Quickthink

This quote from Tim Sanders blog today caught my eye

I work with several leading brands on how to listen to social media to discover detractors (emphasis added)

Tim’s post got me thinking about the “business of listening”. As Tim points out (quoting the Cluetrain Manifesto), markets are conversations. But they are “filtered conversations”, and they need to be managed. Sure, firms can handle the conversations better if they listen more. But more is not necessarly better. So, how can firms listen better? Here are a few quick points to add to Tom Peters’ MBA course on how to listen.

A starting point — A CEO might keep track of the question/assertion ratio of the firm. If the firm isn’t asking questions, the firm won’t get anything back to listen to — except congratulations and complaints.  Listening to congratulations too much is dangerous. Listening to complaints can be useful, if the listening connects to fixing the problems. But this is more about making sure you and your customers are on the same planet than engaging in a creative conversation (check out the photo from Tim’s post above to see what I mean here). The basic point —  any negotiator worth his/her salt knows that the more assertive one is, the less one is listening,  and — equally important — the more conflict one is likely to generate. Right Mr. Cheney? Oh. To clarify, I am NOT referring to secret surveillance of private phone conversations.

To get more creative, the listening process should start with formulating the key questions the firm śhould be asking — that’s a leadership challenge inside the firm. Matt Blumberg from Only Once posts today on some reasons why that challenge gets more difficult as a firm grows.

Hmmm … What questions should I be asking. Good question.

FOLLOW - If anyone is listening, Dave Pogue offers recommendations to tech firms for gadget upgrades based on a Twitter survey. For example, “Predictably, what most people crave in home theater is simplification.” So if it was predictable, why don’t we have it yet? Is it impossible … or is someone out there not listening?

2d FOLLOW - On the idea of formulating the question that starts off the conversation, Roger Cohen uses this idea to clarify why journalism is more than just social media. He writes

(Journalism) comes into being only through an organizing intelligence, an organizing sensibility.

But that is true of any meaninfgul conversation, n’est ce pas? And that is why we do negotiation so carefully — to straighten out the “organizing sensibility” in the midst of uncertainty and real or potential conflict.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 8:12 am and is filed under Business models. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.