Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Give people control and they will use it
The first chapter discusses Jarvis' Dell experience - his use of a blog to vent about a bad Dell customer service episode. His example demonstrates the power of the blog and the power of a collaborative voice. "Give people power and they will use it." Blogs level the playing field and give anyone the power of the press. They are still the a tool for the tech savvy, but more and more people are learning the value of blogs and other digital media tools. The problem with blogs is the fact that anyone can become a publisher with no credentials or credibility.
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I recently read about corporations which employ the services of "professional" bloggers; these paid bloggers populate blogs with favorable mentions of their client corporations. While openly paid-for commentary on what is supposed to be a grassroots site is --- at best --- in poor taste, it is truly sneaky to have bloggers masquerade as everyday Jane Doe consumers! I agree with John P.'s comment re the lack of credibility in blogs being one potentially troubling aspect of the blogging landscape, and the misuse of pros to "infiltrate" blogs and spread compliments certainly illustrates that trend.
ReplyDeleteSometime I feel like I’m being flattened by the road runner when it comes to how quickly the digital landscape is changing. Even though I work in a digital world as a designer, the learning curve seems to be growing exponentially. The first chapter of What Would Google Do help's to lay the ground work to clearing up some of the confusion. Dell Hell reminds me of a course I worked on a few years back called Chaos Theory. There is a fascinating aspect to it call the butterfly effect. It basically goes like this........ There is a butterfly let’s say in Texas, by flapping it’s wings it creates changes in the atmosphere that effects a tornado in Mexico. The butterfly doesn’t supply the energy but it does create the essential parts of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado. Jarvis’s blog does the same thing.
ReplyDeleteWHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO?
ReplyDeleteIntroduction
The introduction makes a powerful case as to why the reader should pay attention to what Google is doing and why they should start to look at the world the way Google does. The catchy title is at once both trite and profound. I find myself trying to make sense of how communication is changing. The opening remarks seem to connect a lot of dots but seems to put out so much meat that it is hard to keep up with. For example, “Google thinks in distributed ways…” That’s a book all by itself. I would like to understand precisely how Google does it and how I can start thinking in “distributed ways” when solving my own or my clients’ marketing challenges.
Google Rules
I loved the Dell story. Not being afraid to publish and get on the mat with negative feedback is a difficult thing to do but certainly builds credibility as demonstrated by Dell. Business people do not readily take to it. It’s hard to take the long view when you have been punched in the nose publicly. Turning worst customers into best friends and partners sounds too simplistic. It’s hard to picture angry people who write negative things turning around and writing good things but apparently it happens.
My take away from this first chapter is that this will be a book that I need to read more than once. Finally, I would love to see more examples of the various points to help them sink in.
I just started a blog at work regarding professional advice relating to construction. We sent out an e-newsletter about a construction topic (false claims in public construction). Within the newsletter, our executives comment about their opinions and experiences regarding the topic. We then created a blogspot at www.constructionadvisoryreport.com to continue the discussion with the readers of our newsletter.
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