IBM took advantage of the internal groundswell

After listening to, speaking to, embracing and energizing groundswell with customers and users for the purpose of innovation, crisis management, marketing, or immediate responses, it is extremely important to look at groundswell inside a company. In the reading, the authors discussed the example of Blue Shirt Nation within Best Buy.  Best Buy offers an internal community site where workers can communicate, share tips and information that could be helpful for daily work. It gives workers a great sense of responsibility to help each, and participate as a part of the human capital. Best Buy understands that its employees knows best in this bottom up approach of businesses. Corporations are no longer dropping off instructions from the top and expecting works to follow through perfectly. Instead, managers and decision makers hope to hear from the bottom, from everyday workers to find out what works best for the company and which direction should future developments be heading towards. Of course, Best Buy is not the only company that make significant effort to enhance internal communication. Microsoft has a similar platform and calls it TownSquare, IBM has its Beehive, so on and so forth. 

Industries from retailing to banking, to manufacturing, are building networks behind the firewall where employees can create profile and connect with each other. Some companies may also choose to take advantage of the existing platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facbook, and Twitter. (Read more on ComputerWorld) As discussed in previous chapters, people are willing to share information because they feel good about helping others, openness is necessary because control can no longer be maintained. As oppose to running away from the complaints that workers have, companies choose to listen and make changes accordingly. Gathering people within an organization no only allow them to help each other in effective ways, but also gathers useful information, which then creates communication channel and enhances effectiveness that best benefits the company. For IBM, good interpersonal relationships in a company is fundamental because it allows trust building, cultural exchange, and constructive criticism. Just like BestBuy, they know that it is all about relationships at the end, not technology. With the advanced social media platform, employees can now better interact with colleagues. As suggested by an article from ComputerWorld, "Companies may start with the idea of helping employees feel more connected, but that's just the beginning. With easier and faster connections among people, suddenly cross-division collaboration happens more naturally, leading to greater innovation."

As for IBM, they created the "BluePages", where employees are encouraged to exchange personal and professional information. Listen to this podcast to find out why they created their own social network and how is it being used. According to IBM, "Beehive is an internal social networking site that gives IBMers a "rich connection to the people they work with” on both a personal and a professional level. Beehive helps employees make new connections, track current friends and coworkers, and renew contacts with people they have worked with in the past. When employees join Beehive, they get a profile page. They can use the status message field and the free-form “About Me” section on their profile page to let other people at IBM know where they are, what they are doing, and what they are thinking. Beehive also lets them post photos, create lists to share their thoughts, and organize events. " In short, it is basically a web-based corporate directory that includes profiles with contact information, photos, experience, blog entries, etc. It is heavily used by employees everyday. Because it is behind the firewall, employees feel more comfortable to disclose personal information, upload vacation photos and chat about sports or anything. For them, stronger relationships = more effective organization. CIO Acherbauer says that such connections help his teammates relate to each other like human beings and not just resources or assets. At the same time, IBM provides clear guideline for how employees should behave on social media platforms. Read more here.

Should you build a social media platform for internal communication? it is important to know that building a social media platform is not for every company, as it would only be effective is the majority of workers are enthusiastic about participating and joining. Some employees may not be technology savvy and may have difficulties using it. Therefore, it is important to understand different profiles of workers within a company and decide whether having your own version of "BluePages" would work for you. 

The Social Network at Oscars Night

Tonight is Oscars night, which means that Twitter and Facebook will soon be flooded with updates about who is wearing what, who told a good/horrible joke, and who is taking home the awards. Just like the Grammy Awards or Super bowl, it is expected that people who are watching Oscar individually at home would share their thoughts through social media streams continuously. You can watch Oscar on your TV, but also online, on your iphone, wherever you would prefer. How do you plan to watch it tonight? Mobility is important and the future of social media is heading towards the mobile platform. This is the power of groundswell, where people expect immediate response from each other and are interested in finding out what others have to say about the results. A list of mobile and web apps have been developed to enhance the Academy Awards experience. Go here to read more about these 5 apps.

This app allows users to compare their picks with their friends on Facebook, and follow Oscar tweets. Vanity Fair Hollywood encourages Oscar audiences to discuss about the big event and provides them with applications that are fun and easy. Creating an Oscars Edition of the app would increase the app's  popularity because new users would be willing to download even if they have never heard of the application. Making it easy for audiences to discuss allows the groundswell to talk to their friends and create buzz for both the event and the application. 

Again, the reward system that geo-location applications use would encourage users to check in and get special stickers for a particular event. This app encourages participation from the groundswell. 

