We are in the midst of a dramatic shift in the way business is done.  In most industries, a much more open and collaborative network model is replacing the traditional closed and controlled firm-centric view of the world.   This shift has been well documented by my colleague Don Tapscott in his bestselling book Wikinomics.  Don is the head of nGenera Insights (a Customer Innovations partner).

As this shift takes place, companies must reconsider many of the foundational assumptions about their role in the complex ecosystem of customers, competitors, intermediaries, and other influencers.   While many basic relationship management capabilities are still important, there are two major problems with the traditional approach to  “Channel Management”:

1. The first problem is the “channel” part. In a network view of the world, a channel is an outdated, linear way of viewing the market.  In many ways, it reinforces the notion that you move your products and services forward through the channel to reach end-consumers.  This doesn’t work in the presence of media-savvy and networked consumers.  These next-generation consumers can easily find better deals with more agile providers and, in the process, are more likely to either by-pass intermediaries all together or deal with newer intermediaries (e.g. Amazon, etc…) that consolidate products and services in a way that makes it easier for them to get what they want.
2. The second problem is the “management” part. In a more agile, networked view of the world, channel participants are more difficult to manage or control.  They tend to either have or believe they have more alternatives.  In most cases, they have the all-important relationship with the ulimate consumers who are paying the money.  In addition, they have to deal with a rapidly changing set of consumer demands that change what it takes for them to be successful.  If I’m an insurance agent, retailer, distributor, etc… struggling to keep up with changing consumer demands, preferences, and alternatives, I’ll challenge anything that product providers do that gets in the way of my responding to and serving my customers.

As we move beyond the linear, Channel 1.0 view of the world, companies must begin to more effectively position themselves as part of a collaborative ecosystem.  We call this Channel 2.o model, Collaborative Ecosystem Management.

The new channel model builds on many of the Channel 1.0 capabilities (covered in:  Channel 1.0: Foundational Capabilities for Optimizing B-to-B-to-C Performance) but must express these capabilities in a world that includes a complex, shifting network of participants, an evolving and emerging set of channel partners, and, as a result, must leverage more adaptive collaboration processes and technology.

Example:  The SAP Developer Network (SDN) is an online community for SAP developers. It is a resource and collaboration channel for SAP developers, architects, consultants and integrators. The SDN hosts forums, expert blogs, a technical library, downloads, a code gallery, e-learning catalog, a Wiki and more.  All these support open communication between active members of the community, which includes more than 1,455,000 members.  The SDN has fundamentally transformed the scale and effectiveness of integrated and supporting SAP’s products in a way that continued to fuel the growth of the company.  This allows SAP to maintain a primary focus on evolving their product while managing an enabling network of other participants that can apply the product and fuel their growth.

In general, we’ve learned that moving to a Channel 2.0 model must integrate three dimensions.  This builds on and extends the basic Channel 1.0 Capabilities, as well as, the Consumer-Back Approach that were introduced in Channel 1.0: Foundational Capabilities for Optimizing B-to-B-to-C Performance.  The three dimensions that must be integrated are:

1. Consumer-Back Experience Design. Creating a platform for integrating complementary providers and partners in order to provide a seamless end-to-end consumer experience around goals that are important to consumers.
2. Provider-Forward Experience Design. Creating an “experience chain” that helps makes traditional intermediaries, as well as, the wide range of other ecosystem participants successful in serving their downstream customers, whoever those customers are.
3. Collaborative Ecosystem Platforms. Providing an open communication environment for connecting consumers, channel customers, complementary product/service partners, and other influencers.  This collaboration platform often creates the opportunity for channel customers and complementary product/service providers to collaborate with each other in ways that are currently impossible.

These are not three alternatives.  Effective Channel 2.0 strategies must integrate all three.

Dimension 1:  Consumer-Back Experience Design. A more ecosystem-oriented environment makes it possible to integrate capabilities across complementary service providers in ways that were previously impossible.  Often that integration was left to the customer.  For example, if your goal was to relocate your family from New York to San Francisco, the experience you would have as a customer would involve integrating the capabilities of real estate agents, mortgage companies, movers, banks, schools, doctors, utilities, home furnishing retailers, cleaning services, hotels, airlines, the post office, etc…    A significant step beyond the Consumer-Back approach described earlier would be to do what we call Consumer-Back Experience Design. This is what “The Right Move Group” did when they created an integrated platform of services address all of the elements listed above for families moving to the San Francisco area.

We are starting to see an increasing number of Consumer-Back Experience Design examples in other areas.  For example, the range of integrated platforms for launching small businesses (a.k.a. Business in a Box platforms).  This includes platforms like:  Smart Online and Microsoft’s Start Up Zone.    Other examples include travel integration services like TripIt, wedding experience integration service like Wedding Channel, and personal concierge services like Fini.

We believe that building an effective Channel 2.0 strategy starts by thinking Consumer-Back.  However, success is dependent on also considering the other two perspectives.

Dimension 2:  Provider Forward Experience Design. Forward Experience Design builds on and significantly extends the capabilities described in the Channel 1.0 Capability Model.  A more technology-enabled, ecosystem-oriented model makes it possible for providers to collaborate with their channel customers in fundamentally more effective ways.

