Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Growth and Culture: “What’s it really like to work at Communispace?”

At a recent company-wide meeting, a long-time client summed up the unique culture at Communispace: “You have really achieved a culture here that most companies only dream of… don’t ever lose it.”

There are a number of rewards that I’ve experienced as an employee at Communispace, all of which help to feed our culture continuously. Working with more than 100 of the best and most innovative brands on the planet is one. So is being associated with a revolutionary concept in the market research landscape—one that was co-innovated by our CEO and first client over 10 years ago. Of course working alongside some of the most talented, hard working, and fun people I have ever met is a constant source of job satisfaction.

At a recent company-wide meeting, a long-time client summed up the unique culture at Communispace: “You have really achieved a culture here that most companies only dream of… don’t ever lose it.”

There are a number of rewards that I’ve experienced as an employee at Communispace, all of which help to feed our culture continuously. Working with more than 100 of the best and most innovative brands on the planet is one. So is being associated with a revolutionary concept in the market research landscape—one that was co-innovated by our CEO and first client over 10 years ago. Of course working alongside some of the most talented, hard working, and fun people I have ever met is a constant source of job satisfaction.

I get a real jolt of pride and job satisfaction out of telling people where I work. These days, Communispace carries name recognition as a great place to work, and I’m routinely asked by my peers how they can get their foot in the door.

The question I am asked most often is something like, “What’s it really like to work there?” or “Is it really as cool as it seems?” My answer is simple and true: What you see on the outside is exactly what you get on the inside. No hidden agendas, no debilitating politics—just hard working individuals passionate about being the best at what they do.

Yesterday’s article in The New York Times highlights one of the really innovative aspects of our culture here. The message of the story just makes it even easier to respond to those questions with deeper conviction. 

As you will see in the article, our growth is not inhibiting our culture at all. In fact, it continues to evolve daily.

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Social CRM: A work in progress?

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?

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.

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Dancing with the CRM Stars

Dear CRM Magazine,

Wow! Communispace is so excited that you have given us a CRM Service Rising Star Award, thank you! We are really proud of what we provide for our wonderful clients. The Communispace “two-step” of our services is no easy feat.

Dear CRM Magazine,

Wow! Communispace is so excited that you have given us a CRM Service Rising Star Award, thank you! We are really proud of what we provide for our wonderful clients. The Communispace “two-step” of our services is no easy feat.

We are thrilled to be CDW’s “dance partner” and also a partner to our many other clients who are striving to deeply understand their customers. It’s true that our emphasis on a continuous discovery process, going beyond simple feedback, helps our clients grow their business. It leads to better marketing, improved product development processes, and a company that’s truly customer-centric.

CRM guru Denis Pombriant’s comments make us want to twist and shout—we’ve worked hard to create a solution that gives our clients new insights while not leaving “community-building to chance.”

You think our two-step is impressive? Just wait til you see us cha-cha…

We really appreciate the recognition, thank you!

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Moving from Social Media to Social Business

Thanks to Diane and company for giving me an opportunity to share thoughts with you via Verbatim. I’ve been following Communispace since 2006, when I covered social computing as a research analyst; now I see the value of what the company is doing through a lens of social business design.

Over the past decade, we’ve been witnessing the rise of social media. While we are fundamentally social beings, technology advances and cultural preferences have driven proliferation of these behaviors online. The series of tubes that carry data are wider and reach further than ever. Moore’s law still holds true, as does Metcalf’s—to which 400 million Facebook users across a variety of platforms can attest. We have become conditioned to share opinions on anything and everything in our new digital forums, salons, and echo chambers.

Thanks to Diane and company for giving me an opportunity to share thoughts with you via Verbatim. I’ve been following Communispace since 2006, when I covered social computing as a research analyst; now I see the value of what the company is doing through a lens of social business design.

Over the past decade, we’ve been witnessing the rise of social media. While we are fundamentally social beings, technology advances and cultural preferences have driven proliferation of these behaviors online. The series of tubes that carry data are wider and reach further than ever. Moore’s law still holds true, as does Metcalf’s—to which 400 million Facebook users across a variety of platforms can attest. We have become conditioned to share opinions on anything and everything in our new digital forums, salons, and echo chambers.

At the same time, many of us seem to have realized that pursuing work/life balance ends up as corporate Samsara. Instead, we’ve intertwined work and life to the extent that we do what we love and love what we do. (Or perhaps have gotten much better at fooling ourselves about it.) Along the way, we started bringing our toys to work and realized that our personal technology was better than the company’s.

Good businesses follow the action and most brands finally realize that these trends can be harnessed for commercial benefit. But using social media for business is easier said than done—so far, many brands have been tacking on social real estate to campaigns the same way they’ve been doing with digital microsites and banner ads. To make social media work, businesses must participate in this space differently than consumers; in other words, they’ve got to take a social business approach.

