Beyond The Conversation

OK, let's get this straight. For the past couple of years we've had a great time talking about the merits of conversation, transparency, authenticity, facilitation, participation, and blah blah blah.  Having talked about "The Conversation Economy" myself—I'm no exception to the "BLAH".  So, we get it—and now it's time to get down to business.  From my vantage point there are a few things going on at once, so here's a few thoughts rolling around in my noggin.

1. Social Networks
I won't go too deep here, we know what the deal is.  Many of us are spending countless hours managing our profiles, uploading our videos and photos, creating personal brands and generally yakking our heads off.  Oh, and we're also using social technologies to collaborate remotely/more effectively and yadda, yadda, yadda.  It's not going away, it's not a fad, and yes it changes how people want to interact with both individuals and in some (but not all) cases, organizations.

2. Internal Properties
Some organizations have invested in creating internal communities to either help break down silos or bring in external viewpoints that they can enjoy from the safety of their secure environments. Much of the interactions here mimic many of the things we see on social networks. People have profiles—wikis can be used for collaborative editing, discussions can ignite around relevant topics and of course information can be shared.  The internal part is important because it keeps the interactions within the business, which aligns with most corporate cultures. But the benefits are similar to participation in social networks—the operative word here is participation (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

3. External Properties
The third leg here in the stool may actually be the most critical and difficult to manage.  Most organizations are moving toward an external presence that consists of multiple sites, microsites, banners, blogs—you name it.  Anything that gets "launched" ends up in the digital ether and is either maintained or neglected. Many of these properties interconnect and depend on one another.  Some come and go and some just litter the Web.

I'd say there are probably more ways to slice this—but for me these are the three biggies and I'm starting to think about a few questions, such as:

1. How will these initiatives relate to one another?
2. Will they be able to scale at the same rate or will some pull ahead of others?
3. How much redundancy will occur between them?
4. Will new tools need to be developed to coordinate internal/external and social activities?
5. What platforms will best be served for research vs. communication?
6. Which systems will demonstrate the most flexibility to adapt?

Right now, I'm mostly in question mode.  Just seems to me that as all of these wonderful changes take place, there is going to be some type of maturation process which requires a bit of orchestration that moves beyond evangelizing the need for "conversation". 

Would love to get your thoughts on this one.

Comments

[Steve Bridger]

David - gross simplification on my part, but maybe...

social networks = what's in it for me
internal communities = what's in it for us
external web properties = what's in it for them (value to customers / advertisers / etc.)

[Steve Woodruff]

Off-the-cuff thoughts: publish, search, find, share, interact. Those 5 verbs undergird the whole ball of wax (conversation is a subset - important, but not the whole). All of these tools and platforms ideally should be enabling those activities for whatever audience. Add appropriate filters and controls to parse the information and connections appropriately and that's the system we're all (slowly!) moving toward.

[Bukola Ekundayo]

I think organizations miss out on big opportunities to leverage microsites. They usually stay up while no one makes a concerted effort to move visitors to a more stable brand property (i.e. the main company site, a well managed Facebook group, etc). Maybe the goal of external web properties can be that of a 'bridge'? Enticing people on the edge (who are not yet fans of the brand) to join a company Facebook group or to subscribe to a company's blog?

[Devlin]

In order to really get from conversation to conversion (in the sales/ROI sense) we basically need to rethink and re-purpose the concept of CRM.

CRM was great at capturing data from applications that were owned and operated by companies and marketers, but we currently have next to nothing for measuring the type of metrics that will be needed to quantify social interactions that occur in the disparate corners of the web. But this is probably because we don't really have any metrics defined for this type of customer interaction either.

So they key question, for me at least, is what do we want to measure? I've heard people talking about measuring social marketing with metrics such as advertising equivalence but it seems to me that we are trying to wrangle old metrics to measure something new. Perhaps we won't even know what to measure until the technology comes along and paves the way. Nobody ever really thought of Cost Per Action until the technology came around.

There are definitely more questions than answers in this space that's for sure, but that's what makes it interesting.

[dirk shaw]

If there is a solid strategy on the role of each destination you outline then i think overlap should be minimal. From my experience it is when there is no cohesive strategy that everyone understands and adopts when redundancy seems to run rampant. This redundancy creates more than just an IT nightmare, it is also missed opportunities to share content, insights and connections etc..

i also totally agree with Steves comment "Add filters and controls to parse the information and connections appropriately and that's the system we're all (slowly!) moving toward. Companies today are using all kinds of tools to solve manage and coordinate ranging from personalization engines, content management systems, collaboration tools, segmentation data, eCommerce and the list goes on.

Until there is either a standard protocol (maybe REST) or a truly integrated platform, coordinating the activities across each of these destinations will require interfacing with several applications and even more skill sets.

Another challenge that should be considered here is the ability to measure the value being derived across this network of digital touchpoints. Today this can require interfacing with several tools and may end up as a combined spreadsheet in order to present the data in one view. Some of the larger web analytics providers and making good progress on parts of this but not all of it.

