Over the past couple of months, I have become fascinated with social technology and its impacts on me, the marketing profession and our culture overall. I know that’s stating the obvious for those that have been on Facebook, My Space, Twitter and the like for some time now. However, I am learning that most people are still learning about social media. For example, last week, I was at a dinner with 15 fellow CMOs and in a informal poll we took at the table, only 2 of my colleagues had used Twitter or Facebook, not surprising to me, given that I had only discovered Twitter 45 days or so ago. Two weeks ago at our Quarterly Board Meeting, when Twitter was mentioned as an example of new ways to talk to our customers et al, one of our Board Members asked me if I had invented the word.
For me, social technology is extremely interesting for a variety of reasons. I strongly believe in the idea of crowd sourcing and co-creation. I know that I don’t have the best ideas myself and that the “5,000″ smartest people do not work at Best Buy corporate or any one place for that matter. Through social technology it is possible to dramatically increase the “intellect and passion” working on stuff that I care about. The Best Buy culture has helped me to see this opportunity as I don’t think I am naturally wired this way. For those who do not get our culture, I have attached a short video that does a great job showing off some of the tools we use. http://tinyurl.com/3gkry2
I am meeting people and hearing things that I never would in my “real” life. There is something about this virtual talk that makes the conversation more open, less restricted by title, function and what ever barriers real or imagined people bring to what they do. It’s also more easy to connect with the outside world. I can’t put my finger on why access happens more freely, except to say I feel bonded in a way with others who are jumping into this pool with me and are trying to figure this new wave out. I also like to think of myself as a very curious person and Twitter is turning me on to cool things. For those that participated in last night’s “Hack The Debate,” http://tinyurl.com/4fwatb, you know what I am talking about.
For people that work with me, you know that we strongly believe that our Brand has to become more trusted. This can mean a lot of things but for me it starts with being open and transparent. I feel like there is no better way for me personally to reinforce that behavior than participating in activities like Twitter and blogging that when done well enable me to live the Brand ideals. And in trying to do so, I need to be truly open to others POVs about the work me and my team are doing and be committed to doing something with the feedback and ideas I hear about. My goal is to be more easily accessible for the entire Company not just the people that I directly work with. This medium gives me that opportunity and everyone else the ability to participate if they so choose.
Finally, I think social technology is going to change my profession and more importantly is culture in very significant ways. I don’t know how but I do know that participating is a lot different from reading and I want to be part of it.
I would be very interetsed to know what others think of social technology and of my ideas.
Barry,
Please add this blog and your twitter account to FriendFeed! It’s a great community and you’ll get a lot more conversation going that way.
I’m assuming this account is you (http://friendfeed.com/bestbuycmo) so you’re already halfway there.
Thanks,
Daniel
I think socia media like twitter are complementary to traditional forms of marketing and advertisement.
These are the advantages I see in participating in social media.
- You are seen as more genuine
- You can have a more direct conversation with a niche constituency
- You can sound out ideas in the form of micro-experiments
- You can get immediate, genuine feedback
- You can get genuine, useful, unsolicited feeback
However, as I mentioned in a recent posting, you can’t just jump-in because it’s cool and you have to be consistent in your postings (recurrence and quality) to establish trust. For more check http://tinyurl.com/4krg4z
All the best,
Wahyd
Barry – I found your site from your Twitter feed… great to see you engaged in the technology… you might want to check out the ideas of Sam Laurence CMO of Jive Software posted “10 ROI charts you can’t live without” to his blog Go Big Always – the charts range from the obvious to the insightful.
It was nice to see our work on Web 2.0 tools showcased on YouTube… now my wife and friends can see what I’ve been talking about for the last year.
Keep up the transparency and continue to remind everyone that these tools are only v1.0 – early adopters have embraced them but if we don’t continue to improve them we will never get the other 90%.
Pretty interesting to hear your take on this. I understand why many people have been slow to pick up on Twitter, but I’m surprised that only 2 of your colleagues were using Facebook. Knowledge of how to use Facebook and other major social networking sites should be mandatory for marketers looking to engage in conversation with customers. Twitter is one of the easiest tools to use for tracking customer thoughts.
The new social technology has made the marketers job easier. It has never been easier to know what the customer is thinking, what they want, and what they need. Focus groups will become a thing of the past. If you want to know what people are thinking, you can do a simple blog search or browse on Twitter.
