me as pinko ?
Henriette Weber Andersen
- except for my presentation.
I think that the Pinko's has one thing in common - we have a very
thin fine line between " right" and " obnoxious" when it comes to
marketing. Me myself has a problem with large corporations,
rediscovering themselves.
Actually two weeks ago in Copenhagen there was a "customermade"
conference, which in it's essence was very useful. But after a day of
" use your community, ask the right questions, get the right
feedback, get their ideas by making them feel apart of something" I
was quite puzzled. I mean don't get me wrong, you have to seperate
the bull from the gold of course. But some of the companies there was
actually describing to other companies how they used their community
and the passion of their users in the community to gain acces to new
brains. new ideas. getting them implemented etc etc.
I was wondering what the difference between these actions and hidden
" volunteer labour" is.
I mean, I have been contributing a lot to networks lately, in Denmark
in particular. But there hasn't been anything in it for me. Im just
sitting here feeling kinda sad that my brilliant brain has been
whored for a community that didn't reward me or gave me enough
recognition...
anyway, enough said... I just think it is pathetic when communities
comes to this.. adding a lot of salt, but no gain in the end.
as a user, I can't use it for anything.
as a professional, before I go into more communities - or helping
cool companies, I am starting to ask for money first.. because I
can't run a business without money - and if I am good enough to
advise them, I am good enough to get paid for it. I am done with
volunteer mindsharing , because I don't get anything out of it.
I think the most pinko would be to make the community know what they
will get for benefitting, aka. "what's in it for me" - that's what Im
working at...
all the best from sunny Copenhagen..
Henriette Weber Andersen
http://www.henrietteweber.com
http://toothlesstiger.net
Cole
bed!)
I like the money up front idea! Bit of cash for the community to get
stuff done, lovely. And you're right as far as companies goibng
'viral' whoring a community to do their work (ad agencies - i'm looking
at you) and not giving anything back; funnily enough, I had a chat with
some friends and posted the other week about the fine line you talk
about at the start of your post.
link - http://corrado.me.uk/05-04-2006/sleazy-or-sweet
I'm waiting for an article (off my old marketing lecturer from college)
in which she reviews current literature about marketing ethics, I'll
post my thoughts about it as I thought it would give us a bit of
insight about what elements of marketing virtuosity/ethics contribute
to PInko marketing.
I'll leave you with a quote from the ever wise Dumbledore:
"Difficult times lie ahead Harry - we shall all have to choose between
what is right and what is easy"
Cheers,
Cole
Cole
years back, perhaps this concept (and activity) is seeping out of the
organisation and in to the community Cluetrain-style!
prashant
you missed a Crucial point here ,
there is surely something for community . one of their pain area is
being addressed . what is Riya but a community of folks who have tough
time manging their photo collection .
what is Del.ico.us but a community of folks who have tough time find
content of their choice from like minded humans not from some crawler
.
what is Wikipedia ? but a aggregate of feedback from volunteer it
brings a lot many prospective on one topic, far far more useful than
something created by whims and fancy of a closed editorial team in
traditional way .
i think solution/remedy of pain is the reward of community . what is
the objective index to measure the return to you ? well ! that depend
how often you face the problem which is addressed by a pinko product .
and its true for any breakthrough . it has diff rent value for
different folks .if you are a lazy couch potato with an Aol Email
account and a desktop and you rarely go out of your home . than
Hotmail might not be that useful for you .but if you are a Traveling
salesman with out a Laptop and WiFi , its god's gift for you .Do you
agree ??
now talking of money . Ya the concept of ROI is a little hazy in Pinko
, but its not totally not un-measurable . for example i am use a
social networking site , their Marketing folks keep asking for my
feedback , one day i send them an email asking fora cool new feature
which might be very very useful. in 24 hrs i got an email from their
CEO telling me that they were fool not to think of it on their own .
they promised me to ship it soon . they thanked me and offered me to
upgrade to their higher version "Free Of Cost " for first year . i
declined as my requirement were totally being served . so this can be a
way to compensate the community in addition to giving them something
they want .
to some extent member of community know it they might not be
articulate about it but they know that's why they participate in
community activities on voluntary consent
that's why i am writing to your post on the cost of skipping my lunch .
