What's Holding Organizations Back?

In the comments of last week's post titled 100 thoughts on marketing, Tom Asacker asked me: since just about everyone who reads this list agrees with it, in principle, what's holding organizations back? This is a pretty difficult question because I'm looking at it from the inside out.

While I was mulling over how to respond, I came across this interesting exchange by Best Buy CMO Barry Judge and Gizmodo Adam Frucci.

For those not familiar with Gizmodo, this is a blog about gadgets and technology started by Gawker Media in 2002. The blog's traffic is now upwards of 100 million page views a month.

Gawker Media's founder Nick Denton believes in content, and given that comments play a really important role in social media, I found what the organization shared as reported by The Blog Herald interesting:

The favored commenters will be silent; and the illiterate ones will rant, well, illiterately. But we’ll be able to encourage the kind of discussion that *we* want — not one that is dominated merely by the most prolific of our commenters. It’s our party; we get to decide who comes.

This is an important step to note. Gizmodo is doing it to balance the conversation. Would you like to bet that if a company had taken such a step there would have been chatter all over the 'sphere? Blogs are so old compared to other social media, yet behaviors do not seem to mature. I'd say this example gives companies that are thinking about starting a blog something to think about.

Anna at Jezebel expands:

Stars will no longer be given out – or retained – based on the number of followers a commenter has. Instead, they will be granted to readers who have proven themselves to be engaged, intelligent, humorous, fair-minded, thoughtful, rational, etc.

I hope companies take a look at the whole post. High traffic and profile blogs that expand to the level of full online publications, need comment policies to help facilitate that traffic and flow. Does your company blog need to implement such a policy?

Back to the inter blog exchange between Judge and Frucci.

After Frucci posted about the seven types of employees you meet at Best Buy, Judge (and team) responded with the one type of Gizmodo blogger. Frucci got back in the discussion with another post - this time the post is about Best Buy's response. The fact alone that a company blog by a C-level executive would engage in a humorous exchange is remarkable (although I agree with some in the comments who pointed out that the revised post is confusing).

You cannot have it both ways. If you've been out there talking about organizations and criticizing their lack of involvement you cannot criticize them when they join. This is something I shared at SxSWi during the BlogTalk Radio show. Comparing comments at the time of writing this post, Frucci's got 129, Judge's 158. Both got two kinds of comments:

(1) by people who were constructive and provided a thought-out opinion;

(2) by people who were disappointed and not so thoughtful in exposing their case.

Dissenting and arguing is good, but it's an art. If you're going to do that, you might consider staying professional and poised while you share a piece of your mind. Also, you might check your spelling and grammar for good measure. I read and liked the comments from those who were able to strike the balance - well done. Your points will travel further that way.

One of the reasons why organizations have been able to brush off criticism has been poor delivery. My mother taught me that getting angry and bursting out in frustration makes me less effective at actually fixing the issue, helping someone do that, or making my voice heard.

Who likes a company blog that looks like a Web site with corporate messaging or product releases and discount coupons? Right, so can we all respect each other and navigate social media together while we iron out the issues?

It was Oscar Wilde who wrote something like if you've spent your whole life pretending to be good when instead you wanted to be bad, you're a hypocrite. Customers are sending mixed signals. This is one of the reasons why organizations have been held back. They/we say one thing, then do another.

However, in this case, there is a next step. If I were Best Buy, my next step after the humorous response would be to take a hard look at the reason for the first Gizmodo post and engage the customers among the readers who found truth in that. There is always some truth in comedy, isn't there? Given that customer service and interaction is the new marketing, this needs to be addressed. 

The whole reason to join the conversation, the reason to have one in the first place, is that you can take lessons back to your business and change it (and the way you look at it) for the better. Otherwise, it's just an academic exercise (no offense meant), isn't it?

Some ideas I could think about (some of which exclude others):

• tier prices and service levels - cheap price comes with self-service
• expand your vision of customer - this goes hand in hand with tiering prices and service levels
• consolidate who you want to sell to and go for that - the trouble comes when companies try to be all things to all people...
  
• take another look at work practices - there's an amazing story in results-only work environment. Is it just a story?
  
• consider who you want working at your stores - this goes hand in hand with tiered prices and services
  
• build accountability at every level - and give people power to make things happen
• think about what your business stands for and understand that your execution needs to deliver on that
  

Three could work for many businesses.

There is a lot more to it.