Examples of technology that can enable Provider Forward Experience Design include:

• New Media Broker/Agent Portals. This includes the systems provided by FirstBest, iter8, or  The Broker’s Workstation.  These systems provide capabilities that help make intermediaries more effective in meeting the needs of their customers.  Systems like this can offer significant additional collaborative capabilities, dashboards, information, and what-if-oriented sales tools that go beyond the first generation portals many companies provide their intermediaries.
• Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com provides a suite of tools that enable partner channel management on a collaborative community platform.  It’s worth checking out their whitepaper with ideas on next generation channel management.  Their suite includes it’s Partner Portal, Partner Marketing, Content Management, and the innovative Ideas Platform.  This Ideas Platform is currently being used for Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbuck’s mystarbuck.com sites.
• Other Partner Relationship Management Vendors. This includes companies like Channeltivity and Treehouse Interactive which provide sophisticated partner relationship management systems.

Dimension 3:  Collaborative Ecosystem Platforms.  As we move towards more of a Channel 2.0 world, both of the previous two perspectives will increasingly be enabled by an Collaborative Ecosystem Platform.  A Collaborative Ecosystem Platform creates an environment within which participants from multiple organizations can work together to create an integrated experience that improves the performance of participants and, in the end, creates more value for customers.  This can run the range from:

• Relatively unstructured sites for sharing information, like Microsoft’s Technical Community Platform
• Process specific platforms for collaborative service like Get Satisfaction (enables product companies, intermediaries, and end-consumers to all collaborate on generating answers to technical and service issues.
• Domain specific platforms like Sermo which provides an environment for physicians to discuss courses of treatment, the application and effectiveness of pharmaceutical and medical device products, etc…
• Social networking platforms like Facebook which is providing additional ways for companies to reach end-consumer and participate in the dialogues that consumers have about the experiences that are important to them.

The migration to a Channel 2.0 strategy is very much an emerging capability for most companies.  It creates the ability to mobilize a much larger and more diverse set of participants in a way that can accelerate growth.  At this point, most of the companies we’ve seen and worked with are putting their toe in the water.   In our experience, it’s still very important to address any gaps in the foundational capabilities that are left over from Channel 1.0.  Very often addressing those gaps can have a substantial and immediate impact on business performance.  In most situations, we are recommending  a parallel set of activities aimed at:  1) addressing Channel 1.0 capability and performance gaps and 2) developing a Channel 2.0 strategy and roadmap that includes identifying the business experiments required to start to learn about and get traction in a Channel 2.0 world.

One of the principle ingredients of innovation is capturing good ideas.  ”Designers at IDEO, which is based in Palo Alto, California, seem obsessed with learning about materials and products they have no immediate user for.  At lunch one day, we watched two engineers take apart the napkin container to look at the springs inside.” (Source: Building an Innovation Factory, Hargadon & Sutton)  Additionally, open source software has shown us that the masses of innovative product users can drive innovation by overcoming the inbred ways of thinking in corporate environments that shun openness.

It stands to reason that a larger pool of people capturing good ideas can play a role in increasing innovation capacity, provided that an effective experimentation and measuring process is place.

When Sony “set up a web site to support hackers who are interested in exploring and developing new types of games that could be played on the Sony PlayStation… it quickly attracted 10,000 participants, a number that vastly exceeds the number of in-house and contract developers creating games for the PlayStation.  It’s likely that, taken individually, in-house developers are technically more skilled than most user-developers.  But the user-developer community mobilized by Sony is diverse in its skills and interests.” (Source: Creating Breakthroughs at 3M, Hippel & Co.)

Just as we know that the inbreeding of royal familes of yore led to predictably bad results, inbreeding of a company’s idea generators is also bad.  Openness is the solution, and thus I present to you the top 15 companies from The Open 100 from NESTA Connect.

1. Amazon – Amazon marketplace

2. Apache – Open Source Webservers

3. Apple – iphone app store

4. Basecamp – Collaborative Project Management

5. BBC – Backstage/Labs

6. Berkeley Innovation Forum – Share Innovation Management Practices

7. BT Plc – 21CN

8. Cancer Research UK – Open Ventures Challenge

9. Creative Commons – Creative Commons

10. Dell – Ideas Storm

11. Distance Lab – Mutsogato

12. eBay – Online marketplace

13. Ebbsfleet Utd – Myfootballclub.com

14. Facebook – Connect

15. Flickr – Photosharing

(Source: http://blogs.nesta.org.uk/connect/2009/08/the-open-100.html)

I’d like to add another entry to this list: OhMyNews.  This Korean startup was a pioneer in citizen journalism, giving citizen journalists the opportunity and incentive to contribute quality articles to a truly read/write web as Tim Berners-Lee originally envisioned.  It is a stand-out example of open innovation!

Recuerdo que en el último Profitability Breakfast alguien me preguntó si no veía difícil convencer a las pequeñas empresas de la utilidad de tener una pequeña web y hacer alguna campaña de Adwords (enlaces patrocinadros de Google). Mi respuesta fue que lo que me cuesta no es encontrar argumentos, sino encontrar alguna buena razón para no hacerlo: es una forma sencilla de captar clientes con un coste fundamentalmente variable.

