When John Stokdyk puts his cynic’s hats on he can truly tear his victim a new one with the very best of them. Today, in vintage Jeremy Clarkson fashion, John’s chosen target is all things Web 2.0. It starts:
My exposure to Web 2.0 business thinking has expanded tenfold in the month or so that I’ve been trawling around Twitter. It’s not hard to see why people are reluctant to join in – there’s no hiding the impression Twitter creates of a vast pyramid selling scheme. I’m making lots of new friends who describe themselves as “social networking entrepreneurs” and are not shy about putting forward their money-making ideas, digital marketing strategies and motivational insights.
…middles with
But like much of the current Web 2.0 buzz, it fuels a self-referential feedback loop that only includes those people who believe they have discovered the secret of eternal business youth. Except in a few very rare cases – mainly slick talking online marketing agencies with gullible clients – it does not constitute a viable business model.
…and ends
In professional services, as in any other industry, there is no business model that can invent a substitute for getting out and talking directly to people in their workplace about what they do and the problems they face.
I sense that John is describing what I sometimes snarkily refer to as the ‘mutual masturbation society’ that services like Twitter can represent. The other day I tore into SAP who have got themselves a dose of new media Web 2.0 religion. They’ve been driving me nuts.
The problem is that much of what passes as Web 2.0 interactions is just another way to talk about marketing. Dressing it up as ‘conversations’ or ‘relationship’ is horse crap thinking of the first order. No-one is daft enough to believe that. What the bright young things who enthuse about this stuff don’t realize is that relationships have to be real for there to be mutual value. How about starting (in the tech world) with the idea that there is some sort of equality in the relationship? By that I mean if you are going to insist on a price rise then provide me with solid justification to which I can relate rather than put me on a forced march.
John’s closing is bang on the money. There is no substitute for face time. However, the new channels do offer a way of deepening whatever constitutes a customer relationship. The question then comes – what does relationship really mean? When I gaze over the software landscape, it seems to be more about how much I can squeeze out of customers.
In the cross vendor situation, it is anything but rosy and cuddly. Check this from Infor (courtesy of an email link from James Governor) – nothing very friendly there. From a user perspective you have to ask: if this is what they really think then how much hypocrisy underpins what they say to me? But then I’m an arch cynic.
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