[Jeffrey Dachis]

David, this poses a great question and Im glad you acknowledge the BLAHBLAHBLAH in the system.

My sense is that orchestration you speak of is going to come about through various combinations of Software (filtering,sorting,negotiating), Strategy (planning for how to best utilize all of this facilitated dialog) and User Experience Design (creating an optimized set of UX design elements that throttle up and down the levels of engagement). It is a complex problem and I'm glad to see you addressing it.

[Copeland]

1. Social Networks, like Twitter: I use for giggles, while providing good links to research/good information when I discover them. Here, I take my water cooler break and goof off. Yet, through following others, I receive a wealth of information I otherwise would not have encountered. Great information tool...IF you chose the right voices to follow (oh, be flattered. ; ) ).
2. Internal: Haven't seen it used successfully due to, yes you said it, lack of participation.

Ironically, I'm seeing a rise in doctor's practices using a wired microphone to communicate with their unseen teammates- wonder if there's success in Utterz in the same way- teams communicating verbally, remotely, successfully.
3. On 3 I'd vote for pulling them together, referencing them/reinforcing. Sometimes duplicate content is not bad if it's reaching different audiences.

Ok that's just an ignorant gal's take...

I think the thing to keep in mind is enjoy and participate, but if it consumes you... then... you are losing sight of your goal. Don't post to please, remember your business model which *must* rely on a great product - No amount of charm or wit will save a mediocre offering.

[Reid Givens]

I think that most of these properties will be utilized for different purposes, much like the current media mix. In each market there is a group that is more prone to certain activities than others. The good marketer will realize how to utilize each property to be relevant and valuable to that part of their market.

Just as we have good traditional media campaigns that use each channel to its fullest extent, we have bad ones that try to do the same thing in every channel. The differences are what we should be paying for above the reach. The smart marketer will bring these philosophies online and use each channel in a unique and valuable way.

[Peter Kim]

Great starting point for the discussion, David. I'd go so far as to say you've queued up the 2.0 of 2.0.

[Dave Shelleny]

To me, it all comes down to a story. Every company and person has a story to tell, and social media gives the storytellers an environment to tell it. The smart companies are the ones that use the 2.0 landscape to invite others into their story so that the side effect is the creation of ambassadors of their brand. Like Ms. Copeland said in an earlier comment, the cornerstone of all this "stuff" is a solid offering. The beauty of social media is that the corporate walls are coming down, and in my opinion, it is imperative for companies to concentrate on their customer's experience, and be "at the table" so the result is more posts, tweets, and forums that positively contribute to the story.

[Adam Kmiec]

David

Something I've been contemplating is a 4th bucket: The Sync. Let's take Twitter. Right now what I tweet is synced to my Facebook status and a section of my site. Conversations and interactions can happen in any of those 3 areas. But, how a brand/company/person can interact with me changes based on where they choose to engage. If you choose Twitter, you get 140 characters and no images. If you choose facebook, you need to be my friend first :) If you choose my site your choices are unlimited.

Something to think about.

Adam

[Martin Roberts]

I think that Steve Bridger's quote, which was clothed in the garmet of brevity, captured the essence of it:

me -> we -> you.

Dave's comment about stories then nicely adds to this:

my stories -> our stories -> your stories.

The cynics might say that social networking is all making yourself larger than life, and enterprise is all about sucking the life out of you...

[Ryan Stephens]

I'm with Peter on this one. This is what resonates the most with me, "...some type of maturation process which requires a bit of orchestration that moves beyond evangelizing the need for 'conversation.'"

We can talk ourselves to death about conversation, but the leaders are already pondering how to utilize the the three biggies you've mentioned with conversation at the helm.

Thanks for laying the foundation!

[Gerrit Eicker]

I'm not sure if these properties are truly devided: Maybe it's just what we think about them now?

Smile! Gerrit - We speak Online.

[Jon Burg]

Love it. I would add in an additional layer of information - they relative position of each play on the user.

In my experience, I have found that there is a category of community that lives below the radar, potentially not present in any of the above mentioned community/social dynamics - that of the meta-community. Think the cult of mac. Cultists love mac, they relate to each other, they feel a sense of belonging... but they don't join cultofmac.com, cultofmac on facebook, or cult.mac.com. They live it. The meta-community lives beyond the digital social dynamic as you have cleanly displayed above.

In your view, where would a meta-community live?

[Jason Burke]

Most professionals have at least 2 email accounts – one business, one personal. Both are attributable to the individual, and both are disclosed publically. But the information rules are not equally permeable – personal things can be handled by business email (barring policy constraints), but not vice versa.