Algo parecido me ocurre con el célebre IdeaStorm de Dell. ¿Hay alguna buena razón para no pedir a tus Clientes sugerencias sobre cómo mejorar tus productos e identificar las sugerencias más populares?

No digo que toda tu estrategia de producto tenga que basarse en las ideas de tus Clientes, y cito a Steve Jobs que tiene un poco de experiencia en estas cosas:

So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what’s the next big [thing.] There’s a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, ‘If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me “A faster horse.” ‘

Pero no tengo ninguna duda de que escuchar a tus Clientes es un buen punto de partida.

Compartir en: Bitacoras.com · Del.icio.us · Fresqui · Friendfeed · Facebook · menéame

I asked my Twitter followers today if they could suggest a good collaborative tool where people can submit ideas, and later on, vote on the best of the ideas. For me, this kind of interation is among the most promising, both in a political and a journalistic context. Give both the inititive and the power to decide to the people, so to say. We did something similar but with less fancy tools back in 2005, when I was one of the organizers and judges in Dagbladet’s Norwegian blog competition, Gullbloggen.

This time, I’m doing an experiment at Europabloggen, the Norwegian Europa/EU blog I’m writing together with two Norwegian journalists based in Berlin, Olav Anders Øvrebø and Dag Yngland. We’ll try to gather the best arguments for and against a Norwegian EU membership, because we think the arguments profiled on both the Norwegian yes- and  no side are fairly outdated. After gathering the arguments among bloggers and whoever are interested, we will make it possible to vote on what you think are the best arguments.

These are suggestions for open collaborative tools I’ve received so far:

• MixedInk (via @mlopezplana, who also recommends the platform Fes Europa, where they are doing the same, but related to Catalonian politicians, and the politicians are actually answering, very cool!)
• Doodle (via @bicyclemark)
• Uservoice (via @stefanhapper)

A Norwegian blogger, Børge, mentioned Ideastorm a while back – a site for generating new ideas for Dell products, as well as Ideoffensiv, a Danish site for developing new ideas for a local council, Skanderborg kommune. Barack Obama’s administration did something similar with the Citizen’s Briefing Book.

Leave a comment if you have more suggestions for collaborative tools I should test out. I’ll keep you posted on which I prefered.

I stand corrected. Followers did not fall off following Ashton Kutcher after the CNN battle. Apparently, Twitter really is being diluted by the mainstream that thinks Twitter is another push tool. It is a shame really. I started eagerly awaiting  an alternative to Twitter when I came across these tidbits:

1. Wiggio Comes Out Of Beta With A Yammer For College Students
2. Dell Goes Niche with Ideastorm for Healthcare

The two articles have very little to do with each other unless you read between the lines. The word “niche” crops up yet again. As I mentioned in a previous post, business is going niche – but so too is Social Media. I believe as the Oprah’s of the world invade and misuse Social Media channels, business folks are going to migrate to more niche Twitter like applications. Focus will allow users to..well..be more focused!

As it is-I find myself inundated with Twitter messages. They range from work, to baseball, to movies, to family members asking the supposed “social media expert” how their business can use Twitter. If I let it, I can become overly unproductive. But how nice would it be to be able to delve into focused Twitter areas where I don’t have worry about conversations outside of my focus? I personally would value that ability and not have to do a keyword search on Twitter and log that RSS into my Netvibes. Like it or not, the Twitter we know today is going to evolve into a 2010 version of old school AOL chat rooms. It has already started in the form of Wiggio which provides a Twitter-like message stream from all the group members. But it also includes a ton of valuable  features such as a shared calendar, mass text and voice messaging, file-sharing (including online docs and spreadheets) and polling.
Dell is simply burrowing down their Social Media offering to a niche of interest for their marketing team. I suspect this will be the first of many micro-Ideastorms on the horizon.Please excuse the silly metaphor.

What is your take? Are you an early adopter of Wiggio? Are you already tired of the mainstream media disregarding the real value (listening, learning, adopting, innovating) of Twitter? If you were Dell, what would be the next business area you would penetrate?

I’ve long been a fan of “voice of the customer” technology. I’ve blogged several time about Dell’s IdeaStorm project, where customers get to suggest improvements to Dell’s products and services and the customer community gets to “vote up or vote down” ideas submitted by the community.

I’m really excited by a brand new web service called User Voice. This web service easily allows any company to start up their own customer conversation. The service comes in several different “flavors”. The feedback tab you now see on the left hand side of my blog, is an example of the free version.

I’ll leave this tab here for several weeks and encourage any readers to post blog topic ideas of their own and vote on those ideas submitted by others.

The application is very easy to set and use.

The toughest part of the entire process will be for User Voice customers to summon up the courage to actually begin an honest conversation with their customers!

Study Shows TV’s Impact on Consumer Purchasing Behavior
At a time when economic conditions make it more important than ever to maximize their advertising expenditures to get consumers to purchase their goods, the study examines the role of television advertising in driving consumer actions throughout the purchase decision process; how television interacts with other media platforms and how purchase decisions are made as a result of interactions with media. The study looks at the “Purchase Funnel,” a continuum that tracks a consumer from when he first becomes aware of a product through his actual purchase.

