Groundswell is a fascinating book from Harvard Business Press and written by two Forrester researchers - Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li.It is essentially a treatise about the power of social networking technologies when successfully applied in a business setting. For me - the cornerstone the book is Li and Bernoff's research and application of what they term Social Technographics. It identifies people as ranging from Inactives (in terms of social technologies) to Creators.
Their research spans several countries and demographic ranges and provides some great case studies and anecdotes showcasing organisations who have exploited this trend. For example - BMW in the USA studied the Social Technographic profile of their Mini owners and found they were well above the norm in terms of their participation as Creators and Critics. They used this to create and harness an online community buzz and organise car rallies. Over 2,100 images were placed on Flickr and several Mini videos appeared on YouTube. Online monitoring organisations were able to show that when online community activity increased - so did sales the following month.
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Me and my colleagues at Atos Consulting are actively looking at the issues of workforce demographics; the ageing workforce and Generation Y recruitment. The research in this book caused several light bubs to come on all at once. According to Forrester - 59% of Gen Y join networking sites; 38% create content and 41% are critics. There's your marketing and engagement strategy in a nutshell. Organisations must create platforms and vehicles for connecting with Gen Y where they hang out online. But that's not enough. You must let them create and content, swap stories, offer critique.
How about the issue of all that tacit knowledge that will walk out the door of your organisation as many baby boomers retire? Easy say my KM experts at Atos; "We just need to provide them with the systems to capture, codify and share their knowledge". Trouble is - only 8% of that group are creators and only 8% are joiners of communities of any sort. So the problem shifts to "how am I going to engage and encourage these guys to participate in activities that are new and strange to them?"
As you may have guessed - I love this book!