Social technology is transforming the marketers thoughts from ‘what is the customer thinking?’ to ‘Let’s find out what the customer is thinking through the power of social networks and deliver on those needs.’
Barry, agree with your sentiment about power of social technology that enables/facilitates more real, authentic, open, no-fear conversations and debate. That has been my “ah-ha” in last week as I’ve personally too jumped in head first to the previously unknown space. Kudos to people like jbweb for teaching and encouraging others to try and do. It seems easy to think or be critical that openess = competitive weakness or a threat. But the world has changed – very few secrets that cannot be found.
So I applaud your leadership stance and modeling the behavior. Keep it up and as you’re seeing, others will follow and help lead in their own ways. And doing it not only because it makes smart business sense, but because customers and employees now expect and value this.
I had not heard of Twitter until the Media Kickoff in Dallas but I see how it can be a strong marketing tool. I love that people that follow us can get updates on their phone so we can post instore specials that they can know about instantly. That is why I started the one for my store. I just wanted to know if you have heard of any good ways to increase customer followers? Currently the only people following our store are other best buy emloyees.
Rambling statement that eventually leads to a question:
Today, you probably have a fairly manageable twitter/blog comments feed that you can get through reasonably quickly. I have a feeling that over time your list of followers will grow exponentially to the point where you’ll be bombarded with comments/questions/opinions. Add to that the people that -you’re- following, and pretty soon you’re spending all day just trying to keep up.
How do you plan to balance the ever-increasing incoming requests for information and your need to seek out new ideas from the people you’re following? How do you keep up, plus stay on top of your “offline” role?
Can you still have authentic dialog when you’re talking to thousands of people at a time?
(And FWIW, I appreciate the open dialog you’ve been having with those of us outside the walls of 7600 Penn Ave.)
About 10 years ago Knowledge Management caught the interest of business, mainly because it helped workers “get smart fast”. Today’s social media does the same thing with the notable exception that it is self-selecting and you can learn from people who interest you from around the globe, not just those in your own company.
The fact that only 2 out of 15 CMOs used Twitter or Facebook is telling. In these times of fragmented media you don’t want to be one of those 13 CMOs who are wondering what that whooshing sound is.
Here’s why it’s great for your company: it’s real-time intelligence. It may be disconcerting to CMOs that consumers are better at research than their own companies but ask a 20 year old how they make their purchasing decisions and those 13 other CMOs will join you rather quickly. It’s a social decision.
Here’s why it’s good for the brand: People (specifically Americans) like to feel like they are “insiders”. This would explain all those how-to shows and reality shows on TV. Everyone is an “insider” now. By a CMO talking about some of the successes and challenges facing Best Buy, you include customers (and potential customers) in the development of the brand. And by virtue of that, they become invested in the brand. It’s smart.
Here’s why it’s a profound educational shift: The CMO of Best Buy Twittering gives C-level access to students of marketing that was heretofore unavailable. Any credit card company will advise you to get them when they’re young and they will stay loyal to you. I will suggest that the same is true of information and access. You teach, you gain loyalty.
Andrew Frank over at Gartner makes some good points about “combining workflow with communication”. Combining workflow with communication is really at the heart of social media.
http://snurl.com/46k2v
This was a very interesting post to read for multiple reasons. One, I’m involved in Twitter and Facebook, mainly to promote my part-time job as a photographer. It’s allowing me to build relationships and connect with people in new ways.
Second, my day job is working for The Richards Group on The Home Depot account, where social technology is a very new world for them. I agree that there are so many ways to use this new space and drive home your brand values and connect with new people in what could be the beginning of long term relationships.
I think you’re leading a charge here, especially with large retailers, and it’s pretty interesting to watch. Thanks.
This is a great dialog – thanks for being so transparent. Like Stephen above, I work for The Home Depot (I actually work on the client side) and I see many similarities b/w how you believe BBY can use social technologies and the opportunities we feel we have as well. Without going in to too many details, I can say the organization (from our CMO down) is beginning to understand the potential social computing has in our overall marketing mix. As one example, I’ve been pleased to hear our CMO reference (correctly, I should add) the “work we’re doing on Twitter” in at least a couple different contexts. Good stuff.
That being said, I believe one of the biggest challenges facing companies with respect to this space is to make sure they clearly articulate a strategy for this new landscape without allowing themselves to simply be romanced by all the “cool technology”.