Can Creativity Be Crowdsourced?
Much has been made of savvy marketers using “crowdsourcing” to connect their brands with customers, and of the success of crowdsourced programs like Dell’s IdeaStorm, Starbucks‘ MyStarbucksIdea, The Netflix Prize and Lego’s invite-only community. Garrick Schmitt notes that a much different discussion has now emerged as crowdsourcing is starting to change the very way we think about creativity, both online and off.

This one is coming a close second on the week’s selection of webcasts, and indeed may be a nose ahead of Lithium’s. Two noses, in the long term.

For all the hype (and the variety), practical crowdsourcing is usually implemented in two bits: a “suggestions” website that is essentially a specialised forum where people (the target will vary) can post ideas or questions, and other people can comment, rate, critizise… and an internal, organizational process to handle those suggestions, to moderate the conversations, act on the ideas, vet the proposals, react and signal that reaction. On top of that, you can get all sorts of variations (and indeed you do, I can attest) and use cases. But that’s the common thread.

So it’s been very very nice to land on an “old” (November ‘08) Salesforce.com-sponsored event recording (called “Harnessing the power of online communities”, for good measure) at which two of the most effective and practical large-scale crowdsourcing initiatives share their vision and tell their experience, warts and all. If it pops someone’s bubble, so much the better: these tools are just tools, and you can either use them right (and work a little magic) or misuse them (and shoot your foot off).

I just loved the practical angle of the presentations. Dell’s Vida Killian and Starbucks’s Mathew Guiste make it clear and down-to-earth, which comes from direct, hands-on experience. Of course, much of that enthusiasm is because I agree with their takeaways, from my experience managing suggestions storms (or dedicated suggestions forums) inside more general communities. But also, because it highlights the differences between the two environments. A bit more focus can help a lot, both to the people you’re inviting to speak up… and to your team, who need to take up the results and run with them. And yes, some software functionalities can be handy.

Go ahead and listen in, and I don’t think you will waste your time. Once quickly past the software design issues (and it’s really a very simple idea, with literally dozens of vendors crowding the market with copycats) both speakers explain the business drivers, the project development, the social media strategy context, the changes and processes created to support crowdsourcing, the results. And the Q&A part is gravy, too.

OK, so Dell’s customers suggested they copy some of the features of Apple’s laptops: that’s stills a market insight that helped them drive sales. The fun part is how they got to act about it. And for those listening between the lines, there’s a wealth of things to dwell on about the overlap of traditional community and this facet of social media… and how to improve both.

For most people in corporate communications they know about DellHell. The story of Dell making a 360 back to having a good reputation. The behind story is pretty long, here is a link to Jeff Jarvis’ archive posts talking about how Dell computers suck. The gist of the story is that Dell did not listen and were nieve to the power of blogs. Jarvis was a pretty well known blogger, and when he was gypped of his in home warranty all hell broke loose. He let whom ever was interested in reading, know how Dell Sucks and how Dell Lies. His posts about Dell have hundreds of comments agreeing in their hatred for the company. So how did Dell do it how did they gain the respect from customers again? Dell finally got it, possibly after recieving a letter from Jarvis basically saying, if Dell did not start to listen to customers, and improve customer service, they would not be loosing just one customer, but many of that customers friends. Jarvis explains that Dell needs to jump on the bandwagon and start checking the internet and blogs, to see who is talking about their company. DellHell happened back in 2006, and now Dell has improved their reputation, by creating Direct2Dell and IdeaStorm. Here is a video from Ragan Communications with an interview with Vida Killian, who manages Dells Ideastorm. The video talks about Dells blogs.  Dells internal blogs, are taking over their email systems, and encourages employees to express ideas. There are focus groups in their internal blog, OneDellWay, which are team written. Michael Dell gets involved in the posts and does leave comments. One of their popular blogs is is Direct2Dell which is their external blog. Killians explains it as a way for Dell letting their audience know what is going on with Dell, which is different from their Ideastorm which is more of their customers giving ideas.

Dell’s IdeaStorm is just like My Starbucks Idea. The video below explains how people can post ideas, where comments can be posted, adding to the idea. Then ideas will be voted on and if one idea gets a lot of votes, Dell might implement the idea.

With the use of social media and actually making a change to listen to customers, Dell has gotten back in the game. They have a better reputation, but will always have DellHell reminding them to keep on track.

Dell is an example of a company that understands social media. Dell knows how to connect with their audiences, both internally and externally. Using blogs, twitter, forums, and digital suggestion boxes, Dell has discovered ways to promote conversations and dialogue. Even the CEO, Michael Dell, joins in the discussion when he has something to say.

In the video below, Vida Killian, Dell employee, discusses Dell’s blogging strategy with Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications. Dell started blogging internally and externally in 2006. Direct2Dell, the external blog, represents the main corporate voice and within this blog, blogs on specific topics can be found. One Dell Way is Dell’s internal blog written by the internal communication department. Other internal groups, such as IT, participate in team blogs. Dell encourages all of their audiences to engage in conversation. Listen to her advice on how to create conversations with bloggers.

