Robbin thanks for the mention! The funny thing about social media is you can describe how these tools work, how ideas can spread quickly and the importance of this, but until you actually see this IN ACTION, you really can’t understand it. The context affects how the content spread, your response to it, the size of your network.

There are so many variables in play, and I think the best thing companies can do, especially larger ones, is to encourage their employees to experiment and become familiar with these tools. As long as your customers are using these tools to communicate and share ideas, shouldn’t you be in the same shape they are, using the same tools they are?

BTW this blog is a great example of using social media well. Every day you clearly communicate to everyone that “This is who we are, this is what we believe in, this is what we do”. This blog is technically a promotional channel for Brains on Fire, but your posts create VALUE for others, so that’s what your messages spread. Create value DIRECTLY for others, and that creates INdirect benefits for you.

And that’s another lesson that companies simply can’t grasp until they have been immersed in this space, and see how these tools function. And many of them still don’t get it.

Great post, Robbin!

This discussion of integrity, and how providing direct value for our audiences results in our own indirect benefits, reminds me of the character, Kris Kringle, in “Miracle on 34th Street.” In the movie, Kringle works as the Macy’s store Santa Claus, listening to the Christmas wishes of children. Staying true to his own helpful nature, he adds value to the experience by recommending competing stores as sources for finding items of better quality or not available at Macy’s. In so doing, he turns something that was essentially a promotional gimmick into a WOM power horse. This leads Macy’s – according to the movie – to develop a whole new marketing campaign around the idea of being “the helpful store.”

I would be interested to find out if there was any truth to this particular plot development of “Miracle.” I suppose it likely just exists in the magic of movie making. Regardless, it still seems like the right thing to do. I want it to be the right thing. However, are there any concerns of such benevolent practices backfiring on a company?

RE: JMitchem’s comment about this being basically the same stuff our mothers and grandmothers taught us and how it’s simple.
Forgive me if I am taking your comment too literally, but I respectfully disagree that it this stuff is simple. Sure, the items are conveyed simply enough, but following them is anything but. In this age, it is so easy to become flooded with images and sounds, many of which attempt to sell us things we don’t really need, convincing us that we aren’t really who we want to be or otherwise alienating us from ourselves through endless sources of often unproductive distractions. The end result is that it becomes easier to forget what is really important. That it has become so easy to forget is what I personally find scary. That we regularly encounter reminders like this is important. But equally important are [genuine] examples of how these ideas are applied.

RE: The title of this blog post (“Truth is the easy way out”)
Just to play a little Devil’s Advocate, tell that to the folks at Toyota, who are now faced with the uncomfortable dilemma of being caught between an angry customer base demanding to know what’s going on and how long they have known about the stuck accelerator issue and the prospect of having whatever they say being used against them in court.

Robbin – that’s funny, because my tendency is typically to over think things. About Toyota, I think it’s easy to forget that a company is really a collection of people working together (though sometimes I wonder about that ‘together’ part), various people handling different parts of operations, decision making, blah blah blah … from the little I know, I think they’ve done an admirable job (at least from what I’ve seen of the CEO) in handling the situation with integrity thus far. The big banks, on the other hand …