Came across an interesting article on the Wiglaf Journal today. I agree with the core premise that C-suite, front office resistance to the emergence of social media is relenting. However this is not the first article I’ve seen in recent weeks that suggests social media dare become the most important concern. For instance, the comment, “How are we doing on the bottom line?” has been replaced by “How are we doing in the blogs?”
Everything, no matter how keen we are on other things, is secondary to the bottom line. If the bottom line isn’t fundamentally black on average, nothing else matters, you won’t be here to debate the point.
In a recent interview of GM’s Bob Lutz, a contributor to the Fastlane blogs (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com), he points out that CEOs today may no longer manage ‘from within.’ They need to be more freely communicating, no longer able to stay within their ivory towers. I think if 77 year-old exec. Bob Lutz can get it, there’s no reason anyone else cannot.
One thing is for certain, there are no clear answers on just how to do ‘it.’ Any public interaction can lead to problems. But the key in today’s environment is if you’re ‘real,’ and you learn, you’ll be forgiven most faux pas you may make. The neat thing, as a product manager, is that we now have a way to directly interact with our end consumers. They can give us their unfiltered feedback. And, we can change course instantly; relative to the past.
However great, beneficial, ‘cool’, or otherwise positive social media might be, be careful not to put the apple cart ahead of the horse, eh?
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