Vida Killian explained that Dell’s Communities and Conversations 40 member team works to listen to and monitor blogs with the software Radian 6. Dell’s team represents all backgrounds, from engineering to marketing, so that a knowledgeable and credible response will be generated. Dell measures customer sentiment through the number of negative comments found on the web and has worked hard to reduce the negative statements about Dell.

Dell has not always known how to use social media or start conversations. Jeff Jarvis, author of the blog Buzz Machine, knows how Dell had to transform its’ strategy to adhere to the growing numbers of people talking on the internet. Dell initially did not listen to their audience, including small “no name” bloggers, but finally discovered the importance of allowing interactivity into their communication strategy.

One of Dell’s most important social media applications, though perhaps not considered blogging, is Dell’s Idea Storm. The tool is an “online suggestion box” where anyone can suggest an idea for Dell and have others vote on it. Dell actually takes the time to consider the ideas with the highest votes. The Idea Storm is an alternative direct feedback blogging application created by Dell for their audience. Idea Storm brings more customer feedback directly to the Dell site. Vida Killian, manager of Dell’s Idea Storm, discusses Idea Storm with Mark Ragan and the importance of listening to your audience. Killian also discusses Employee Storm for employee suggestions.

The New Communications Review acknowledged Dell’s efforts in internal communication and provides some of Dell’s goals and figures regarding their social media efforts. Dell, a direct company, has continued with their previous programs offline, but uses their online forums to learn more about their audience. All feedback is important in the progress and reputation of a company because Dell’s reactions affect the company. Dell is working to establish online outreach and participation with social media into the culture of Dell’s employee’s.

In 2005, the term Dell Hell was coined. Jeff Jarvis complained to consumers about the unsatisfactory customer service he received from the company. By posting the comments on BuzzMachine, his message soon reached millions.

At first, Dell chose to ignore the problem, which devalued its brand and customer loyalty. In 2007, Dell chose to embrace new social media and began to engage its customers by inviting them to actively participate in the Dell community.

Dell joined in the conversation with its customers; and encouraged collaboration and participation. The company created three platforms, which have led it to become a leader in social media: Dell Ideastorm, Direct2Dell, and the Dell Incident Collaboration Center.

Direct2Dell is a company blog about Dell products, services, and customers. Employees, executives, and the CEO post to the site. They answer customer questions and release the latest information from the computer industry. The success of the site requires interaction between the company and the customer.

According to the Dell Ideastorm site, the Dell community has contributed 11,456 ideas, promoted a product 656,521 times, and posted 85,371 comments. Dell Ideastorm allows customers to post their ideas and vote for the best in the community. The winning idea is implemented in to the Dell product line. As a result of collaboration, each of these participating customers have contributed to the success of Dell, and the future of its products and services.

Dell has embraced the use of external collaboration and internal collaboration. The Dell Incident Collaboration center was created to coordinate crisis management. According  to Can You Collaborate During a Crisis, guidelines posted by Dell, the center allows them to:

• Collaborate during crisis events via a central, virtual location
• Monitor the recovery status with collaborative incident log
• Organize and assign tasks to effectively direct effort
• Share secure information
• Keep the company informed with an external website

Dell has successfully used social media tools and online collaboration to expand its brand and customer loyalty. Other companies have followed the guidelines to join the online conversation with their employees, customers, and stakeholders.

As you can see, there are various types of companies that are accepting new social media tools to help them collaborate more easily with employees and customers.  In this article, David Cummings, founder and CEO of Hannon Hill, talks about some advantages that these tools may offer a company.  In this post, I will look at how Starbucks is using these tools to hear more from their customers about how they would like to see the company improved.

Since Howard Schultz became the head of marketing for the company in 1982 the company has placed lots of emphasis on their customers.  Beginning in 1991, the company implemented the use of mail-order catalogues and licensed airports to help raise sales and to make their products more accessible.  Today, the company has advanced to allowing customers to buy company CDs and coffee online.

Their newest feature, “My Starbucks Idea,” is perhaps their greatest illustration of how much the company values its customers.  This feature is similar to Dell Computer’s IdeaStorm, which I wrote about in a previous post.

Once users sign up for a Starbucks.com account, My Starbucks Idea implements a simple process of only four steps for customers’ voices to be heard by both employees and other customers.  First, anyone with an account can share ideas for new products, or how to improve existing ones.  Users then discuss and vote on ideas that they think would be good for the company.  Following the voting process, members can then see which ideas the company chooses to implement.  If Starbucks decides to use your idea, they even give you credit for coming up with the idea on their website.

I believe that features like this are the best way to stimulate collaboration between a company and users.  Giving customers a chance to have their ideas heard give them more incentive to participate in issues.  This also provides an easy way to prove your company’s authenticity and dedication to customers.  Time will tell if more companies create tools like this and Dell’s IdeaStorm to allow for easier collaboration between their executives and customers.  