I also agree that social media will fundamentally change the marketing profession as a whole. Deloitte’s Tribalization of Business report has some good commentary on the impact of social media on the CMO role specifically: http://tinyurl.com/3kg5yo. Where it will all land is anyone’s guess, but it’s clear to me the end impact is going to require a well-developed change management skill set, so perhaps in that sense it’s not such a new business problem after all.
Building a little on what FoolishAndy said, what fascinates me most is the internal corporate dynamic aspect to all of this. What about the BBY employee who has been trying to get on your calendar for 4 weeks to discuss something, only to see you replying real-time to people on twitter that don’t even work at the company … ? Not saying it’s right or wrong, but you know it will happen. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Barry, I enjoyed this post! It got me thinking. It’s tempting to lump all of the “social media” together – Facebook-blogging-twitter-LinkedIn-etc. But each is really unique – as unique as personal letters, local newspapers and national magazines are in traditional print media.
I’ve personally found Twitter to be the most intriguing. As I hear you and others reflect on what they think of Twitter, there’s a common thread having to do with raw human connection. I’ve always loved books because they, in a sense, transport us inside the mind of another human being. Twitter seems to do that in raw, teaspoon-sized sips. Over time, a web of shared meaning seems to develop around a group of Twitter-buddies that is unlike any other form of communication.
The implications for commercial businesses are fascinating. The Cluetrain Manifesto talks about the erosion of barriers between the inside and outside of corporations. We’re all people, after all, both inside and outside. Twitter seems to take us right to the quantum level, where we’re like particles that float through the “barrier” almost without noticing it…it’s so large, and we’re so small. Even someone like yourself clearly blogging and Twittering in your persona as Best Buy CMO…suddenly there’s this PERSON there.
It doesn’t surprise me that your peers aren’t using this technology. It requires a time commitment, and established professionals tend to stick with tools that they know. Even if they’re savvy enough to know it matters to their business, they’ll typically find others to “figure it out” for them. By getting directly into these media, you are leading in a new way, conducting a live experiment on what marketing and branding mean in a social age.
“Great Brands” of the past 30 years typically have been icons which represent some experience or provide a badge the customer loves. What happens when the brand becomes transluscent, then transparent, then atomized into the tens of thousands of people who work in that company, and the millions who shop there? What happens when, instead of seeing Best Buy as a yellow tag on a big blue box full of consumer electronics, we see Best Buy as a sea of people, more or less like us?
Barry,
Welcome and I look forward to continuing to read your blog. With your bringing Best Buy into the social media space, one aspect that you need to consider is how you intend to monitor the various conversations that are occurring in the various blogs and social nets.
With the companies focus on the b2c market and the geographic dispersion of the Best Buy operations, you need to consider such a solution.
I do work with such a product called SM2 from Techrigy if you are interested in this or establishing a comprehensive social media marketing strategy. You can also find me on twitter at jonofsma.
Barry,
You have been a role model at BBY for diving into this work. You have made it personal and the learning is real. The best way to learn is by doing. I have found Twitter addictive and often frustrating because I am wired for deeper 1:1 dialogue. It feels like the potential is huge. It also feels like the need for ’synthesis’ becomes even more important.
Thanks Barry for your lead on this.
Kal
The social networking thing is as natural as breathing to me in some ways, yet like breathing underwater in others.
I’m 37, but have been in online communities for 32 years. Dad was both a hardware and a software guy (a rare breed) and back in the 70s worked on projects involving large mainframes with widespread use of terminals. I was able to get a kid’s account on his company network. That meant connections to a bunch of people at his company, as well as to a bunch of college students (since one major installation was at UI-Champaign-Urbana).
There was all sorts of boring work stuff that was boring to an elementary age kid, but the games were cool, of course. Instant messaging on the internet wasn’t as good as the functionality there until about 2000. A lot of message boards still lack functionality available then. And the MMO games (massively multiplayer online games) probably didn’t up to speed until 5 years ago.
But the really cool thing wasn’t the technology (high tech or low). It was the fact that there were people on the other end of that line. I met a lot of people that way–mostly other kids of employees, but also some college students. The best games weren’t just the ones where you happened to be playing a game with a chat board to take to others at the same time–they were the ones that encouraged–even necessitated–working as teams to play successfully. I met friends that way, far and near–found kids at my own school, found kids across the country.
From that standpoint, I get where a lot of today’s youth are at with technology and the social networking. I’m pretty much one of the few people of my age group who grew up that way, but I get the use.