I think Communispace provides a great example in helping companies participate in social business. Using a framework developed by Dachis Group, here’s how I see the company creating social business value:

  • The Ecosystem. Providing connections with prospects and customers to help extend organizational functions beyond those on the payroll, e.g. marketing research.
  • The Hivemind. Allowing brands to become more culturally calibrated with their customers. Understanding motivations paves the way for social calibration.
  • The Dynamic Signal. Bringing out insight from previously unheard voices. The silos in existing listening processes prevent weak signals from being heard.
  • The Metafilter. Moderating discussion and drawing out signals from noise. Listening requires a balance of automated filtering and manual curation.

It’s time to shift from social media and get down to social business. Finding the right partners to help you get there matters.

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What is Research without Closing the Feedback Loop?

In our business they say insights can come from even the smallest nugget. Well the light bulb flashed on for me last night while enjoying some prime time television. Among the menagerie of ads for cars, electronics, and food was an ad for Domino’s Pizza. I know what you’re thinking, pizza ad? Must be a glamour shot of drippy cheese, crunchy crust, and sizzling pepperoni (heck, I’m getting hungry just writing about it). Wrong.

In our business they say insights can come from even the smallest nugget. Well the light bulb flashed on for me last night while enjoying some prime time television. Among the menagerie of ads for cars, electronics, and food was an ad for Domino’s Pizza. I know what you’re thinking, pizza ad? Must be a glamour shot of drippy cheese, crunchy crust, and sizzling pepperoni (heck, I’m getting hungry just writing about it). Wrong.

Instead the president and managers of Dominos Pizza admitted their guilt, internalized their feedback, and fed (no pun intended) it back to the customer. No hiding behind the numbers here. Focus groups, Twitter, and more told Domino’s that their pizza was bad from its cardboard crust to its ketchupy sauce. Despite my fond college memories of late night Domino’s deliveries, they revamped their pizza lineup with fresher ingredients, better recipes, and a new sense of pride. But they didn’t stop there, they did the most important act of all and told the customer what they did with their feedback (you can see the video here).

This is what I deem the crowning achievement of their hard work. Rather than squirreling their research away and perhaps never acting on it, Domino’s aired it out for us and showed us how they acted upon it. Hopefully, the feedback inspired customers to feel empowered, to know their voice counts, and to continue advising Domino’s and others on what the customer wants. After all, who doesn’t want to hear that they affected change in the age of the consumer?

2 Responses to “What is Research without Closing the Feedback Loop?”

  1. Jani Fraga says:

    This “turn-around” trend is becoming more and more important in the economy today. It is vital for a customer’s voice to be heard in a time where everyone is pinching pennies. If I am going to order a pizza, am I going to order one where I have deemed their sauce ketchuppy? Pizza in my house has gone from weekend staple to a special occassion, and so to hear that Domino’s has heard my plea for a delicious treat? (Put my order in with yours, Rich! I am getting hungry too!)

    Crocs and Windows 7 have also based a lot of their ad campaigns on the buzz around their products. Windows’ campaign of “I invented Winndows 7″ or Crocs “I like the Crocs sneakers, but I will never wear the red ones” show that companies ARE listening, and the result is something we can all bite into :)

  2. Rob Markey says:

    Great article, Richard. In December, Harvard Business Review published an article we authored on exactly this topic. You can find it here: http://hbr.org/2009/12/closing-the-customer-feedback-loop/ar/1.

    The Dominos approach to this situation is really refreshing.

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Getting Visual(ly) Inspired

Happy Friday FOVs (Friends of Verbatim)! There’s nothing I like more than finding a new website to make me laugh, get me thinking, or inspire me to create. In the spirit of sharing, I offer you my new favorite.

Happy Friday FOVs (Friends of Verbatim)! There’s nothing I like more than finding a new website to make me laugh, get me thinking, or inspire me to create.  In the spirit of sharing, I offer you my new favorite.

So, return the favor…what are you loving online these days?

4 Responses to “Getting Visual(ly) Inspired”

  1. Brad Mampe says:

    I’ve been having an average time recently:

    http://www.averagecats.com/
    http://mylifeisaverage.com/

  2. Jani Fraga says:

    Communispacer Catie Schadlick turned me onto this little gem:

    http://www.bakerella.com

    With adorable little stories, and new sweet ideas, Bakerella gets my confectionary creative juices flowing!

  3. Diane Hessan says:

    I have tons of sites that I love, but this one cracks me up: http://tweetingtoohard.com/

  4. Jani, I also love bakarella, her cake pops are amazing (too bad my baking skills stop at break and bake)!

    Right now I am loving http://www.thesixtyone.com! It’s a music streaming site with a fresh, clean format and great quality tunes!

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Yahoo! What The Top Searches of 2009 Might Tell Us

Jon Keller, of WBZ-TV, recently asked for my perspective on Yahoo!’s “Most Popular Web Searches for 2009”. If you haven’t read the list yet, guess what made the Top Ten. What might we have wondered about in 2009? Obama? The war in Iraq? Sarah Palin? Twitter? Mad Men? AIG?