We all know Dell as being a major force in the computing industry.  It is a massive company that has been trying to become better communicators with their customers, which is something they previously have not be so adept at accomplishing, due primarily to the blogging works of Jeff Jarvis on his site BuzzMachine.com, which so aptly coined the phrase “Dell Hell” at the time.  Well times have changed and Dell has initiated a program called Ideastorm, which originated from Michael Dell in January 2007, with the purpose of increasing their social media skills, specifically in the blogosphere.  Dell is a direct company that is utilizing their new communication tools.  The way Ideastorm works is an idea is posted (marketing, sales, service, etc) then users vote positive or negative on the idea.  Following this, discussion and comments are circulated concerning the idea to work out tweaks and what not.  The final step is called Ideas in Action which finalizes the ideas.  They have 10,000 plus ideas and have implemented around roughly 200.  This project is immensely successful for Dell and is one of the reasons they have been headlined on many social media sites as being a company at the forefront that cares about consumers and their input.

Ideastorm is built on the software available at salesforce.com which is the same service that Starbucks uses for their similar consumer idea blog.  With Dell being the direct to consumer company that has made them the hugely successful business that they are, it is not necessarily the return on investments that is their primary focus.  They have followed their culture of being a company that is dynamic and democratic and this has proved to be immensely successful for both communication, innovations, and ultimately sales.  Ideastorm gets positive and negative feedback, but what Dell has understood, which many companies must be doing if they want to survive in this ever-changing economy, is to realize that all feedback is good feedback if you’re using it to better your business, goods, services, whatever it may be.

Although it might not seem so, not many resources are committed.  One individual, Communicator Vida Killian manages the site with an additional full time person reading the comments.  The genius behind it is the 40 Dell employees who monitor the blogosphere, whether they be engineers, marketers, etc, the fact of the matter is that dynmaic employees with varying expertises are all contributing their ideas and thoughts.  To commennt on the blog you must simply sign up and with subscriptions currently around 45,000 members it is obvious that Dell’s Ideastorm is a huge success.

Such a success that it gave birth to Dell EmployeeStorm, which is more of an internal site that gives Dell employees the opportunity to not only share, but discuss ideas for innovative Dell technologies.  It was the efforts of the company Cohn&Wolfe that helped to implement both the EmployeeStorm and IdeaStorm strategy, so check out their site.

Hope you enjoyed the article.  See you all soon!

Although it took Dell some time to embrace social media, today they are successfully implementing several Web 2.0 technologies into their business strategy.  Following a very public dispute with Jeff Jarvis, creator of BuzzMachine, over the quality of their customer service department, the company created several tools to help.

The first of these tools that the company created was IdeaStorm.  The premise behind this tool is to give customers a way to have their ideas heard by executives at Dell.  It is an electronic suggestion box where anyone can post an idea for a new product, or a way to improve an existing product.  After the ideas are posted, the online community votes on the ideas that they like.  Following this step, executives at the company discuss whether or not the ideas are feasible.  Finally, the ideas that pass through all of these steps are put into action. According to  the company’s website, since the inception of IdeaStorm the company has implemented over 200 of the nearly 10,000 suggestions.  This form of collaboration between employees and customers was unprecedented in the business world.  Many people have seen this as a great way to initiate conversation between users and employees following the massive amounts of negative press the company received from Jarvis and other online bloggers.

Here is a video interview by Ragan Communication featuring Vida Killian, the manager of IdeaStorm.  In the clip she talks about the concept behind IdeaStorm, as well as how the company uses the tool in great detail.

Along with IdeaStorm, Dell also initiated a new blogging strategy targeted at consumers and small businesses.  Through this blog, Dell has found out that the more controversial topics that they blog about yields more participation from readers.  This is just another avenue for the company to share ideas with their customers. 

So many people are giving the Obama administration props for http://www.whitehouse.gov. To me it is a nice first step at making the Government more transparent. But it fails to be an “online community” like some in the Media, on Twitter and blogs have suggested. Here is a quick video I did proving it is purely a push website, and not an interactive community:


Here are 5 things the Obama Administration can do to engage and empower not only the American community-but he world community:

1. Create an Ideas area  like Dell’s Ideastorm. This can be open to anyone who wants to share ideas that will help America get out of this financial mess. As I mentioned in the video, it could be sharing something another government has had success implementing. Or maybe there is a brilliant nugget in the mind of some 10 year old political whiz kid. Either way- the “we” has been proven to be smarter than the few. Might as well give the masses the vehicle to present the American Government with the nuggets that could really instill “change”.
2. Events- Conduct live Chats with Senators and key members of the Government. The purpose of these chats is to give people a chance to ask tough questions. Obviously not all of the questions can be answered. But within those questions is valuable Intelligence. Intelligence the Government can use to understand what is really on their citizens minds. For the citizen, it is a way to be heard. For the very reason ESPN is successful using sports chats, so too will the Government. Use Recognition Rewards to drive participation.
3. Instill empowerment through the use of Recognition Rewards- Great participation should be rewarded in the form of their very own blog post on the WhiteHouse.gov website. Also, Barack Obama is very popular right now. I am sure there are hoards of folks that would share their thoughts for a right to dine with the big guy!
4. Live Chats During Speeches & Press Conferences – This gives folks a reason to come back to the community. But for the same reasons outlined above, it will give the Government an unfiltered look in the minds of the citizen. It is also would be great if 3 questions from the chat are asked after the speech or during the press conference. I never understood why the media was the only people allowed to ask questions. And I understand that many of the questions are seeded questions. Let’s put an end to that! Every day I get asked questions from customers off the cuff and I am no worse for wear. Government officials are paid a hell of a lot more money then I- they can handle it!
5. Profiles – Each Citizen can create their own profile. This way they can favorite the topics that are important to them. They can track the progress of the agendas right from their profile. They will also be able be ranked as citizen, and will be able to set reminders to return for events that are important to them. Lastly, they can buddy up with other citizens to create and organize events to push the causes or candidates that they are passionate about.

