{"id":12237,"date":"2012-02-02T19:04:53","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T18:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=3683"},"modified":"2021-08-16T18:38:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T16:38:52","slug":"products-social-better-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/products-social-better-products.html","title":{"rendered":"Products + Social = Better Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Product<\/em><\/p>\n

Update: as part of this year\u2019s <\/em>Social Media Week<\/em><\/a>, I hosted \u00a0one of the sessions at a free one-day event<\/a> held at <\/em>SAP Palo Alto<\/em><\/a> on February 15th. Accompanied by a star-studded lineup of guests (meet the panelists<\/a>) we discussed how companies can make better products using social media — here’s a link to the recorded panel session:\u00a0Social+Products=Better Products<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In this post, I\u2019d like to share some ideas about why I believe that there are now fantastic new opportunities to improve all kinds of products using social media techniques.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n

\"socialI believe that we\u2019re still in the era of a \u201chorseless carriage\u201d version of social media: we added a motor, but kept the rest of the carriage.<\/p>\n

In other words, while we understand how the new technologies work, we\u2019re still tending to bolt the new social techniques onto our existing processes, rather than fundamentally rethinking those processes in the light of the new opportunities.<\/p>\n

This tends to be true of all new technologies, of course. But for some reason there seems to be a bigger gap than usual \u2013 perhaps it is because the \u201ctrees\u201d are so obvious (social media analytics, enterprise collaboration, etc.) that they tend to obscure the \u201cwood\u201d: the opportunity to sweep away existing bottlenecks in our business processes.<\/p>\n

Social media is too often a marginal activity that people are happy to leave up to a dedicated team elsewhere in the organization, rather than embedded in everything we do. This post looks in particular at how social media techniques can be applied to the process of product creation.<\/p>\n

Social \/ Product Trends<\/h3>\n

Why introduce something new? Why can\u2019t we just keep doing what we\u2019re doing today? Let\u2019s start with some of the background trends:<\/p>\n

Transparency:<\/strong> Whether you have a great product or an awful one, prospective customers can get the information they need directly from unbiased peers. This means that traditional product sales and marketing is being marginalized, and that core product quality becomes even more fundamental.<\/p>\n

A great product \u2013 one that customers are delighted to own and use, and talk about to other people \u2013 can now take off at lighting speed, with almost no promotional cost. And news about product problems or poor service can spread even faster. The good news is that product creators can communicate with their customers more cheaply than ever: we may be naked, but we have a megaphone. It has to be used wisely. Honesty and credibility are essential values when talking about your products to the market.<\/p>\n

Direct Contact With Customers:<\/strong> In large product organizations, there\u2019s often a big communications gap between the people creating products and the people using them. The creators and designers of software, for example, have typically had to rely on other people to research the needs of potential users. The researchers then pass on that information in the form of \u201cconsumer profiles\u201d, \u201cpersonas\u201d, or \u201cethnographic research\u201d, which is used as a basis for creation. Something often gets lost in the translation, but is often seen as the only feasible way to operate.<\/p>\n

Software engineers (for example), frustrated by this limited visibility, complain how hard it is to get access to customers, who are often protectively fenced off by sales teams (perhaps worried that developers might let too much of the truth slip out about product bugs or delays).<\/p>\n

The advances of social media means all this can now change: vast numbers of potential users are only a few mouse-clicks away, participating in industry forums, complaining about alternative products, or talking about their favorite features.<\/p>\n

Network Leverage<\/strong>: There are now socially-enabled running shoes, socially-enabled cameras, socially-enabled toys, and socially-enabled enterprise software. Almost any product can now be \u201csocial\u201d, and hence experience network effects that may outweigh the other product features.<\/p>\n

Extended Ecosystems:<\/strong>By embedding more use of social techniques into product creation and selling, we\u2019re inevitably creating more complex, interactive networks of ecosystems around our products, with customers, partners, suppliers of social networking, etc.<\/p>\n

How do \u201cSocial\u201d and \u201cProduct\u201d Interact?<\/h3>\n

I believe there are three main ways in which we can create new or better products through social media techniques. It\u2019s clear, however, that there is still a lot to learn before these techniques become commonplace — in each section, I\u2019ve added some of the questions I believe need to be addressed: again, any feedback you have is more than welcome!<\/p>\n

Social-improved products<\/span><\/h4>\n

First and most obviously we can use social media to improve the way we create existing products. New techniques include:<\/p>\n

Social Research. <\/strong>It\u2019s now easy to find data about new opportunities, such as customers complaining about business problems or competitor products. And it\u2019s easy to get customer feedback on problems with our own products. Given the potential for better products, I believe we should be investing extensively in these new areas. Questions:<\/p>\n