Tagged: Social Media RSS

  • Bill Rice 10:48 am on July 31, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Social Media, , , users, Web 2.0   

    Software Engineers Learning to Listen to Users 

    Dave Winer
    Image via Wikipedia

    Another software gem from Dave Winer–be a user and listen to users. Hopefully, he will continue to build out this advice, but I thought it was valuable to pull it out and highlight here:

    1. Be a user. Develop apps you yourself have a use for. If you don’t have a feeling for what it’s like to be a user, you’ll never know how to evolve the products, and the stuff you learn in #2 will never make sense.

    2. Listen to users. Learning how to code is straightforward, it takes time to perfect your skills, but it’s relatively easy compared to the skill of listening. I recently suggested to a VC friend that we start a company whose sole differentiator is that it strives to perfect the art of listening to users.

    I think social media and Web 2.0 are making it easier for us to listen to users–trying to use our software as well as get things done. Unfortunately, we often don’t put the effort into making it easy to hear and listen for our users.

    We just added GetSatisfaction.com and the Feedback tab (widget) into all of our applications. Hopefully, that will make it easier for them to talk to us. In addition, we are becoming more active in energizing and engaging our user community.

    Still, the methodology for listening is not perfected. More thought and innovation is needed…

    Ideas? What are you doing to listen better to your users?

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

     

  • Bill Rice 11:13 am on April 28, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: community, crisis, , security breach, , Social Media   

    LendingTree and the Tale of Two Crises 

    Last week LendingTree had two crises.

    Crisis 1

    The first, was relatively small. A few former employees used their access to customer inquiries (leads), most likely for personal gain, to give unauthorized lenders access to LendingTree’s Lenders Network. Sure, I and a lot of other people can think of the worst possible ramifications of this incident. However, the true facts probably will reveal something far less dramatic–a couple of ex-employees trying to stick it to their old company and make a quick greed inspired buck. And, a few unscrupulous lenders willing to comprise their integrity and their business for free leads.

    Crisis 2

    The second, is possibly the more unfortunate and potentially damaging. They lacked a community of vocal and fanatical customers. This is certainly not unique to LendingTree, but rather is quite endemic of the lead generation, mortgage, and to a lesser degree real estate industry. Those of us within this business ecosystem should take note and endeavor to fix this before we inevitably encounter our own crisis.

    The Solution

    This is more a open thought and discussion piece since I won’t be so arrogant as to believe I have the answer, or could have in the heat of the incident performed better. However, I will be critical in the hopes of beginning a useful discussion. A discussion on building a community that will passionately assist a business they believe in, even during bad news.

    Here are a few things that LendingTree has done very well, and has differentiated their business, but didn’t help in the current crisis:

    • Been dogmatic about creating the highest quality customer (borrower) experience
    • Building an “elite” cadre of lenders who actively collaborate to improve the lead network, customer experience, and lender experience
    • Creating a top-shelf consumer brand that remains etched in every homeowner in America

    Here are a few things that LendingTree did not do well in adjusting to a new social marketplace:

    • Did not build a community of customer evangelist from their loyal customer base
    • Did not build a community of lender evangelist from their loyal lender base
    • Create, develop a community evangelist at LendingTree

    Turning Customers into a Community

    I think if LendingTree had evolved their “network” into a “social media community” this recent incident would have barely registered. Instead it would have, in a natural way, triggered the vocal opinions of an established loyal customer and lender community. Here are a couple of examples from one of these loyal lenders:

    Imagine if LendingTree’s thousands of customers and hundreds of lenders had all been engaged. What would have happened if LendingTree began the communication with the community and the affected customers together. The doom and gloomers would have been a faint whisper and the media would have tracked a very different meme.

    Community Building Resources

    If you think this is important to your company here are a few of my favorite resources:

    Is this important? How would you build and maintain a community?

     

  • Bill Rice 8:17 am on April 15, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: contact management, social apps, Social Media,   

    Contact Management for Twitter 

    No more excuses for not staying in contact with friends, family, and business contact. Now you can have social contact management that works seamlessly with your existing Twitter.

    Here is the idea and what to do:

    richer_twit.png

    1. Get Twitter or have Twitter, who doesn’t have Twitter yet?
    2. Follow salestwit
    3. Sign-up for a “closed” beta invite at http://www.salestwit.com
    4. When you get your invite sign-up at http://salestwit.com/twitup.php using your invite code
    5. Once signed in load your contacts from gmail, yahoo!, outlook, apple mail, or any other address book
    6. Set the interval you want to contact folks in the settings link
    7. Wait for you first twit from your address book, and surprise you first long lost friend or business contact

    If you like it share your invite code, talk about it, and give us feedback for the future.

     

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