Reviewing Naked Conversations

Book:  Naked Conversations | Authors:
Robert Scoble and Shel Israel

Cities: Seattle -- Dates: 11 to 16 Mar 2006

Source: Wiley

Publication: Book / Nonfiction

Publication Date: 2006

Keywords: blogs, business blogs, blogging, corporate culture, public relations, conversation, microsoft

Disciplines: blogging, communications, public relations

Findings

• Blogs are indispensable to corporate communications
• Businesses have benefited from blogging
• Not conversing with customers is perceived as not respecting customers
• Hapless immediate honesty beats refined delayed comments
• Conversation beats press releases
• People want to be part of the process
• The politics of inclusion are real

One Sentence Summary

Blogging offers businesses a real-time view of customers needs, likes, and opinions; avoiding the conversation willfully alienates businesses from their customers.

One Paragraph Review

Business is evolving from a paternalistic relationship where customers get what they are given by companies that make decisions for them to a cooperative relationship where customers and companies collaborate on products and services.  Scoble and Israel present several vignettes of companies that have blogged or allowed blogging with varying levels of success.  They analyze these experiences, pointing out the dos and don’ts in the rapidly developing world of business blogging.

One Page Review

The surface message of Naked Conversations is simple: As we move forward, businesses are becoming expected to blog.  Lack of blogging is an indication of companies that do not wish to have a dialog with their customers.  That indication is perceived as condescending and is being shunned more often by customers.

Scoble and Israel identify multiple companies or employees that have blogged and the results for them.  Some companies have seen great benefits and have avoided public relations disasters through effective blogging.  Other people have lost their jobs or angered their clients.  The book provides several guidelines and what to or not to do when blogging as a professional.

Most interesting from me from a cooperation standpoint are two elements:  Viral Marketing and Gaming.

Viral Marketing

In the book, they say:

Blogging [is] the sex god of the Information Age.  While word of mouth has always been the most credible way to expand awareness and adoption, blogging fits into all this as the most powerful word-of-mouth delivery mechanism to date.  As Yossi Vardi told us, “Blogging is word of mouth on steroids.”

Viral marketing requires a company to initiate an event and then customers to pass the word along about that event.  In order for customers to pass word along they have to feel something about the event.  There has to be some shared passion between corporation and consumer.  With blogging, that passion is more probable because companies and consumers are directly interacting.  A blog post that would have been “The new Argyle MP3 player is okay, but chews up batteries,” becomes, “I’ve been using the Argyle MP3 player for a few weeks.  When I first got it I thought it was really a nice unit.  But I noticed that it ran through batteries like crazy.  On the Argyle blog they asked how people liked it, I mentioned the battery thing.  They clued me in to these great rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries that let it run for over 20 hours!”

That exchange is cooperative.  The product came out, users had a way to have a direct and low-cost conversation, and what was a potential annoyance for users has been turned into a plus.

Gaming

Blogging is primarily about conversation and recognition.  Speaking in a vacuum will garner few listeners.  Conversation happens whether you want it to or not.  These are all very positive.

Gaming however is a major focus for businesses.  Businesses want to become part of the conversation to sell more stuff.  In the end, that’s the primary focus for business blogging.  In light of that, wanting to become part of the conversation can be seen as gaming it.

Your victory conditions for the game is to build a network of information dissemination and satisfied customers that will support you should things sour.  Businesses will rarely blog as a public service.

In any game, sustainability of the game requires adherence to certain rules.  The rules of blogging involve ethical and frequent transmission of information.  Scoble and Israel describe events where companies have willfully gamed the system by creating false personalities who blog, blogged directly about their products, or invented information.      

However, the case can be made that any intentionally corporate blogging is gaming the blogging network.  Scoble and Israel say that most bloggers are somewhat inoculated against such false messages – but few can be truly immune.

Technorati Tags: naked conversations, scoble, shel israel, blogs, blogging, cooperation