This week’s material tied in nicely to the Twitter paper that our team is working on. As an example, the “Brand Communities” podcast was very relevant, as I saw how companies like Harley Davidson have been able to develop “cult” followings of their brand and product by creating a community. For our Twitter assignment, we are covering Johnson and Johnson. Despite being a great company, JNJ has a widely diversified target market, various brands, and several different types of products, which makes it difficult to create that type of following for the parent entity. JNJ is using Twitter as a means of building goodwill and showing that the company cares about its customers, but it does not appear to be able to build the type of brand community that a company like Harley Davidson has built.
The Crowdsourcing piece was the most fascinating that I read this week. Companies that have taken advantage of the vast resources that the public can provide them have been handsomely rewarded. It is amazing to me to read about companies like Threadless, that get so much input from the general public, even to the extent that the public is actually coming up with the intellectual property that Threadless then wholly owns! This article was a true example of how companies have certain creative limitations internally and how they can leverage external resources into very significant benefits. By paying a nominal prize to whomever’s t-shirt design is chosen, Threadless has effectively spent research and development money as cheaply as possible, and gets to reap the long-term benefits. It seems to me that many other companies that are “idea driven” should follow this type of business model. A few hundred people internally simply cannot come up with the amount of creative material that millions of people in the general public can, even if the internal staff is highly talented. This is quite an ingenious business model and was a fascinating read.
I also wanted to address the Groundswell reading, as it applies directly to a few real world items today. First, I have always been aware of the power of groups banding together, so it was no surprise to read in the article about how Digg.com handled the release of the HD-DVD processing key. My takeaway from this reading is that the “market” dictates what will happen is most situations. In the case of Digg, once the code was released it was simply a matter of time before people reposted it across the internet, and the groundswell had begun.
I would like to relate this to a couple of real world examples. First, we all saw the fiasco recently regarding President Obama’s birth certificate. I would suggest that this relates to groundswell in that the people (albeit mostly Republicans) banded together and created enough stink over the topic that eventually the “authority” relented. In this case, the President finally released the birth certificate. In my industry (casino gaming), I see another example of groundswell coming to the forefront. Right now internet gambling is illegal in the US, but there is a large ($6 billion+) underground industry that takes place. Because of this presence, and because the “market” (i.e. consumers) dictates that they want these offerings to be available, I believe it will inevitably be legalized. This is not an industry that the government can stop, so in the end they will likely relent and decide “if you cannot beat them, join them” and will regulate and tax the industry. Both of these examples illustrate the power of groups, many of which are banded together using technology such as the internet to influence outcomes.
