Groundswell

I am reading a new book called Groundswell (pronounced ground – swell). The book is how to win in a world that has been transformed by social technologies. Social technologies, as the term implies, does not imply what you would think; at least not what I thought it implied. Being the technical person that I am that loves the new gadget that has just come out, my first thought was how iPhones, computer operating systems like Apple’s new Leopard (which is awesome by the way), GPS turn by turn navigation, etc. But as I started reading the book, I began to realize that they put more emphasis on the social than the technology. Myspace.com, Facebook, Youtube, RSS, blogs and forums, and consumer rating sites like Digg.com are a few of the many ways that our society is changing the world – particularly the corporate world – that we live in. I can hear the parents saying, “Wait – I thought Myspace was for teenagers!” Haha!

Because of the increasing number of people that use these online communities and their applications, the power is back into the hands of the people. One thing that was very interesting to me in the first part of the book was to learn that large corporate power and the legal muscles that they flex will not stand against hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of people banding together and joining with someone that appears to have been taken advantage by one of these corporate entities. I’ll give you an example:

This is one of many stories straight from the book:

Jennifer Laycock, a breastfeeding advocate and operator of the blog theactivist.com, wanted to raise money for a breast-feeding charity. She created a T-shirt with the slogan, “Breast Milk: The Other White Milk” and had sold a total of eight dollars’ worth when a letter arrived from (you guessed it) the National Pork Board, requesting that she stop because her “slogan…tarnishes the good reputation of the National Pork Board’s” trademark, “The Other White Meat.” But Jennifer Laylock is no ordinary mom – she’s also an expert in Internet marketing. She documented the event on her blog; soon more than two hundred other blogs were linking to it. The pork board saw a PR disaster in the making and rapidly negotiated a settlement and took up a collection among its employees to help Jennifer’s charity.

Wow! No courts, no lawyers and in a fraction of the time…the internet community came from cyberspace in a very short period of time and affected a real life situation. The power of the people was exercised and corporate America was power-less.

There are many other great stories in this book that I hope to share in the next few posts. I hope to learn more about how corporate American can get involved in the Groundswell and ride the wave instead of just watching it go by.