John Hagel, the Co-Chair of the Center For the Edge at Deloitte and one of my new favorite thinkers, just rolled out a new report called The Shift Index, that suggests the current recession is masking long-term competitive challenges for U.S. businesses. [hat tip Francois Gossieaux]

Among the key findings, U.S. companies’ return on assets (ROA) have progressively dropped 75 percent from their 1965 level despite rising labor productivity. Even the highest-performing companies are struggling to maintain their ROA rates and increasingly losing market leadership positions. What can companies do in this fast-cycle world? I know the hard nosed won't like some of the answers:

• increase unexpected encounters that are valuable and generate pleasure when you encounter them. We can shape serendipity - both by increasing quality and quantity of unexpected encounters, for example by being in the right location
• shift from a push model to a pull model - one in which you attract partners, customers and talent, instead of pushing out products and messages. Attract, assist and affiliate customers and prospects
• build communities if around the needs of the members, engaged around three types of cultures - content, social interactions, and economic business models

I agree with Hagel, you cannot participate in knowledge flows for very long if you are only a “taker”. Also, check out the collaboration curve.

I'm thinking that the Best Buy exchange example is a manifestation of this shift. Companies are having a hard time with the diminishing return on assets. Joining the conversation is the tip of the iceberg. There needs to be a lot more in place with marketing, public relations and business practices. This is what's holding organizations back.

What else do you think is holding organizations back?

Comments

[Brindey Weber]

Good morning Valeria!
Wow, this is a great post because it conceptualizes blogging, and uses that info to solve a problem.
How do you "encourage the discussion we want," on a blog like Gizmodo? Delete all the posts that don't help? Is that wrong, and will the angry, illiterate posters rant more?
Have a great one!
P.S. My mother, God bless her, taught me how to swear....which is probably why I ended up as a "passionate" person....

[Valeria Maltoni]

We facilitate the conversation by encouraging different perspectives. We do that by curating content, and yes moderating comments and allowing for reasonable voices to emerge and respectful discourse to be rewarded.

Plus, it's more fun to be civil in the end.

[Sasha]

There always will be people who are not agreeing or rant about a product or services. That's why we live in a "conversation age". Tools a company selects for monitoring and some censorship is always OK, when it lets the conversation flow in natural direction.
People, who are just flaming up the discussion with angry, negative and most of the time insulting comments are obstacles to the natural conversation flow and should be banned for the very good reason.

The problem with people not being satisfied with corporate SM strategy is that most of business are one step behind. But they are catching up fast! That's already something.

[Daniel Kuperman]

Organizations are held back by a number of issues. The ones I hear from other marketers are (in no particular order):

1. Lack of agreement among management team how to tackle social media

2. Lack of understanding from the top on what exactly is social media and why the company should care

3. Not enough resources (not only the marketing dept is managing shows, website, advertising, lead generation, but now they also have to create a facebook page, blog, and twitter accounts)

4. "Not applicable to my industry" syndrome, in which companies think this social media thing is not impacting their particular turf

5. Fear (of doing it wrong, of not being able to keep up, etc.)

Another interesting question is: for those organizations that have taken the plunge, why some are so bad at it?

Thanks for the insightful post!

[peter]

As someone who wakes up knowing he will be wrong about just about everything I'm naturally disagreeable.

I've long understood that the greatest form of misunderstanding between two people is agreement. A meeting of minds is a rare event indeed.

For the rest of the time, we simply recognise our own familiar and comfortable thoughts in the voice of the other. Our thoughts are not challenged but re-enforced by nearly everyone we meet - It's the most practical of all human delusions.

Sometimes we need to shout to ensure we don't reach false agreement.

When Tom say we all agree with the 100 thoughts on marketing there is not 1 (one) agreement but as many agreements as you have readers. You can see what holds us back.

My advice, listen loudly to those who shout if you want to find "true" agreement

But what holds us back - A "pack" weighed down with 100's (if not 1000's) of idea's of what we should be doing in business. Swap the ideas with something to trade and hold our your hand with mindfulness.

Spk soon.

Peter

[Tom Asacker]

And there it is:

"But what holds us back - A "pack" weighed down with 100's (if not 1000's) of idea's of what we should be doing in business."

Thanks Peter.

And since most companies lack a mental model to filter ideas and focus attention and activities, the pack gets removed and placed in a conference room. And everyone goes back to the thinking and actions which they're most comfortable with, and which serves their near-term personal and professional interests.