Comments on: Guest Post: What Companies Can Learn from the President

By: Christina Viering

Christina Viering — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:47:57 +0000

They should check it out.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:17:04 +0000

No mention of the “high”jacking?
Although the effort put forth by the white house was admirable and a step forward, you have to admit there was a huge flaw. If anyone paid attention to the questions that were asked, many of the top questions had to do with legalization of pot! This was true for all categories of questions. The whole effort was “high”jacked by pot-smoking web surfers!
Like any new media, user-generated effort, the risks of swarming, bots and highjacking need to be considered. Obama addressed it by simply stating his stance against it, which I’m glad he did, however, his .05% coverage of the topic in no way reflected the 40% of the top questions that mentioned the subject.
So what is the white house (and us) to do? Censor, filter, make apologies? I think the efforts are warranted, and should continue, but we all need to understand that the web-savvy and topic-charged groups will heavily skew the results.
As with any survey/poll/town hall, consider the methodology.

By: Ann Handley

Ann Handley — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:23:56 +0000

Thanks, Neil. But the points weren’t mine — this was a guest post penned by Len Kendall.
Thanks for stopping by!

By: David

David — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:57:39 +0000

This is a super post. Interestingly, Obama built change.gov on top of the salesforce.com Force.com platform. Yet he chose to build this product on Google Moderator instead of Salesforce Ideas.
Salesforce.com has already done just this for companies all over the world. The two most famous examples are Dell’s IdeaStorm (as you mentioned) and Starbucks’ My Starbucks Ideas.
Great job, Len. You’ve articulated something that companies – large and small – should understand: Especially today, a good relationship with customers is important; any tool that brings a company and its customers into contact has the possibility of improving – and lengthening – that relationship.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:42:54 +0000

Ann, you make a great point. There needs to be a way for the concerns of the most people to rise to the top not just those of the loudest.
A system such as you are proposing could work well in private enterprise. It would help you winnow out the widely held sentiments…

By: Stuart Foster

Stuart Foster — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:03:34 +0000

Replication of President Obama’s strategy should be the effort of any type of positive marketing campaign. He was able to grow on multiple fronts: WoM, SM, Advertising, Email and TV. If you can hit all those fronts…and hit them well: You will be golden.