PRjake

Google has been around a while.  I think we all know that. In fact, it is going to be in its 11th year soon.  If there is any doubt about it, just Google it.

That is how far we have come.  It still amazes me that google is a verb.

‘Do you know what the capital of Kenya is?’

‘No, let’s google it and find out.”

This is radical.

Well, I am of the opinion that Google makes some of the most user-friendly applications on the Internet today.  Sure, they sometimes foul up, but all applications do.  I can almost do all of my daily operations from my Google account.

This post that you are reading, I wrote and proofed on Google Docs to make sure it would transition better to Word Press.  Word Press is the application that runs this blog.

I don’t know about you, but Google has become a big part of my life and probably yours.  How are they so successful?

Well, besides the fact that it was created by two geniuses and everything, Google embraces its customers!

Embracing is one of five objectives listed in Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li’s book groundswell.  For those who have not been following my blog, the Groundswell is online social media that gives Internet users both power and voice.  This voice has the power to shun the demands and threats of governments and businesses.

The book discusses ways that companies can tap into the power of the Groundswell.  A world where companies’ customers are in control.  Just as a short recap, Internet users are split into six profiles. Collectors, creators, critics, joiners, spectators, and inactives all play a different role in the Groundswell.

Following the People, Objectives, Strategies and Technologies (POST) method outlined in the book, a company must first identify what are the majority of its customer’s (people’s) profiles.  Next they must pick between five objectives. Listening, talking, energizing, supporting and embracing are all objectives a company can pursue in the Groundswell.

I will discuss strategies and technologies of the POST method in later blogs.

Embracing is the idea of letting you or your company’s customers innovate new ideas or products.  This concept is similar to listening, but when you embrace, you or your company implement or include your customer’s suggestions and ideas in fixing and creating products or services.

I am currently in the process of helping Google test its beta version of the offline Google Calendar .  Google wants to listen to my suggestions on how to improve this application.

Why? I have no special technical training.  I am not an employee of the company.  I really just use Google as a tool.  I am the customer that is simply using a tool, I could care less how the company is doing. I am just using Google’s services as means to ends.

This is exactly why Google is listening to me.  I have no corporate biases.  There are no ways for me to personally fix the problems because I have no technical expertise.  I am the customer, and I am the person to whom they are selling.

In order to make better products, reliable products and customer-oriented products, Google wants to embrace my thoughts and suggestions.  Not just me, but the thousands of other beta testers out there.

When I downloaded the beta of Google Calendar offline, I agreed to report all my findings and suggestions.

How does Google do so well?  They are listening; no, they are embracing me and my fellow consumers.  They are making products that we want.  These are products that we can purchase and use.

What better way is there to sell a product?  Give the customers exactly what they want.  That sounds like a good idea to me.

Now, I am on the fourth week of this Halo montage.  I have been using Bungie, the creator of the Halo video game, as an example of how the Groundswell can be used to achieve different objectives.

My past few posts have been on the successes of Bungie in the Groundswell.  This post, I am sad to say, will feature Bungie’s shortcomings.  Fear not, however, they can and probably will be remedied.

The topic this week is on the objective of helping the Groundswell support itself.  In the eighth chapter of groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff discuss different ways that a company can help the Groundswell support itself.

The new way of support is different from the old.  It has perks like being cheaper and efficient, but the spin off is that there is less control over content.

Originally, company support, as many of us know it, came through support phone lines.  Support for American products started here in the U.S. until most companies found the labor cheaper by outsourcing to other countries.  This was a disappointment to many customers, and it became even more frustrating when a majority of the human contact was replaced altogether by a voice recognizing computer.

Since humans have always looked for a simpler solution, we found one in the Web 2.0 generation.  It started with applications like forums, and then came the invent of the wiki.

These two tools are promoted by the book groundswell as good ways for enabling a company’s customer base in the Groundswell to support itself.

Well organized support forums do more than provide a communication channel between a company and the groundswell.  A support forum is much more than a tool for the company to simply talk at or listen to the groundswell.  The support forum in my opinion is a tool that empowers a person to more adequately handle issues they may be facing with a company product or service.