So what part is so foreign to me? The total integration of the social networking in today’s world. For me, going to use the computer was a dedicated experience–I had to go to the basement and log on to a world that was widespread geographically but still required special access to be a part of it. Now, everyone is everywhere, and there are so many ways to get at it–especially highly mobile ways. Cell phones? Laptops? Wireless anything? Didn’t exist then, and almost no one else had a computer of any kind.
Bottom line is that I grew up social networking, but only within a sort of limited club of people who had a computer before PCs even hit the market. Today, it’s everyone everywhere all the time. It’s ubiquitous and I’m not sure what to make of that.
I’d like to think I’m evolving though–I just found one of my old childhood online friends in LinkedIn.
I was, for 10 years, CMO and the only woman partner (and non architect) of the third largest architectural practice in the US. During the 70’s and 80’s that was unusual. Also, I am a founding member of SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services. I too am fascinated by social networking because it was a primary reason for founding the Society. I felt the social interraction between people involved in my business, including competitors, was vital to the creation of my information base. Additionally, it quenched my thirst for relevant conversation. As a marketing person in a technical environment, I was surrounded by people who just didn’t get it.
I came across your blog today because I am working on a market research project for a race car company (one of my great loves has always been drag racing). I looked you up on Google and found this blog. I was completely blown away that you are so accessible and open with your thoughts and ideas. I am particularly interested beause your background is in product marketing whereas mine is in marketing professional services. Different in some ways, but so much the same in others. This all leads me to a question that nags at me and I’ll bet you can answer it.
Why wouldn’t a company like Best Buy want to sponsor a race car team when the demographics are the same and the cost of a full season of NHRA drag racing costs about $3million as opposed to $30million for NASCAR. NHRA is statistically second only to NASCAR now and growing all the time. Right now is the best time for a large well known company like AT&T, Best Buy, or a number of others I have researched to jump in ahead of the curve. Make a big splash for not much cash, get direct, hands on promotional benefits through – ta dah – social interraction at the track with your target customers. Not to mention free corvette giveaways, couponing, other promotions, television, internet, print coverage,etc.
Do you think it has something to do with the PR Agencies often used by large companies that prefer to control what you do so they can make more money for themselves? For example, they get paid creative fees and then I imagine they get money back from the media companies who place the ads. Or maybe I’ve lost my knack for reading the tea leaves. At any rate, the team I’m doing the research for is great and teaming up with you would be a huge opportunity for both of you. Obviously, as the hired research consultant, it isn’t my job to make contacts with potential partners but since here you are I couldn’t resist. The CMO in me is frustrated because I see the potential, I know it’s a win-win, yet the dots just won’t get connected and I want to understand why. What is your take on it?
We don not use an outside agencies to assits us in our sports marketing strategies and we are involved with NASCAR for several reasons. NASCAR fans have a strong overlap with our “Best” Customer group. This customer group also demonstrates STRONG loyalty to brands that overtly support NASCAR. We have seen substantial behavioral increases with consumers who join our Racing Club via Reward Zone, our loyalty program. NASCAR also has a passionate following amongst our employee group across the USA. We look for activities where passion of our customers and employees intersect. In this case, the NASCAR event itseld creates a great venue for customers and employees to interact, build relationships, which we know is good for our business long term. Finally, NASCAR, our driver, Elliot Sandler and our Race Car ownership group are particularly easy to work with and just good people.
On the other hand, I don’t know very much about drag racing so I cant tell you why we are not involved with that organization. I will tell you that I am not a big fan of sports sponsorships, even though we have a significant relationship with NASCAR and are involved with individual teams across the US. For us, a retail organization with high awareness, it only makes sense if we can create venues for our customers and employees to interact. And even then, there is only so much money so we have to be selective and prioritize whicj sports we work with. The person that architects much of our sports strategies is Debbie Estes who in a prior life invented Target’s involvement in racing so I am sure she is very conersant on drag racing. Feel free to contact her at deb.estes@bestbuy.com
Reply to Foolish Andy’s comments
I do have a manageable comment flow at the moment. I do try to respons to every comment I get to blog posts and Tweets that I make. I find that I look forward every day to see if and how people have responded to the things that I have said. I have found many ideas in what people have said and its changed the way I approach what I do and live my life.
For some time, I see this communication stream being manageable. I may not be able to respond on a given day but I know I have capacity in my schedule to get back to people that have bothered to spend their time on my stuff. I feel like its a responsibility and the minimum respect that I can afford.
