me.
•I tend to view it as being a ‘native’ speaker of a language. Be it you are a PC or a MAC native, you are always going to be more comfortable in whatever language you grew up with. That said, bi-lingual folks tend to appreciate the positive side effects of being able to express themselves in more than one language. It just makes you better rounded.
Pls keep blogging about your experience. So fun to read!
Great Post, Jack.
I purchased my first Mac after a bad PC experience, hard disk failure after owning the pc for a week. That was 8 years ago. I wanted it for iTunes, and iDvd for home videos. I didn’t go through the 3 stages, I just thought, for what I need at home, this is going to be much easier than anything I’ve seen on the PC. Now I own 3 macs, and I’ve never looked back.
I’m happy to hear that you’re enjoying your Mac.
Great job bridging the un-bridgeable gap, Jack.
I think it’s just a matter of needs and taste just as with any product; I am a loyal Mac user, but hate the iPhone (I still like to have buttons on my phone, thanks).
TBWA’s Mac vs. PC ads are definitely better than any PC ad I’ve seen in a while though.
Thanks Mike and Gina! I appreciate the comments.
Gina, you are actually the very first Mac lover I have heard from who hates the iPhone! Although I do hear you about the buttons (I am a recovering Blackberry user), I still feel the functionality of the iPhone is remarkable. But I must admit that the auto-correct and word-suggest features can drive me crazy when trying to type something on it.
I actually started on a MAC and then moved to a PC because it was the business standard. Full circle? Yup.