What we learned: How a few companies are successfully using the Groundswell Framework, and what exactly it is that they are doing.

Listening – companies must listen to what customers are saying to gain better understanding

- Starbucks: My Starbucks Idea (www.mystarbucksidea.com) – a place where registered users can provide ideas, feedback, and talk to each other about the drinks, the food, whatever; Starbucks also monitors twitter feeds and responds directly to customer complaints or questions.

- Sprint: monitors twitter feeds about the company.

- New York Times: The TimesPeople application (http://timespeople.nytimes.com/home/about/) allows users to share and recommend articles more easily than e-mail (which it also supports, though requires some fields have input).

- (Eventually listening) Comcast: Comcast began listening to and acting upon customer complaints at the customer blog Comcast Must Die (http://comcastmustdie.com/). Eventually won that user over by changing service levels and becoming a more customer friendly organization.

Talking – Through social interactive tools (blogs, forums, communities), begin spreading messages to customers

- Starbucks: gives feedback on ideas at its idea site (above), and responds to concerns via twitter.

Example: Anon. twitters: “wtf – i thought starbucks had free internets now… gotta love random open network connections.” 09:02 AM September 26, 2008. Starbucks replies: @anon a registered Starbucks card will get you 2 hours of free at&t wifi … at: http://www.starbucks.com/ca… 10:28 AM September 26, 2008.

- Sprint – responds to twitter concerns directly – see blog post from www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com attached at end of document.

- New York Times: Over 60 blogs with content updated at least daily – many with world class authors such as Steven Dubner. Also uses twitter to send out headlines to followers (subscribers.)

Energizing – Determine who the most energetic users are and leverage their enthusiasm for the brand; essentially making them brand evangelists

- Starbucks: uses a leaderboard at the idea site to recognize significant contributors of ideas; contributors and members can vote for the best ideas which are then sometimes product tested

- Lego: the LUGNET group, which meets online as well as in person, consists of 25 ambassadors for the product and these positions are highly sought after – the title is, in essence, a reward that further incentivizes positive word-of-mouth.

- Apple: uses a reputation function to identify high quality posters among the many thousands who frequent their support and help forums

Supporting – Help customers support each other; an example is Dell’s user generated support forums – people have a natural affinity to help

- BestBuy: BB took this in an inward-facing direction – they set up Blue Shirt Network – a site where employees can connect, share their concerns, and get support from one another

- Apple: has user forums where users help each other

Embracing – After companies have succeeded in the first four steps, engage customers in product development through active feedback principles

- Starbucks: At My Starbucks Idea customer ideas sometimes become reality, as with their new smoother, richer hot chocolate that was obviously in high demand; also reversed their removal of the breakfast sandwiches due to customer feedback – customers have, in turn, responded positively and feel more like part of a community.

- Dell: the Dell IdeaStorm site has promoted user ideas and embraced changes – a site admin provides updates and personally welcomes new users that become solid contributors – many user generated ideas become reality, thus providing more impetus for fans to contribute again and again.

Listening to teenagers

They are trying to be adults but they are kids. They are talking about ignoring fashion – they are anti-fashion, yet they speak of loving Europe in the summer because you can simply don your Lululemons and head out into the street. We stare at them and listen. They are like a different species – so naively cynical, so ready to proclaim allegiances and alliances, cultural or otherwise. Skipping a class in grade 9 is apparently the most exciting thing that has ever happened to them. I want to chastise them for this, but I know it is true; I was there once, and it simply is the most exciting thing you have done in your life at that point. Is it sad? Not really. You are pretending to be an adult, spending time in Starbucks socializing like the adults that have it so easy in life. We’ve arrived, they think.

I am here because I am ostensibly doing research on the market for green packaging, but I am distracted by their presence. I am reminded of The Merchants of Cool, a documentary by PBS showing how marketers utilize teenagers willingness to ‘show and tell’ to figure out emerging trends in retail and entertainment. According to these teenager, I am cool (or perhaps lame?) because I also like Gossip Girl. They are loud and brash and I am losing the battle for concentration.

But while I’m out here on a trembling twig of this limb called concentration, let’s examine background consciousness. It is what is allowing me to focus on writing this while being aware that the teenagers have moved on to Harry Potter, and now, lurchingly, the politics of Paris Hilton (the verdict: attention = money). Because marketing is about first listening and then communicating, we briefly studied the art of subliminal advertising. The word itself is, in my opinion, quite beautiful – sub, meaning under or beneath, and limin, meaning threshold. Therefore, as the words refers to consciousness, it means anything below your conscious threshold.

Here is Derren Brown giving a demonstration of the power of subliminal messages. While he is known primarily as an illusionist, most of what is going on here is uprfont.

Here he uses Neuro-linguistic programming to convince someone they love a gift. And I think the target is the guy from Shaun of the Dead, but I could be wrong.