In the end this takes money. Tax money! But  much of this can be outsourced away from the Government. Community management and moderation can be had! Just ask me and I will send Barach & Co. in the right direction. Come to think of it- wasn’t Macon Phillips hired to be the Director Of New Media for the Obama Administration?

In my last post, I discussed Dell’s IdeaStorm website which is allowing Dell to collaborate with their consumers more easily and rapidly. Dell’s EmployeeStorm is the same idea as their IdeaStorm but for their employees. Because Dell wanted to keep their employees’ ideas internally, they developed this site for them to communicate with one another. This is a great site because there is not just one group talking on the site, the employees on the site range from human resource officers to sales associates and it really helps to get the whole company on the same page collaborating on what is best for the company.

In an interview from Ragan Communications, Vida Killian discusses EmployeeStorm and its importance in being transparent. She said that because the employees were required to use their names by their suggestions, there was less fear involved with the internal site. She also said that it helps the employees be more informed about Web 2.0 and social media and their importance. You want to make sure that your employees are putting on the best face for your company.

Before EmployeeStorm, Dell was taking a lot of heat from bloggers and other web forums. In an article from statesman.com, Omar Gallaga spoke with Caroline Dietz about the heat that Dell was receiving and that one of the steps Dell took to combat the fire was to create this site. Dietz brought up a great point that not only are Dell’s employees their staff, but most times they are also their customers, and it is important to hear their concerns also.

Vida Killian on EmployeeStorm:

Dell’s Ideastorm website is a great example of how social media technologies make it easier for people to work together. Customers have the opportunity to leave comments on a website with their ideas for improving Dell’s products or improving customer service. Then other people vote for the ideas that they like and would like to see happen. In the first year alone, Dell put a little over 200 of the ideas from the Ideastorm website into action.

On John Cass’ blog, he brings up a great point that not only is Dell getting great feedback from its customers, but that it is also building customers’ trust in Dell and gaining their loyalty. By doing all of this, Dell is getting its name out there more and more. However, he does state that there may be one drawback to this site being so accessible. Competitors will have the opportunity to see the comments and suggestions, and could use them to their advantage. I think that even though that is possible, I do not think it will be a major issue.

Because Dell serves millions of people and not only in our country, but several countries around the world, it is important for their company to be accessible by everyone. Having this technology readily available through their website, allows people quick and easy access to having their suggestions heard. The “Ideas in action” portion of the website allows users to see that their ideas are not only being heard but that they are also being used. On Pronet Advertising, Muhammad Saleem commends Dell on their Ideastorm website and says that with this small investment from they are getting a great return that is worth far more than just money.

Vida Killian, manager of Ideastorm, on the site from Ragan Communications:

In early June 2007, I shared the following twitter:

Idea: ‘YouShould’, a suggestion site where people write open letter suggestions of ideas for companies, authors, and services

There had been two things on my mind. The first was the potential benefit to consumers that such feedback could allow.  I was inspired by Gmail’s suggestion page, where one can suggest what they would like to see implemented in Gmail next. Google appears to take it seriously, too, listing past suggestions that have already been implemented. The other reason for my idea was that I had been brainstorming for my senior thesis, which was beginning in September. However, once September rolled around, “YouShould” was crushed by the release of the similarly named Should Do This.  While perhaps no exactly what I had imagined, it was pretty darn close.  I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, so I dropped the project.

Turns out, dropping the project was probably a good idea.  After Should Do This, there came IdeaScale, and CrowdSound, and Suggestion Box, and UserVoice, FeatureList, Fevote and CollabAndRate.com.  All of these had different approach to the same concept: getting feedback from customers.  Turns out I wasn’t alone in the concept.

Unfortunately, as tends to be the rule, none of these services seem to have gained any traction. Interesting on paper, there was not enough return to attract critical mass and make the idea suceed. One reason is that, with unsolicited advice, users do not gain a sense of contribution. One thinks, what are the odds that a company cared enough to seek out these websites?  Users want to offers their thought and suggestions, but they also want to be heard. It’s like that wonderful game my aunt always played with the kids: “who can stay quiet for the longest”. Sneaky, yes, but we certainly stayed quiet for longer than we would have simply for its own sake. This is why general suggestion boards have been failing, and crowd-suggestion businesses has been moving into infrastructure, offering tools that enable business to ask their customers themselves.