If it ever gets overwhelming, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Your thoughts?
Response to Rebecca Kay:
Increasing customer followers?
I would first think about the type of dialog that you want to have with your customers. Do you want to tell them about new value propositions in the store? Events that may be going on? Special Sunday values? Clearence items? It could be a lot of things. Then I would make sure you post whatever it is on a regular basis. Once you got some customers involved, then I would ask them how they think Twitter can be a valuable source of information for them.
Finally to increase awareness, there are many ways to do it. Contact @jbweb on Twitter and she can work through some ideas with you.
Thanks for the response, Barry –
This comments thread is a great example of the potential problem with being so accessible. On some of your first blog posts, the comments were a great dialog about your thoughts. We, as a social community interested in the success of BBY, were having a rare, intimate discussion.
Now that the word is getting out that you have a blog (only a couple of weeks into it!), things are already changing. People with products to sell, partnerships to pitch, and axes to grind will be coming out in droves. I think it’s only a matter of time until you start getting comments/tweets from people who had a bad experience at the store today and expect you to resolve it.
Of course, it’s important to know about these products/partnerships/experiences but is that really the point of your involvement in Social Networking? Don’t you crave to keep the conversation about new ideas, interesting technology and authentic dialog about the future of BBY?
How will you keep the conversation on-track? How will you encourage people to participate in this new dialog, but not get bogged down with the “noise”?
I’m not expecting an answer (nor do I have any answers myself), I’m just throwing it out there as something to think about.
Separate note to Kal Patel:
Kal — get a blog. Your tweets are interesting, but you have much more to say than 140 characters will allow. You are too interesting of an individual to be without a blog of your own!
Sorry, I am a bit late to this string, but I wanted to add a few comments.
It’s been amazing over the last few weeks to see Soc. Tech. participation (esp. Twitter) explode around the company. I can only imagine that BestBuyCMO had a lot to do with it. Plus, the 50″ TV with #Best Buy Tweets in the hub didn’t hurt, either.
One of the coolest parts for me has been the direction folks have been taking in their interactions and in their use of the tech. It’s not *how can we monetize this?* in any way and that makes it such an authentic and powerful thing.
I think it’s been mentioned in some Tweets, but it’s such a great way to easily WIKI the knowledge around Best Buy, from the executive level on down. Someone posts a question and within 20 minutes there are conversations and side conversations. It’s technology fostering ideas and relationships and that can only be a good thing for the company and for our customers.
Keep up the good work everybody.
Barry
Really good stuff here.
I’m not surprised you’re among few CMOs who really get it. So many corporate marketing groups are way too reliant on their agencies to bring them marketing strategies. With social media strategies disrupting traditional agency business models, it’s no wonder so many are still emphasizing paid media and mainstream media marketing and PR strategies, and discounting social media strategies.
I’ve seen some PR plan proposals recently from a top ten national agency that had “blogger relations” as component. Yet nobody on either the agency or corporate side is currently participating in the conversation–or even listening as far as I’m aware.
Kudos to you and Best Buy for understanding and participating.
I’ll be very interested to see how your internal social media strategies evolve and work for you.
And I’ll also subscribe to this space, and pay a little closer attention to my Rewards Zone membership.
Best to you.
Sorry, Barry. Read your tweet to @TysonFoods just after I posted the comment above. To see what Tyson is doing in the social media space, go to http://hungerrelief.tyson.com
Mr. Judge,
Maybe you can resolve some of your customer’s (increasingly numerous) complaints about your company:
http://forums.bestbuy.com/bb/board?board.id=Policies
As you point out, we will always have work to do in order to make our experience better for customers. Part of that journey, I believe, is to make it increasingly easy for people to give us feedback. The more feedback we get will increase the probability that we get it right more often. We can’t be perfect but I know we can be better everyday.
Forums like the one you have linked to are a great way for people to tell us what they think in a very public way. Given what I know we are working on in the company, I expect us to be able to systemically resolve an increasing number of those complaints.
I appreciate your time in highlighting where we can be getting better.
