Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by Social Technologies

At least, I know that Nicholas and I are among the first few people to get our hands on Groundswell: Winning in a World transformed by Social Technologies (a book about social media by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research), since we have ordered this book a few weeks back (before it is officially released in May 2008). In a simple definition by the authors, the groundswell is a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. In actual fact, the tipping point for a product or news happened not because of a lot of people, and usually, it started from a groundswell in the ground and attribute to several factors in a complex situation. After a quick read through, the book is specifically targeted for executives in companies or organizations who might want to adopt social technologies (or media) that integrate along with their present business functions.

Basically, the authors broke the book into three parts. The first part talks about how social technologies (for example - blogs, online social networks, wikis, rich media sharing and distribution sites such as Flickr and Youtube) have enabled people to start bottom up campaigns instead of going direct to the responsible bodies concerned. Given the speed of how information proliferate across the Internet, most companies are getting hit for their bad public relations or service from clients. The unfortunate part is that they can do nothing about it. Along the way, the authors introduced the social technologies and the social technological profiles to break down how people are using social technologies to further their cause.  That is covered with some statistical surveys conducted by Forrester to look at the users' behaviour in the web. In making that breakdown, they broke down users to six possible user types: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives. (See picture from the book).

With the background established, the second part of the book focussed on strategies in  tapping the groundswell. The framework they introduced is relatively simple and is known as the POST (People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology). The questions that most people will ask will be: What are your customers ready for? What are your goals? How do you want your relationships with your customers to change? What applications should you build to facilitate that communication? With that framework in play, the authors looked at five objectives that companies can pursue in the groundswell (Business function - Groundswell objective) :

1. Research - Learning: Companies seeking customers' insights for use in marketing and development.
2. Marketing - Talking: Companies extending their sales channels with digital marketing initiatives.
3. Sales - Energizing: Companies spreading their products/services by viral marketing or word of mouth.
4. Support - Supporting: Companies trying to improve customer support.
5. Development - Embracing: Companies trying to integrate the customers into the way how the business works, for example, engaging them to make the products that might suit them.

Once they established this strategy, the remaining five chapters in part II of the book are devoted to associating each aspect of the objectives with interesting case studies that are mainly found in the US. Of course, it is a good reference for those who might want to execute these strategies in other markets. However, the issue I would caution is that before you want to tap groundswell in Asia, it is often important to establish the context. Perhaps, the authors might have done better job if they could have presented some cases in Asia that might be relevant to the region.

The last part of the book relates how the groundswell transform the business relevant. One interesting case study is Dell, where it took a crisis or two (from complaints about a flaming notebook and disgruntled users on the product specifications) to get them realizing that they have to do something about it. That might provide some help to companies who are receiving flak from the users at the moment here. Of course, the end of the book talks about the ubiquitous nature of groundswell that is already taking shape in modern society.

While I understand that this book is an introduction, there are still two points which the authors may need to address in the future:

• The issue of assessing a groundswell with relevant metrics towards social technologies: How do we know that the environment is fermenting a groundswell that may turn the customer against the company? Establishing some analytical metrics from their case studies might be  of help to the companies who might want to engage in doing that. Presumably, since both authors are from Forrester research, they might have some internal benchmarks.
• A broader scope of social technologies: Reading the section of social technologies, most of them are related to web services. The authors did not talk about the integration of mobile services or other digital signages that can allow users to proliferate information much faster. In the book, the authors talked about the use of social technologies (twitter, facebook) in the US elections. However, in the recent Malaysia elections, the social technology that helped to turn the groundswell into a tipping point is the mobile, where a million SMSes are sent before the night of the election.

Of course, it is an enjoyable read for a few hours to revise some thoughts on social media. Do check out the book in our local bookstores.

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Comments

[Daryl Tay]

I was waiting for someone locally to review the book and say if it's relevant. Thanks Bernard! =)