Companies have the ability to reinforce this idea by creating and contributing to support forums.

Wikis are relatively new; especially to me.  However, I find myself using sites like Wikipedia all the time.  Through reading groundswell and searching Web sites, I have learned that wikis are prevalent all across the Web.

Companies can create and contribute to these, especially when there is a lot of jargon or subject matter in relation to their product or service.

Here is the let down.  From my observations of Bungie, and other “Halo” sites, I have not found significant evidence of a well organized support forum or wiki.

But, have no fear Halo fans, and those who are waiting for me to fail at using Bungie as an example.  I am almost sure that as the Halo franchise continues, there will become the need to expand their support capabilities.

My research has shown me that Bungie is involved with support.  On their support page, viewers are directed to either e-mail bungie, call various console support numbers or go to their trouble shooting page.

In my quick search of the Web, I found no other sites that supported the Groundswell for Halo fans with either support forums or wikis.  So there was no place out there for Bungie to become involved.

Who knows?  Maybe someone from Bungie will read this blog and go, “Hey, now there is a good idea!”  I have faith in my favorite video game designer.  They will pull through.

If you have read my past two blog posts about listening and talking to the Groundswell, then you know I have been on a Bungie Halo kick.

I could provide you with other online companies’ examples of how they used one of the five different objectives for tapping the groundswell, but I find it more exciting that one company has already managed to listen, talk, and energize their customers via their Groundswell technologies.

In the book groundswell, they compare the objective of energizing to sales.  This is the method by which a company attempts to create enthusiastic customers that will help sell their product or service.

Old techniques to energize a client’s base relied heavily on word of mouth.  In the Web 2.0 era and rise of the groundswell, energizing has taken on a new medium.

The book outlines three basic ways for a company to energize its base.  Companies can use rating and review options on the company Web site.   A company can create its own online community made possible by marketing services and community building Web sites like Ning.  Many companies also have the option to participate in and energize existing online communities.

Bungie’s Web site executes one of these functions already with its online community.  That community has proved useful in executing the listening and talking objectives.  I will discuss how it more effectively executes the energizing objective.  Also, I will discuss how I think it would be beneficial for Bungie to engage other Halo communities that exist on the Web.

All of the aspects that I have mentioned in earlier blog posts about Bungie’s online community demonstrate the ability to energize the company’s base.  Customers can find help and support in forums found on Bungie’s Web site, and visitors to the site can also do other things that encourage and energize them.

There is the Bungie online statistics page.  This shows, in real time, updates to players, groups and the Halo gaming community as a whole.  Members to this community can upload their own pictures, video clips, video game maps and see where they are most likely to be engaged in battles on those maps.

How exactly does this energize the base?  Well, it gives players a chance to review their techniques, create new strategies, forge alliances and bring in other players to get them excited about the game play.

The media sharing creates bragging rights, explains problems and demonstrates solutions.  It gives customers something to talk about and something to share.

Bungie has the same potential for energizing their base in other online Halo communities. Arm The Flag is an online Halo community that operates similarly to the community on the Bungie Web site.  If they are not already, it would be good for Bungie to start engaging this online community and others like it.

Websites like Arm The Flag have been created and supported by those who are obviously enthusiastic about the Halo game.  If Bungie engaged them more actively and gave them some information and media resources, this Web site would have the potential to be an excellent base for energizing a base.

Again, I am astounded by the online community and Web site of Bungie’s Halo franchise.  Whether they know it or not, they have dug a deep metaphorical well that taps the groundswell.

In my previous blog post, I discussed how companies like Bungie could use the groundswell to listen to their customers.  Indeed, Bungie’s site is a very useful asset to the company’s Groundswell capabilities.  Another one of those capabilities besides listening, is talking.

Talking, as discussed in chapter six of the book groundswell, modifies the normal marketing structure of a company.

According to the book, there were five steps that marketers had to take to try to persuade buyers.  They compared the technique to a shouting process where marketers would listen for the echoes of their efforts.