After ceremony note: "GetGlue partnered with the Oscars this year, offering viewers special stickers for checking in to the event. More than 31,000 users checked in to the OScars using GetGlue, with 10 check-ins per second taking place in the first 30 minutes of the show. This was the highest number of check-ins for any GetGlue event to date — handily beating the Grammy Awards (18,000 check-ins) and the Super Bowl (20,000 check-ins)." Read more here 

 So, don’t miss out! Check out these apps and see if they make your Oscar night even more fun!! Let me know what you guys think about them. Because it is the 21^st century, the Academy is doing something different this year: broadcasting the Oscar nominee announcement live to the web! (Read more here) You can view it through Oscars.org OR Livestream.com OR Facebook.com This is a big deal, as the world’s most prestigious and buzz-about nomination ceremony, it is heading toward live streaming. Both Grammy and Golden globe dedicated a social media-inspired red carpet show. 

Watch live streaming video from academyawards at livestream.com

I am excited to find out whether “The social network” will get an Oscar or not! Of course, no one can ever know for sure before it actually happens, but critics have made an “educated guess”. Social Network is a movie that depicts the early days of Facebook. It has been named as best picture by LA Film Critics Association and NY Film Critics Online, Top 10 movies by American Film Institute. So, I have my hopes high. (read more about what the critics say here) It has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards, it is the most nominated film this year. However Tuesday’s live announcement has announced that The King’s speech is receiving 12 nominations. So, lets find out if this critics' new favorite would steal Social Network's place. 

It will air on ABC tonight and this is who the groundswell thinks should win. It wont be long before we find out!

Taken from http://mashable.com/2011/02/26/oscar-predictions/

Enjoy the show
======================================================================
The Next Morning
Feb 28th, 2011

I would have to say that Groundswell did pretty good in guessing, except the huge mismatch for the Best Picture. As for The Social Network, it wins 3, and loses 5 Oscars. Who else is disappointed? The King's Speech and Inception were big winners of the night, both of them won 5 Oscars. But it was a disappointing outcome for the Social Network>< For a movie that talks about fighting for popularity and failing to fit in, losing friends over business matter, and the early days of THE social network that changed our lives, it deserves the BEST PICTURE!!! (Read more here)
A lot of Facebook Fans are disappointed....(This is a twitter search after the award was announced) Did you tweet about it?

Not only the audiences were tweeting about it, but also the celebrities who were at the Academy Awards. Co-Host James Franco was tweeting during the ceremony, hundreds of thousands of others joined. During the show itself, a few specific moments generated major spikes in Twitter activity. This is a chart that reflects real time responses.

And here is a list of most mentioned nominees.

Perhaps it was because James Franco was also tweeting throughout the ceremony? Even though this list doesn't include Co-Host Anne Hathaway, she is the second most tweeted person (not nominee), right before Natalie Portman. 

Over on Facebook, nearly one million people in the U.S. mentioned the word “Oscars” in their status updates over the last 24 hours.

The most popular U.S. Oscar-related Facebook status mentions included:

• The King’s Speech with 152,324 mentions
• James Franco with 138,437 mentions.
• The Social Network with 96,513 mentions.
• Natalie Portman with 80,704 mentions.
• Anne Hathaway with 74,979 mentions.

Worldwide, nearly 1.9 million Facebook status updates were related to the Oscars.

Data from Mashable.com
Without a doubt, the Oscars took its step towards groundswell, it let go of its control over what people may say about the results, the celebrity, or the rundown of the event, (there was no way to control it anyways) and instead encourage audiences to talk about it. Its collaboration with various applications not only allow the groundswell to respond and connect instantly, but also allow themselves to find out what worked and who did not work. Tapping into the groundswell is like heading down a one way street, you can become more and more involved with the groundswell. 

How did Dell do it?

Why companies are not in control anymore?

This video provides a nice summary of previous chapters we've read of groundswell. Charlene not only explained the importance of a bottom up approach to engage users to review and help innovate for product development, but also the value of building a culture of commenting, in which some control of branding must be let go. With groundswell, everyone is able to comment and publish. Therefore, it is important to listen to what the customers have to say, and respond appropriately. It is in a company's best interest to embrace it well, and make the most of what social media has to offer. As we have learned from Chapter 10, the transformation that dell went through was not easy. 

Go to Idea Storm

First of all, Dell observed the conversations among users about why are they no longer interested in Dell's products. It took Dell months before they published their first blog post that responded to the problems. With social media today, anyone can be a publisher, and any users are able to post reviews of any product, and these information cannot be controlled or contained. Instead of letting the conversation go on, Dell chose to get involved, and commit to listening to the customers. It may seem simple that companies should be investing time and resources in hearing from its customers, so that they can better improve their products and better market their customers. However, it takes a lot of courage from a company to change the way things work. 

