Power to the People

With the phrase "Power to the People" I am not referring neither to the Civil Rights Movement nor John Lennon's song.  I am referring to the influence people have in determining the way the companies are acting and developing.

Many years ago I bought a Volkswagen.  Since the day I started driving that car I started to notice the many Volkswagen that were circulating in my city.  They had been around me but I just never acknowledged their existence.   Something similar happened to me when I started reading Groundswell. 

When the book started to describe the power of customers and ordinary people, and how important it is for the survival of companies and entire industries to start listening and acting on the groundswell, I have starting to notice all the activities that have surrounded me and affected the whole world with the growth of Social Media.  Many of today’s greatest jobs did not exist five years ago, such as Social Media Managers, Bloggers, Online Advertising Executives, User Experience Analysts or Video Journalists.  I used to work in Procter & Gamble and Unilever for close to two decades.  Both companies report that close to 75% of current sales come from products that did not exist 10 years ago.

I frequently see that one or two people rapidly can reach audiences of a magnitude that were reachable before only through large expenditures of money or with advertisements during the Super Bowl.  But ordinary people do it more effectively and usually have larger and longer impact.  A few years ago the word “viral” only referred to communicable diseases.  Now I hear it frequently to indicate how ordinary people have been able to reach millions very rapidly.  For example, just last week I read how an ordinary house wife in a small New York town sent an email to 20 friends to help save a failing business.  The word spread quickly and that week they formed a "cash mob" that went into the tiny store to buy everything from children's blocks to yarn for knitting sweaters.  The store owner said that cash infusion will help the store survive through the slow winter months.

Although I have worked in sales during the last two decades, the book helped me realize that companies are trying to benefit from the groundswell.  I particularly liked what I suspect was a undercover effort by Kmart.  During last Christmas, at Kmart stores across the country anonymous donors paid off strangers' layaway accounts, bought Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.  Kmart representatives said they did nothing to instigate the secret Santa’s or spread word of the generosity. But it happened as the company was forced to close several stores and continues to struggle against Walmart and Target.  This evidences how creative and different the companies have to act to adapt to the expansion of Social Media.

I particularly liked the simile the book makes with martial arts the effort the companies make to adapt and benefit from the groundswell.  Companies cannot fight the strength of public opinion and the spread of Social Media; they can use the groundswell to impulse and strengthen their images and brands.