Marketers had to find their target audience and gain their awareness.  They needed to make that audience consider their product.  Once they had considered the product, potential buyers needed to prefer that product over the other products that were on the market.  When the time came,  those buyers needed to take action.  The action may be buying the product or service.  Upon the completion of all these steps consumers needed to develop loyalty to that product.

Then the company would have, what the book called, buyers.

The book said that the new approach to marketing is more like a conversation or dialog.  The book also urged the need of companies to move to this form of marketing.  Consumers now rely upon each other to make choices and not what the companies tell them.

These consumers are  out in blogs posting information and ratings about companies products that are on the market.  They have created profiles on social networking sites and made causes that both help and hurt a company.  Videos that have gone viral have been posted to the Internet that portray a companies product or service in a good or bad light.  Online communities are springing up without the companies approval (i.e. Harry Potter’s MuggleNet).

All of these groundswell technologies are being used by the people to talk about a product.  As the book says, it creates a world where the people are in control.

In this situation, it is probably best to take the “If you can’t beat them, join them approach.”  Get in there and start talking with these people.

Bungie is embracing the Groundswell, and using it to its advantage to market their customers.  It was a good idea that Bungie create its own Facebook and Myspace page.  There were already many other Facebook and Myspace pages dedicated to the company. So it was common sense that Bungie decided to engage its social network audience.

Bungie’s Web site is loaded with videos, and a quick search of YouTube will show that these videos have gone viral and reached the Groundswell.  Trailers of their video games are easily found in a YouTube search.  Bungie is doing well to say the least.

Online communities were discussed in my blog post about Bungie listening to the Groundswell.  These communities are also used for talking to the Groundswell.  This online community coupled with the Bungie’s blog provides the company with plenty of outlets to communicate with their audience.

How is Bungie doing?

Excellent, according to the book’s standards.

They have engaged in all the activities for talking to their audience as outlined by Forrester.  In the coming posts, we may see exactly how much more of the Groundswell Bungie has tapped.

A good objective for any company is to always be researching and listening to your audience.  This function is most commonly known as marketing research.  In the Web 2.0 era, there are new and unique ways for companies to monitor their brand, and learn about their customers wants and needs.

Chapter five of groundswell calls this objective listening.  The Groundswell is new and uncharted territory for most businesses.  They can try to avoid it, but the Groundswell will continue to call.  At some point, companies will have to get their feet wet.  So why not dive on in and begin using the groundswell to listen to the populous.

As the book points out, listening in the Groundswell provides several advantages to companies.  These companies can find out how consumers interpret their brand and understand how those views are changing.  It is important for the company to see the difference between their desired brand, and the brand that is perceived by customers.

Marketing departments in companies can now save money on research while increasing the effectiveness of the research.  These researchers can find more sources of influence in the companies market more easily.

Constant listening also provides companies the ability to monitor PR crises more effectively.  Googling and searching YouTube for the latest hits, good or bad, about the company.

With input from the consumer, the company can create products and market them more effectively.  This creates less wasted time and money for companies.

Outside of the case studies mentioned in the book, I thought of a company who should, if they are not already, be taking advantage of their online community.

Bungie, who is creator of the popular video game Halo, has an online community dedicated to fans of the game.  I am assuming that they are using the site for all the objectives outlined by the book.  Most importantly, they should be listening.

The Halo video game franchise is enormous.  This would ordinarily make it more difficult for a company to remain aware of the entire fan base.  Now Google and YouTube searches would show the company almost anything they need to know.

The Bungie Web site with the online Halo community is possibly the best way for the company to research and monitor their audience.  The most outstanding feature of the site is the Bungie forum.

There are many other features of the Web site.  Visitors can view player’s service records and files within the game.  However, the forum gives Bungie a chance to listen in and read customers’ opinions.  They can find hacks and bugs within their games and proactively patch them.  They can learn from old mistakes when it comes time to develop new games.

Bungie would be able to quell rumors or respond to criticism before the damage from being unaware and unresponsive is done.

The very “cool” and inviting atmosphere of the Bungie forum ensures that a majority of Halo’s hardcore, and important fans are being heard. There are over 100 staff, or team members as they like to say, at Bungie.  With those resources, I am sure someone is listening.