Barry, thanks for your thoughtful response to my question. I think I’m ok with reading the tea leaves thing. What you said confirmed some things I was thinking and dispelled other notions. Bottom line, I already have a mental list of what is necessary to get the dots to connect. Also appreciate receiving a name of someone at Best Buy who can give additional insight. Will be staying to on your blog because after 8 months of researching businesses largely in the U.S. I am drawn to the different issues and strategies. The social technology allows all of us the chance to particpate in sharing information in a way never before possible. I have used LinkedIn several times to ask for someone to give me the name of a person who might be able to give me information from inside a company that I couldn’t otherwise get to. It all works, it’s good for business, and we meet people with ideas, thoughts and information. Once someone said to me that I am an information junkie and I think that is true. I didn’t read the book Knowledge is Power but I agree with the title. On another subject I gather you are interested in, I know a really great little restaurant on Anna Maria Island where I live. It’s a short drive from your Bradenton and Sarasota stores. If you ever travel in this direction, give me a heads up and I’ll take you there.
I think you’re right that this is going to change the marketing profession and I think the learning we each get out of it for ourselves and the brands we love or represent is critical. Right now there seems to be a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt – understandable. I would hate to see that fear slow down the inevitable learning required to participate in this space. It’s just about trying.
http://garykoelling.com/?q=node/431
Barry, you are spot on with your comments and i share your fascinating with social technology; thank you for your inspiration, leadership, and “virtual” presence. My point of view is that Best Buy has reached a tipping point. Over the past 11 years, i can’t think of a better time to be working for Best Buy! Here’s what I mean: In 2003, Brad Anderson mentioned our customer centric strategic imperative would take 10 years; so the way i see it, the best is yet to come!
I view the web as a platform for customer engagement and that’s what drew me to join the Bestbuy.com team in 2007. At this stage in the journey to Open, our collective leadership challenge is to flip old “paradigms” still in play. Brad Anderson mentions that leaders have to have the “Curiosity to do the right kind of listening” in http://tinyurl.com/69555n ; this is exactly the type of listening you are doing Barry and it’s awesome! To take this from internal to external, Clay Shirky provides a pointer for Best Buy Co., in the following clip: http://tinyurl.com/6gjv76
Key concepts I’d like to explore:
1. Virtual “Presence” is a new way to Listen and participate: It’s not that BBY hasn’t listened in the past; at our scale, social technology makes it much easier to do so. My personal experience is similar to yours in that the most amazing employees i found were reachable via Facebook and the informal “un-conferences” held below the radar; yet, amazingly these same brilliant employees’ voices were lost upon the leadership teams in the obligatory weekly meeting rhythms set up by title/function–you know the gig. I find that, Twitter, Facebook, Spy, YouTube, & other online communities exude energy, capture diverse points of view, and sharpen my thinking; slowly we’re seeing more leaders start to listen and learn. Your presence is helping move the groundswell forward- thank you for that! For those leaders afraid or uncertain about the technology, just start listening—-it’s not about the tool. Social technology and cool apps just make it easier of all leaders to participate. E.g. Ben created SPY to show the power of listening. http://spy.appspot.com/ By the way…worth calling out…many BBY employees were highlighted in the opening video, “Company as Wiki” http://tinyurl.com/3gkry2 a collection of employees driving change within the company….The cool part of the story is that many of the videos were compiled via handy cam in the call center or with the help of Chris Stark from I Am Best Buy because we the had no forming funding to capture groundswell of voices wanting to be heard at BBY April 2008. Chris Stark from “I Am Best Buy” was on to this POV in 2003 but we weren’t quite listening as a company—amazingly, the employee groundswell began in the field back in 2003. http://www.iambestbuy.com/
2. Crowd sourcing- “harnessing the collective intelligence” of many- (See Tim O’Reilly’s Definition of Web 2.0) http://tinyurl.com/743r5 is a fundamental principle of web 2.0 and one i believe fits nicely with Best Buy’s culture. Our most strategic asset is our 150,000 tech savvy employees (65% between ages of 16-25). The fact that we allow these same employees to participate in creating the future growth of the company is unique. A cool e.g.. Robert Stephen’s application of “crowd sourcing” model to find employee developers and external developers-simply game changing as you know from Support-o-pedia and Remix.
Action Figures (Developers) + BBY REMIX (Open API) = ? Customer Delight!
3. Web as a platform versus an e-commerce site: Customers are stretching our brand into new spaces beyond existing channels. Most companies are set up to serve customers via existing channels. I don’t think we need to replicate another traditional ecommerce site to do so. A mash up of community, video, e-commerce seems to be the way to serve customers’ end to end social technology needs. Robert Scoble mentioned check out http://winelibrary.com/ as an example. The owner took 1 year off from his business to learn how social technology would engage more customers. The brand implication here is that Best Buy is expected to deliver a seamless experience wherever customers have access via the web: Mobile web has become a customer expectation. Online forums….also a customer expectation. How will we flip the organizational paradigm to accelerate these experiences? Bottom line: “Open” is an awesome opportunity for Best Buy today. Thanks for listening!
