Ensight - Jeremy Wright

I did an interesting presentation this morning. I went into it knowing it would be interesting, though, and it ended up largely as expected.

The overall topics was on the value of communities. I opened it with some thoughts on the types of mistakes companies who don’t use communities at all make. These were characterized as “3 Ways to Kill Your Business”, which I broke down as the following, and with the following examples:

1. Death by Deafness (Google)
2. Death by Ignorance (Dell)
3. Death by Stupidity (Apple)

Now while some might think this was the conference equivalent of linkbaiting (okay, it kind of was), there were 2 things going on, really. First, as any regular reader will know, I often blog half-baked ideas and improve on them through conversation. Instead of doing it in a blog post, though, I did it on stage and with audience participation. Second, I really just wanted to fuel some convesation.

Now, considering Mike Arrington was also on the panel and he fundamentally disagreed with me (which is fine, it’s an honor to be disagreed with live on stage by Mike), it probably came across as me kind of waffling. The truth is that this is really a large evolving thought for me.

My second session of the day was much more crystalized. This session was really just the second half of my original talk (we never got past the “how companies who don’t use communities suck” portion of the presentation). The second half was really about explaining the perception shift required to build proper communities, and the 10 things I believe are critical for doing so.

These were, in no particular order:

1. Align it with business goals
2. Plan for success
3. Plan for failure
4. Innovate
5. Respond to questions / comments / criticisms
6. Leave money on the table
7. Ask questions
8. There is no spoon
9. Assign resources
10. Fail weekly

Really, these are my “rules for business”, if I had rules. And they ultimately boil down to: respect and value your customers, take risks that you believe in, and think stuff out.

I know I didn’t come across clearly in the morning session, which is fine. Mike might think I’m a moronic jerk who likes to pick on Apple and Google (okay, I do).

But the point is that there is a massive opportunity out there for companies who are able to shift their perception and value users, create effective feedback mechanisms and take risks. I know it didn’t come across well in the first session, but my beef is really with companies that ignore customers, don’t think creatively, don’t plan effectively, refuse to innovate and won’t take risks.

The session was fun, though. 24 hours of travel, 3 hours of sleep, a new talk, a half-formed idea… It could have gone a lot worse Note to self, though, if you don’t want the whole audience thinking you’re a jerk, only “link bait” when you’ve got notes