How many times have you liked a television show, and found yourself lamented the fact that —unless you’re directly being asked by Nielson or BBM— your patronage does not actually register? The broadcast system that television uses is by definition clunky: it transmits only one way, from one to many, without a direct capacity for information feedback. This simple concept was outlined in the Shannon-Weaver model of communication back in the 40s. However, while the flow of source > encoder > message > channel > decoder > receiver is adequate for describing technology, attempts to apply it to human communication have been notably shortchanged. It simply is not natural to our nature, not reflective of how humans negotiate meaning. The transmission model is not simply limited to delivery of television and radio signals. In a way, our entire consumer culture attempts this few-to-many transmission. Business online, however, exists within a system constructed to be (though not always realized as) many-to-many. Feedback is the nature of the internet. If you’d like to see organic cotton shirts at the Gap, the time investment in doing so would discourage casual contributions. More likely, your feedback would be much more crude, by shopping elsewhere, in which case the Gap is left trying to figure out why you did so. In contrast, a Gmail user conscious of the idea solicitation page can quickly send in a thought when they have it.

“It’s not the cost we’re looking at, it’s how we are making the application better for the consumer” —Jari Pasanen, Nokia VP for innovation acceleration (BusinessWeek.com)

In “How Nokia Users Drive Innovation“, Business Week outlines Nokia’s solicitation of its users for ideas, and the sucess that that have been having. Other companies that do so are Starbucks (My Starbucks Idea), Salesforce (SalesForce IdeaExchange), and Dell (Dell IdeaStorm). In these example, communities have formed around supporting and expanding on ideas. A cynical observer would suggest that these companies are looking for free business advice. The reality, however, is that it is in the best interest of customers to help build better products for themselves. Companies are constantly looking for feedback and those that respond as the people for whom the company adapts to. This idea is nothing new; what has emerged is the persistance and tenacity of users in doing so when given the proper tools.

Last month, I posted about 8 Emerging Trends in Social Media as defined by digital guru, Steve Rubel. One of those trends identifies the current shift from companies and brands moving beyond open communication with customers to engaging customers and audiences in a collaborative manner.

Video stands out as one area of social media that has experienced a big shift toward collaboration. Earlier this year, PR WEEK announced Edelman’s launch of Edelman Studios. The idea being that Edelman is working to connect clients with anyone who has a creative idea to submit around a particular project assignment.

Most of the videos that we consider “viral” are typically either accidental or created by ordinary people with creative ideas. The notion being that consumers can connect with other consumers in a much more authentic manner than agencies that focus too much time on creating overproduced, message-saturated spots.

Dell and Starbucks are two additional companies that have done a great job of establishing a collaborative framework with customers. Dell’s IdeaStorm allows users to submit and vote on new ideas for Dell to implement with their various products and services. My Starbucks Idea focuses on a similar mission  of opening key doors to consumer insight and getting past the belief that only corporate employees have solutions to improving a company and its products.

In the past, companies would spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on focus groups and surveys. Both Dell and Starbucks have essentially created ongoing virtual focus groups that serve as excellent forums for generating immediate feedback while also providing a channel for direct consumer influence.

On the flip side, there are also sites such as the Behance Network that work to provide a collaborative space to showcase and connect the creative work of designers, photographers and others with project demands posed by companies and corporations.

What other companies do you see out there creating similar models to move beyond open communication to collaboration?

-Scott

Whatever happened to customer service?

Yesterday, I walked into a restaurant and the hostess took me to a booth to be seated. Noticing that there was water on the seat I asked the hostess for something to wipe it up with.

Now, had I been the hostess I would have gotten a cloth and wiped it off for the customer. But the hostess returned with two paper napkins and handing them to me said, “Here ya go.”

That’s just a small, but telling, example of the extent of the decline in customer service that exists in the US. Restaurant customers should not have to clean up the table (or seat) from the previous customer. This young hostess probably didn’t even realize that what she was doing was asking the customer to finish busing the table. But in effect she was.

Other areas where poor customer service seems to be rampant: long delays in doctors’ waiting rooms even though you have an appointment; auto technicians who fix your car just enough to get it running while ignoring other obvious problems (because they are swamped or it’s not the issue you brought it in for); office workers who continually give priority to the customers on the ringing phone even though you walked up to their desk first. This is not a condemnation of all those employed in these occupations, but only a few examples of common challenges that customers face in getting service every day.

Regardless of how often social media sites say they “get it” when it comes to audience engagement and interaction, customer service seems to be a challenge for them as well. Despite the popularization of incidents like Dell Hell, there seems to have been little impact on many companies in the technology realm in terms of paying attention to customer service or making it a priority. Although Dell managed to turn around it’s customer service issues (see IdeaStorm), many sites expect customers who have questions or problems to use FAQs, help forums started and maintained by other customers, or an outside company that may or may not respond to your question (there are no ramifications for them if they don’t respond since it’s not their site that you had a question about).

It used to be that companies thought about how to handle customer service before they launched, before they even opened their doors. Now, it’s left up to the customers to either figure it out on their own, or spend hours looking for a company representative to talk to who may have an ulterior motive (sales) for talking to you.

All this to say that the status of customer service in the US has declined to an alarming low and there doesn’t seem to be any end to it.

In my book, that’s not service.

What do you think? What has your experience with customer service been like?