Embracing groundswell is really about letting go of the control and trusting that the customers would help innovate, and improve the products. One of the steps that Dell took was to have a forum where customers could discuss about issues that they are concerned with, or share ideas that they have (Idea storm). Changes happened step by step, and each stepping stone lead to a progression. The biggest challenge is to gain executive support from within the company. For companies with long history like Dell, each worker see himself as  "I am my position": Every worker has a fixed position and responsibilities in the company, and they often forget the ultimate goal to work together to meet the need of an organization. Success of a company requires more than partial effort from each worker, but mutual effort of each person to come together as a unit. To convince each department to trust the customers' needs and give up control of the brand message was revolutionary for Dell. However, if you stop and think about it, people are talking about your brand and product anyways, why not have them discuss at a forum where you can read, monitor, and facilitate the conversation? It is not necessarily giving up control for nothing in return, because being engaged in customers conversation would help building close relationships and trust. Digital media can no longer be a supplement of a campaign, but in the center of attention. 

With IdeaStorm, Dell was able to talking directly to customers, as an online barnstorm sessions for customers to participate in. "Product development is hard. Why not let your customers help you with it? (P.181)"To involve customers into the innovation process, is to hear what new products or service they'd like to see Dell develop. After listening to, talking with, energizing, and supporting groundswell, you have gained insights from the customers, and these insights could be beneficial for the company's future development. Ideal Storm allows customers to develop empathy for the company and think in the company's position. Making customers an integral part of the way Dell innovates, is to use the knowledge that customers have about what is wrong with the product and how to fix it. This is one of the approaches that Dell took, in order to embrace groundswell, and adapt to changes that comes with the transformation. 

Read more about Idea Storm on Wikipedia

Even if the responding customers are not a representative collections of the entire customer population, the activist always help to define expectation, and provide useful ideas (Crowd-sourcing). But don't just ask for opinions, follow through and act upon these suggestions! Stay authentic and honest to earn your customer's trust! After building a community of contributors or speculators, solutions to common issues or problems would be available to all customers, which would lower the number of people that would come to Dell for solutions. This is an example of how a Dell customer helped Dell in products innovation.

If you plan to embrace groundswell, do so when you are ready because there is no way to back out once you have opened the door. What is out in the internet is not erasable and it will always be there for others to reference to it. Be aware of the context that you post because people are going to decide if they should become a fan or not based on your context. On the final note, check this video out about how embracing groundswell benefited Dell. 

How has groundswell helped Dell?

Listening and talking to groundswell (Respond to reading #1)

Social Media marketing done right Youtube Video

Valentine’s day is coming up and I was looking for a place for dinner. First thing that came to my mind was to go to Yelp.com and look for a good restaurant in Boston. I was filtering the results with restaurants that are most reviewed, if the restaurant is just okay, people would not bother writing about the dining experience or uploading pictures for the place. Therefore, if a lot of people are motivated enough to write about it, it must be pretty popular, or at least worth a try. The thing I like about Yelp.com is that, there is no advertisement from the restaurant, but simply comments and reviews posted by real people who have eaten there. Sometimes, they even include coupons or special offers. Users could even share pictures taken at the restaurant and post it so that more people can check out the place. This is groundswell, interactions among the customers, and comments from real people, which is more cost-effective and popular than traditional ways of advertising. It is not to say that social media is the only way to market, but sure is an effective way to do so. 

If customers and users are on social networks, where should the companies be? Obviously, they should be listening to them through social networks. Listening from people who actually use the product or the service, companies can better market their prospective customers and understand what their customers think about the product.

Every company wants to sell lots of products and make profit. However, if the company only aims to make money without listening to what the people really want, they will never be successful. In this era, the only companies that can grow fast are the ones who can listen to its customers, respond quickly, and carefully monitor the brand through social media marketing. Therefore, it is extremely important to listen from groundswell and make changes accordingly in order to improve service quality or the product produced.

In the chapter, the author clearly asserted, “Your brand is whatever your customers say it is.” It is not the way you advertise it, it is not the way you imagine or present it. If restaurants owners were monitoring the comments on Yelp.com, they would be able to get insights from the customers through observing interactions among customers. Thus, they would know what do customers really think about their services and food quality. They could also search the brand on Google, blogs, communispace or youtube, and find out what customers are saying about the products. By carefully monitoring the brand, companies are able to take advantage of the groundswell by taking actions on the information gathered through listening, being responsive, changing future products and marketing plans, or generating new products.

Social media marketing with Youtube

After listening, companies can also talk to the groundswell by posting videos, joining social networks, blogging, or forming private communities. Building a community of loyal customers is essential, as they would help spread the word to their friends. As a result, conversations among users can be stimulated, and the brand image can be improved and monitored. So, wouldn't you begin to market through social media? 

This is a respond post to the Groundswell reading