To be honest, I'm not a zealot of Internet, even sometimes I want ot escape from it. The reason is that I know how horribal it was, and I am threatened. As we all know, Internet is filled with all kinds of information, real and fake, positive and negative, useful and harmful. You can live in it until you can distinguish all the info and pick up what you need. I'm lucky now, however, I have this book guiding me to close Internet. "You can not only live with it; you can thrive in it. That's the point of this book." (Page9). After reading the chapter1 to chapter4, I realize the following points about groundswell.
First of all, I realize the most powerful force on Internet belongs to people, including myself, especially when we connect with other people, the power become stronger and stronger. The case of Digg.com is a perfect example to demonstrate that point. A user posted the secret encyption key of high-definition DVD, which spread so quickly on Internet that removing the stories including the code was useless. Obviously, this was a damage to movie industry. Facing the uncontrollabel situation, Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, decided to stand by the people who were given the rights and power of digging, shating an connecting, although the would face the risk of a crippling lawsuit.
"This is the movement we call the groundswell. It comes from a thousand sources and washer over traditional business like a flood. It can't be stopped in any one place", writhers said on page 9, "The groundswell is: Aa social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations." Nowadays, everything changes rapidly, which determines that people need more information and communication to face the craz society and to make themselves a better living. Plus the advanced technologies and blooming economics, Internet become a huge stage linking all the elements around the social system. Therefore, groundswell makes traditional business more difficult tan before. "Offline, people don't change behaviors quickly, so companies can develop loyal customers. Online, people can swith behaviors as soon as they see something better."(Page12), which is a tough challenge to traditional business to struggle with. Generally speaking, power is shifting; people are accumulating their power, while business are losing their strength.
Second, in order to survive and thrive in groundswell, it is necessary to build up the groundswell thinking, which is a sophisticated skill that helps company and business taking benefits from groundswell. The book lists several important activities that people are participating, such as creating, connecting, collaborating, reacting to each other,and so on. Undoubtedly, knowing well about what are consumers doing is a key to approach them.
In my opinion, however, it is much more crucial to know clearly who your target consumers are, how many of them taking part in those activities, and what they want to find out on Internet. Taking KARMAN, a company selling wheelchair for example, if the company wants to improve its sales volume, what should it do? By checking its official website, I find out that people can leave a reply, but nothing else. From my perspective, there will be three part og consumers the company should consider, including the elder people, the disabled, and normal people who just get injured. Obviously, this is a comlex consumer structure. It is entirely possible that those consumers are not interested in participating activities online or most of them are just spectators on forums,webpages,and blogs. "People aren't alike and won't respond in the same way. Your strategy must also account for how groups differ"(Page40). Depending on appropriate social strategy, you have to decide what information showed on Internet to cater your consumers who are creators, critics, collectors, joiners, and spectators.
"The fundamental emotions that drive people to the groundswell—the desire to connect, to stay in touch, and to help each other"(Page49). Individuals are eager to take part in the changing process of the society and express their own opinions toward the world; and this is the reason why groundswell flourishes.
Third, companies should clear their objectives they want to attain from the groundswell which is a double-edged sword to any business. Listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and finally embracing, all these objectives can be got from groundswell. also can be taken away from groundswell. Because when you expose yourself on groundswell, everything likely will be uncontrollable. There is no doubt that you are not able to cater to everyone's taste and demand.
Let's make an assumption to demonstrate my point. For instance, if a cake company, in order to pursue those five goals, open a blog or a forum on Internet, which allows customers to duscuss the products and share their experience, the company needs to face the risk that some people complain that cakes are too sweet and greasy with too much sugar and cream. In this case, potential consumers who want to lose weight will give up these cakes and find something else. As a result, the company lose amount of customers.
A common goal of all companies isto attract more consumers to focus on their own products and then improve the sales volume. "But your strategy should be designed from the start to focus on a primary objective."(Page70). From my own thinking after reading chapter4, I believe that everyone and every business needs to experience the process of adapting to the unstoppable groundswell. Noone can ignore it or defeat it. No matter who wants to thrive in groundswell should "create a plan starts small but has room to grow, and thing through the consequences of your strategy."(Page72). During the process of accumulating your wn power step by step, you can take advantage of groundswell to extend you business into a bigger market.
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