Jon Keller, of WBZ-TV, recently asked for my perspective on Yahoo!’s “Most Popular Web Searches for 2009”. If you haven’t read the list yet, guess what made the Top Ten. What might we have wondered about in 2009? Obama? The war in Iraq? Sarah Palin? Twitter? Mad Men? AIG? 

Most people I interviewed were surprised at the results:  a roundup of pop culture icons—and escapist activities ranging from video games to WWF to American Idol. There are many implications of the results, not the least of which is that as marketers we shouldn’t assume we understand what occupies people’s minds these days, because we’d probably get it wrong. Here’s the link to the Jon Keller piece, where he and I agree that our collective fascination with relatively “shallow” topics is probably more related to needed therapy in stressful times than it is to a Cultural Armageddon. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

2 Responses to “Yahoo! What The Top Searches of 2009 Might Tell Us”

  1. [...] This post was Twitted by CommunispaceCEO [...]

  2. [...] This post was Twitted by paulinechu [...]

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Dishing with Diane: Jerry Kane shares his perspective on the power of social media

Jerry Kane, Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Carroll School of Management Boston College, sat down with me recently to discuss how companies can gauge the effectiveness of social media within their organizations. He provides his professional perspective on the future of social networking.

Jerry Kane, Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Carroll School of Management Boston College, sat down with me recently to discuss how companies can gauge the effectiveness of social media within their organizations. He provides his professional perspective on the future of social networking.

2 Responses to “Dishing with Diane: Jerry Kane shares his perspective on the power of social media”

  1. Joe Wehr says:

    Diane

    Nice interview with BC’s “wiki professor”. Thanks.

    What I wouldn’t do to swap places with my nephew, Joe Wehr, BC ‘10.

    Joe Wehr, BC ‘69

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Montreux, Pecha Kucha, and 21st Century Market Research: Highlights of the 2009 ESOMAR Congress

At this time last month I was in Montreux, Switzerland, attending the annual ESOMAR Congress. After four days of schmoozing, over-eating, and lots of listening—and after several weeks of reflection—some recurring themes have continued to resonate with me; ones that are currently influencing how we understand and conduct market research.

At this time last month I was in Montreux, Switzerland, attending the annual ESOMAR Congress. After four days of schmoozing, over-eating, and lots of listening—and after several weeks of reflection—some recurring themes have continued to resonate with me; ones that are currently influencing how we understand and conduct market research.

Diverse perspectives expand our viewpoints and uncover insights.
Communispace was invited to represent North America in the “global expedition” Pecha Kucha session, which was challenging, a lot of fun, and also eye opening. Each region presented their perspective on the global financial crisis—we heard, for example, that Switzerland (representing Europe) was alarmed by their nearly 4% unemployment rate (which is several points lower than what we have seen in the U.S. in over 40 years), and the representative from Nigeria reminded the audience that Africa has been in a recession for 100 years! While the fact of global diversity is not new, the contrast among these regional perspectives was refreshing, and underscored the importance of actively seeking situations that challenge our assumptions. No matter how well we think we might understand a topic or consumer group, we need experiences that shake us out of our own frames of reference, remind us that there are multiple realities, and inform us about unique and specific contexts.

Technology-supported, humanistic methods are critical for engagement and will be the next generation of market research. This was a resounding theme in the Congress’ interactive Master Classes and formal presentations; and one task for market research going forward is to embrace a “21st Century” approach to insight generation and actionable research:

table

These approaches are becoming more main-stream, yet they still challenge us in fundamental ways. The industry is witnessing—and online communities are integral to—the emergence of a new market research model. These humanistic, large-scale, technology-driven methods offer huge potential not only for the creative and innovative ways we can engage people and measure behavior, but for the quality of the data itself. Embracing these methods, however, requires researchers to also accept reduced power differentials, self-selecting samples, collaboration between participants and researchers, combining multiple methods and media, transparency, and the particular quandary of having a theoretically infinite supply of conversation snippets (or video, or still images, or collages, or what have you) to analyze and mine for insights. 

But are researchers ready to step down from behind the one-way mirror, doff their lab coats, and just be human? 

Our experience suggests that they are—at least a forward-thinking, vocal minority; Communispace clients are innovating along these lines every day, delegates from across the globe provided examples of such at the Congress, and council members indicated they were revising ESOMAR guidelines to incorporate reliable and ethical uses of online methods. As Julie and I state at the end of our Pecha Kucha, what consumers and researchers need now is “a level playing field where neither of us has a lot of power but we both have just enough to learn from and honor each other’s perspective.”

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Dishing with Diane: Robin Fray Carey on how B2B companies harness Web 2.0

Robin Fray Carey, CEO of Social Media Today, and I discuss how web 2.0 is transforming the media business and how B2B organizations are harnessing tools and platforms to generate authentic conversations in real time.

Robin Fray Carey, CEO of Social Media Today, and I discuss how web 2.0 is transforming the media business and how B2B organizations are harnessing tools and platforms to generate authentic conversations in real time.

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