P.I. Podcast: Interview with Charlene Li on Groundswell
April 29th, 2008
Last year, when Forrester released its Social Technographics report to bloggers, I interviewed Charlene Li for the P.I. Podcast. Unfortunately, there was a technical glitch in the recording that I didn’t discover until the editing process, and I was not able to post our interview. To quote Charlie Brown, “RATS!”
Well, good fortune smiled on me because Charlene and her Forrester colleague Josh Bernoff have co-authored a superb book based on last year’s report called Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies from Harvard Business Press, and I got a second chance to chat with Charlene today.
We had a great conversation that is filled with valuable insights on how association leaders should think about the application of social technologies to their organizations. Charlene and Josh’s “big principle” from the book is to “concentrate on relationships, not technologies.” This is great advice, and the book offers lots of examples and stories about organizations that have been proactive in harnessing “groundswell” with their customers and staff.
I urge you to also check out the book’s website, which includes a blog that Charlene and Josh are writing and a “cool tool” that allows you to create a social technology profile of members or customers based on their age range, country and gender.
The podcast is about 30 minutes long. As always, your feedback on the P.I. Podcast is greatly appreciated. Please post your comments below, and be sure to include any suggestions for future guests!
Download the podcast (if you’re reading the feed, you’ll see two links)
FYI–Stay tuned for a very exciting announcement about some upcoming P.I. Podcasts!
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3 Comments Add your own
1. Frank Fortin | April 29th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I really think Charlene and Josh are really onto something. They offer a simple, well-structured methdology to determine the right tools for your audience, paired with the time-tested steps of specifying good business objectives and solid strategies to achieve those objectives. The technology comes LAST. Their book speaks so directly to my issues I thought I was reading a custom Forrester report for me.
But clearly, I am not alone. At last week’s Digital Now conference in Orlando, I noticed a dramatically different tone from the speakers who were discussing social networking tools. As recently as a year ago, speakers were practically saying that we were idiots and doomed to extinction if we didn’t adopt everything now.
This year, speakers said things like, “Measure twice, cut once … no rose colored glasses … don’t try to do too much too fast …” etc.
It’s clear what’s happening. Memorably, one guy said about his networking app, “The crickets are chirping.” The chuckle in the room expressed a combination of pain, relief and familiartity. I count our app among them. Many of us got caught up in the hype, and we have learned again it’s about more than the cool tool.
I think we’ve known that for a while, but until Charlene and Josh came along with this tool, I wasn’t sure what to do with that insight. Their method shortens my exploration work by a factor of 4.
2. Lindy Dreyer | May 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Interesting podcast. I just finished the book. We still need to contextualize the concepts for the association community.
For example, figuring out how to talk through the Groundswell is different for associations than for corporations. For the corporate world, Charlene and Josh correlate different tools and techniques to different marketing problems–awareness, word-of-mouth, complexity or accessibility. Those are all important, but in a mission-driven association, talking through the Groundswell is about more… leadership. From advocacy to disseminating best practices, talking through the Groundswell will be very important to maintaining our role as leaders.
3. Zane Safrit | May 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Great interview.
“concentrate on the relationship not the technology”.
POST: People, Objective, Strategy, Technology. People come first.
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