there is something for me here
Regards
Prashant
www.knowprashant.blogspot.com
Henriette Weber Andersen
first of all you are talking to a lady, so no mr. Anderson here. mrs.
to you =)
anyway I think you are missing out on something as well. Riya is a
community because it gives something to the people who want to manage
their photo collection - are they asking you to whore your brain for
their gain ? nope. the same goes with del.icio.us - hey they feed me
knowledge from my friends.. and I get to feed somebody else
knowledge. wikipedia is a community that gives your curtosy, and all
of these communities are runned for people, not for cash-flows and
bottom lines.
all I want to say is that there is a line that some companies,
according to me , are crossing and I think it's not only sad, but as
any other case it is damaging for marketing in general.
if you are thinking of getting your community to come up with
innovative ideas, there better be a cake for them at the end.
otherwise, I am pretty sure that these people will not volunteer as
easily again - AND.. it makes the world a little more sceptic...
Henriette Weber Andersen
prashant
i apologies for the goof up , Good to have your prospective here but
my point is that at what point in your product life cycle you approach
community if you go to them in the very beginning or What i call the
ideating stage then the mere joy of creating something according to
there ideas is a big enough reward for community i don't think people
want any kind of monetary or any other compensation for that .
and if the problem is big enough and substantial enough for the
community , folks will give you input effortlessly . there is nothing
like the extreme of "whoring my brain "or anything .
look it like this i have a problem, i need a solution , i have some
hazy ideas of how it may be solved but no time /resource/energy to try
. Now someone comes along and approaches few more folks like me
suffering from same problem . aggregate their views ,refine it
,develops something ,show it to us improve it and give it back to us as
product .
where is the issue ? i don't think i should demand some CAKE in
exchange of the input i provided . well those ideas were mere ideas in
my head i won't have pursued them on my own anyway . i now have a
solution hell i care about any CAKE . (don't be offended , i like the
metaphor of CAKE so i am using it repeatedly :-) ) .
See like you can't make horse to drink water similarly any community
can't give significant input without connecting to the very cause .
some clueless firm do cross the line but i guess its true more or less
wit any system .
Tara Hunt
At Riya, we are releasing our API soon and so Munjal (CEO) came to me and said, "We should set up a contest for the best API and we'll pay to get it developed." Although this sounds like a fine idea, it's very problematic:
- Rewarding one person excludes everyone else
- Rewarding one person de-centifies that one person
Either way, I told Munjal that we should save the money to create hack days and the like...maybe even a cool 'sprint' where anyone could come and enjoy a three or four day weekend somewhere and gather with other developers/geeks/etc. that are passionate about the same stuff.
Instead, we should let our API go free and see what happens, then put together an API feature site like Firefox has for their extensions for developers to share and collaborate (including our own).
I suppose it's like CAKE...if it's there in the kitchen, I'm bound to eat it. I'll enjoy it more having discovered it myself than someone pushing it on me with "Eat this CAKE, it's great!" ;)
Does anyone out there know anything about the psychology of reward and the open source phenomenon?
T
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
www.horsepigcow.com
Deborah Schultz
prashant
Ya there are several studies on this . Proff. Mohanbir Shawney of
Kellogg Did a research paper on "community of Creation" . Eric Raymond
did a great analysis of this and other model in "Cathedral And Bazaar"
. apart from these academic research some companies have tried to
implement it in practice also one example is of European pharma company
which posts /publishes the unsolved research problem on its community
site and people solve it to win the price , sort of bounty hunters .
interesting thing is that this payment is one time and any patent or
IP Created by this submission or derived by this submission belongs
exclusively to Company and the individual who submitted it can't claim
any right on it . this may be a little problematic if the person who
submitting it is not aware of the overall scope of benefit company may
derive from his work .
Harley Davidson do it by awarding most decorated bike, most veteran
rider and other such thing at there get to gathers .
In general rewarding the community sounds like a good idea. but in
truth an individual is one who gets the cake . remember reward comes
after competition,and no body wants to lose in competition . so in a
close knit group rewarding the individual might not be a good idea .
with the carrot of monetary reward there are lot of pollutant in the
community . we want Missionary not Mercenaries .
Prashant
www.knowprashant.blogspot.com