Comparing the concepts of attributability and permeability, you see an interesting pattern emerge: social networks are attributable and permeable, internal properties are attributable but not permeable, and external properties are permeable but not attributable (and I would put business blogs in the social network category since business blogs that are not socially oriented usually fail, and successful blogs are tied to personal identities that transcend employer – e.g., Scobleizer). As we watch the ever-ongoing shift from proprietary to commodity technology capabilities, I believe that we will see a stronger focus on interoperability for technologies driving attributability (e.g., IM bridges, FriendFeed, professional work tied to attributable information sources), but that the permeability will remain largely asymmetrical due to information constraints with some notable exceptions such as research and open-source software which play by an explicitly different set of information rules.

[Paula Thornton]

Thanks for the fodder. I think I'll leverage part of this for panel at upcoming Gartner Web Innovation Summit. Point 2 illustrates one of the 'problems' in the industry -- thinking that you 'create' anything. The communities already exist -- they need an outlet.

[Livia Labate]

Woo hoo, speculation galore follows:

1. I like how different comments have related these 3 types differently. I wonder, however, if there is additional value in identifying what's common across them, rather than distinguishing the three -- are(n't) they all essentially communities of practice (in one way or another)? -- My thought is that in the commonalities that we will better understand the relationship, not in the differences.

2. Making the assumption that they are all communities of practice (yay for self-serving argument), their ability to scale/grow is dependent on the interest and investment of those involved. The third type you outlined is the most challenging because a business interest in a community (and its focus) is usually 'false' in the sense that more often than not, there is no true interest in that focus, but how to make money from it.

3. In terms of redundancy, I expect a lot of overlap. I would expect a lot of redundancy until there is saturation (in any particular focus), then normalization over time as competing groups die off.

4. We can't help but create new tools. The tool I'm looking forward to the most, is the one that help people make sense of the overlaps and identifies what's relevant for them personally in each one of the overlapping options.

5. hmmm great question -- I'm thinking research will become more and more just "communication in hindsight" - aka 'look what people are talking/talked about'.

6. most flexibility to adapt will be the systems that aren't just flexible from a technological and collaborative standpoint, but those that are flexible from a business rules standpoint. People/companies will need to become less afraid to kill things that don't work and evolve things that do work.

Thanks David, I love answering random questions about the future without any substantiation. ;D

[shashindra]

My sense is that orchestration you speak of is going to come about through various combinations of Software (filtering,sorting,negotiating), Strategy (planning for how to best utilize all of this facilitated dialog) and User Experience Design (creating an optimized set of UX design elements that throttle up and down the levels of engagement).

[Mukesh Makhija]

Social networking sites should now offer following features:
a. Trusted group of friends.
b. Friends
c. Business Friends.
d. Friends i would like to pursue
e. Friends i would like to avoid.
Based on this classification the other person can see the information that we would like to share with them.

Feature 2 they can offer is ability to converse to freinds as per thier location and time zones. If i chat with a US friend the time if displayed along with his location and if possible weather and time - i would decide how much to talk and when not to disturb.

Feature 3. The Social Networks should try to build a site according to a individuals time and agenda and it would tell and guide the person on the do list, meetings list, birthday list and display information according to his time and location.

Feature 4. I think Facebook is already working on is various tickers running across like Movies, Stocks, News, Currencies etc... as per a persons choice.

Feature 5. Would be a "what i want list" this can be somehow linked to advertisers etc... i think no one minds to get advertisements of products that one wants.

These kind of features will make Social networks much more fun and can see people sticking to the networks more.
I have million more features i can talk about but ....................next time may be.

[Marc Meyer]

David, it's just a big NOW WHAT question. But I think it's important not to forget that there are so many personality types in this great big world and one of the critical aspects of all the web 2.0 tools, is that it requires someone to cultivate their voice and I worry that online personalities may mirror offline and thus, these tools exist and yet people will still be reticent to use them.

[Jeremy Horn]

In response to your questions take a look at my writings about Modular Innovation. I think my article MI101 most aptly addresses the questions and the trends of increasing connectedness, interoperability, and relationships between people and products online.

http://tpgblog.com/2007/12/06/modular-innovation-101/

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy
http://tpgblog.com

[StefanoM]

David, do you think that a good way to aggregate and to merge internal properties with external properties and with social networks could just be to create a new internal property that contains all of the above?

A sort of "branded aggregator", maybe inside the brand's website targeted to consumer could work well for this purpose in my opinion.

It will allow to bond all the contents together and will give the user a significant vantage point on the subjects related to brand's world.

It needs though to be managed carefully not to look to much "branded" and unnatural to the user, but I guess this is the only restriction. What do you think?

StefanoM

[Dr. William J. Ward]

David,
Private and Public organizations and institutions need to embrace transparency and quit wasting time on their internal systems. The tools and systems already exist extrernally online (free in most instances). Valuable time and resources are wasted looking behind and trying to build and protect what is already visible. Duplication and redundancy benefits no one. Once this happens archaic organizational silos will come down. Integrated Marketing Communications will have one voice that will make many of your questions redundant.
Cheers,
DR4WARD

[Connie Bensen]

I would call the final part - outreach. And this is the role that community managers can assist with. They can ensure that all the various efforts are monitored & not redundant.