First of all full disclosure: I work for a company that services yours; joined them about 40 days ago. However the opinions I expressed in this comment are personal.
Second: kudos for your approach; I do think it takes a lot of self assurance to put yourself out there the way you are doing; particularly for someone in an important position like you, the good news is you are being rewarded with true engagement of those inside and outside your company. As you can see in this old post your approach resonates with me: http://selvascano.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D7439E6DC600CAE9!1493.entry
I found this blog post, and particularly the conversation that followed through the comments, fascinating; allow me to highlight a few of my favorite snippets:
By Chuck Densinger: http://barryjudge.com/my-fascination-with-social-technology/#comment-169
“…erosion of barriers….Twitter seems to take us right to the quantum level… float through the “barrier” almost without noticing it…”
“’Great Brands’..experience or provide a badge the customer loves…..”
By you (October 11th, 2008 at 7:35 am) : http://barryjudge.com/my-fascination-with-social-technology/#comment-181
“…the NASCAR event itself creates a great venue for customers and employees to interact, build relationships..”
“For us, a retail organization with high awareness, it only makes sense if we can create venues for our customers and employees to interact..”
Let me add snippets of the comment Matt Johnston made to your “Using Open Principles Test” post: http://barryjudge.com/best-buy-brand-swot-analysis-using-open-principles-test/#comment-232
“….BBY can facilitate ad-hoc communities around games, music, digital lifestyle, self serving customer support.….”
Trying to connect it all together (clearly with my bias): as you pointed out there is a great opportunity to create venues for your employees and customers to interact; just like Nascar it is key to do that around “passions”; for car racing, digital photography, digital entertainment, etc. The good news is that your employees already map to these passions, and already are working as the “quantum level particles” that are entitled to mix and merge with your customers.. the question is: what can you do to focus and amplify those efforts? What should be done to applaud and bring forward those blue shirts efforts? Organically developed efforts are great; but organically plus systematically supported can go farther.
Filiberto Selvas
Thanks for writing this.
Barry:
I see what you mean about collaboration online to bring minds together. Traditional means of contact often face an uphill struggle.
For example, in previous years we made real efforts to contact Best Buy about 1 800 HOME THEATER. We never got through to any decision maker.
While Magnolia is the brand, Home Theater is the category. The number is the logical fit for Best Buy’s installation program– with new cash available whether or not the product was purchased from Best Buy.
Even with cool marketing of Geek Squad, that program lends itself to geeky computers, not Home Theater systems. I bet that might be heresy at Best Buy, but here I am comfortable to make the distinction. Are you?
This kind of collaborative discussion forum is a welcome change indeed.
-Andrew T.
Hello Barry: Good writing and excellent marketing pronciples that you are covering. We straongly believe that each Corporation should always market it Brand. Event in the worst economy those Corporations that has built their Brands and continue to keep with the people, are the ones that will always succeed. We dedicate ourselves to provide marketing opportunities to Retail and Service Companies in the best possible way and best marketing tool whihc is major events where your Barnd and products are in front of the consumer. We invite you to see our events and support them becasie they all mean great value to your Company.
I find it refreshing that you are so open and honest with your thoughts and ideas. Your secondary market idea, via your latest blog entry, is brilliant especially as the “green Movement” continues to gain momentum.
I would like to introduce you to a branded entertainment meets social media experiment called Layer Tennis. If you have some time tomorrow or any of the next 14 Fridays between 2-5 PM CST you can see the concept live at http://www.layertennis.com. Last week at one point we were the number one trending Twitter topic during the match #lyt. Adobe is the exclusive sponsor of Layer Tennis but we are starting to think about developing other online branded entertainment concepts and are starting to talk to some brands who are willing to take some risks.
We also run the “Un-Network” ad network http://www.decknetwork.net. Check the concept out and let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Jim Sofranko
I am surprised that noone has mentioned the possible application of social technologies to scientific research projects to enhance collaboration between distance teams.
Frequently updated pools of information and discussion between ‘competing’ teams could mean hugely increased progress in research projects. Most probably only independent researchers would make use of such a thing, but they would be the ones who would need it most.