Open Air

Uncontrol that conversation

July 3rd, 2008 Posted by: l.dewis

I’ve been reading The Word of Mouth Manual: Vol 2 by Dave Balter of BzzAgent, which interested me because: 1) it is available free as a PDF although you can buy it for $45 through Amazon 2) he is one of the few people I know of who usefully differentiates between word of mouth and viral marketing 3) since a senior member of the university publically berated me for not ‘creating buzz’ around OpenLearn I’ve been searching for the words I didn’t have at the time to describe why you do not ‘create’ buzz and why the creation of buzz does not equal effective communication. And I thought Dave Balter might have written those words - let’s face it, the guy is doing something right because here I am talking about him.

He says a lot of word of mouth happens because what is being talked about is exclusive - classified knowledge, an invitation to a private party, a product that no one else can get their hands on. So how does this apply when you want to spread the word about something that anyone can have - open access to knowledge. Probably the closest comparison I can make involves people who have the least access to online learning materials and the most need - remote communities in developing countries, prisoners for example - they might be the biggest advocates but the least equipped to spread the word.

People talked about MIT when they launched their OpenCourseWare project because gaining access to MIT is pretty exclusive. The idea that anyone could gain access to MIT materials was, and is, big news. Does that conversation still happen when The Open University - a university that is founded on the principle of being open to all - gives free access to its materials online? People expect us to do this. People say to me, “That’s so OU”. It’s welcomed but not altogether surprising.

However, as Dave says, getting your hands on a ‘product’ is more compelling and likely to result in word of mouth, than receiving a discount for it. Yet he also says people most spread the word after buying a product (especially an exclusive and expensive product), in order to get validation from others that they’ve done the right thing - so what happens when there is no transaction involved?

Can Social Media really help us raise awareness? Will we only connect with the converted? And if you can’t hear my conversation over the din even when I’m sitting next to you, how can I expect the guy at the bar to overhear?

I think it’s worth exploring because to me social media is more pervasive that just a channel to experiment with. I’d like to see us utilising technologies to engage and reward advocates for OER, and to improve campaigning (I’ve never seen a student petition for OER for example and that could be powerful in persuading universities and governments of the grassroots support for the movement). We also need to be more aware of who is talking about OER and where - we can use Technorati and other sites like it to track online comment but knowing more about who the people are in these conversations, what are their opinions and connections (Dave Balter says “The opinions we generate are the bonds that link us all” - cut to social activists using Cohere), and where are they located (online and off) would help grow the movement. Not only would you be raising awareness but facilitating people in sharing that awareness with others - not just what they know about it, but how they feel about it. Creating a shared collective experience, and maintaining the interest and loyalty of that network could be really powerful. Understanding the level of impact of that network could help with resource planning and may even result in new business models (if OER makes people talk, will the phone companies start sponsoring the production? :)) And it’s all possible now… so I should get on but before I do, there are some more general lessons to be learnt.

There’s a interesting take on using Social Media for word of mouth here:

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Social networks make the the age old marketing gold dust of word of mouth super efficient - if people are talking positively about you that’s all good. If they’re not, still good - it’s useful feedback if you’re man enough to take it. But if you want to influence people in a social media world you have to engage with them, and that engagement takes us back to an olde world view of ‘customer service’ where people actually talked to each other. Except now you don’t just wait for people to come to you with their problems but you actively seek out people’s opinions about what you are doing. You allow their opinion to impact on the values of your brand. I’ve seen enough job adverts for ‘community’ managers to know companies are realising this is labour intensive stuff. To apply you must understand the words ‘conversation’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘participation’ and have a good knowledge about the organisation. So will we see customer service (or in our case student service) departments being asked to engage more in social networks?

Entry Filed under: oer, Web 2.0