About chilibean media February 16th, 2007
chilibean media is at its core a communications business. Why a communications business?
Our primary focus is to help clients:
- converse more effectively both internally (within their organisations) and externally (with customers, suppliers and stakeholders);
- share knowledge across their organisations;
- listen to what is being said about them both internally and in the marketplace.
A notable book called “The Cluetrain Manifesto” took issue with the “command and control” method of communicating messages to customers and pointed out that markets are really conversations. Customers don’t want to be told what they like. They want to have a say in the process, whether it be product development, service delivery or the way the call centre operator handles a complaint. Customers prefer to deal with real people instead of faceless organisations. When real people emerge from the background and start communicating meaningfully with customers, conversations start taking place. It is these conversations that make all the difference. Customers become partners, advisors and evangelists for these companies - they become their biggest allies in the marketplace.
Conversely this is true for employees and other internal stakeholders who are accustomed to being seen as faceless numbers. What they really want is to be more involved in the company they dedicate so much of their lives to. They want to be involved in how the company develops its products and services, how the company relates to its customers and other parties outside the company and how they get to do their jobs every day. They want to make a meaningful contribution to the company, they want to be recognised as individuals with opinions that could add tremendous value to the organisation.
Employees have ideas. When companies start to listen, they start to find employee evangelists standing up and starting to make real, meaningful and valuable contributions to the organisation. These evangelists are excited about what the company is doing. They create customer evangelists - passionate advocates in the marketplace.
Companies often have stores of valuable knowledge that have been developed over time. This knowledge may include best practices, market intelligence and case studies. Real benefits are derived from an unrestricted flow of knowledge through the organisation.
Sharing knowledge externally opens the door for collaboration. This sparks a process of conversation and innovation, creating passionate knowledge workers who inspire, motivate, and involve external stakeholders.
It is important to listen, truly listen, to what these people say because they give important clues about how the company is perceived, what is working and what isn’t and what can be done to improve its position in the eyes of those commentators.
chilibean recognises the importance of conversing, sharing and listening.
Conversations, knowledge sharing and listening form part of the communications continuum. By adopting an integrated approach to our work we realise our goal of helping clients implement these concepts in their organisations. To achieve this we introduce our clients to the benefits of new media elements such as blogs, podcasts and wikis. We are not constrained by social media elements alone, but rather find suitable tools to enable our clients to communicate more effectively.
We have a passion for communication and are eager to share it with you.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)
March 27th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Good manifesto…short, shweet and to the point. I like the “tag-cloud” look. Good luck and may your efforts be fruitful.