When the customer becomes the designer and the tweeter the revolutionary

The time has come now for customers to start taking a more hands-on approach to see the products they want to consume (after all, they do have the right to buy exactly what they want, right?). No longer do unsatisfied consumers have to keep their dissapointment to themselves...now, with the evolution of social media, they have a multiplicity of ways to report that they are not very happy with their product. But what's most important about this, is that they might actually be being HEARD this time.

The Groundswell is about sharing: it's about listening to what people have to say - and it's also about talking back to people, only to hear back from them. What became to clear to me when reading the assigned readings for this week was that the fundamental change that new social media brings about is that customers can now tell producers what to do. "The Groundswell effect is that custoemrs are chomping at the bit to tell you what to do and are actively complaining and praising your products": now customers can be the designers of the product, too. They - we - can be part of the process -more so than ever before.

A case study that I found interesting was that of Dell's IdeaStorm which allows customers to post ideas about what products or services Dell should offer. After that, customers get to vote (promote and demote ideas) and finally see what ideas have been selected for future action.

This is a perfect example of how a company is, using Li and Bernoff's words, embracing the Groundswell. They have also put up a video on Youtube about the IdeaStorm which has been watched by 13,461 people.



Not bad at all for one of DellVlog's 1,015 videos, right? Interestingly enough, one of the ideas posted on IdeaStorm is to encourage Dell to change it's website. This exemplifies what we have been talking about and what Li and Bernoff don't seem to get tired of telling us: the customer is driving the process of change. If a customer, in this case, iamnotjamesh thinks the website - a tool that he uses very much as a consumer - is not up to his standards then Dell opens up the opportunity for him to share these concerns. Dell knows that there may be many more iamnotjameshes that can benefit from a new website as well...therefore making sales go up and customers happy.

Let the revolutions taking place in the Middle East and northern Africa give me the courage to say this: the Groundswell does not only allow customers have a direct say in the process of designing and putting together a product, but the social media revolution has also allowed people tell governments what to do. Much is being said about the role that new media has played, is playing, and is continually going to play in the uprises around the world. Other bloggers in the class have written about it. Beverlie, for example, or Kayan.

Of course, the counter-argument says that revolutions have happened way before the media revolution. But there is no questioning that new media is a tool that is increasingly playing a role in how people organize, communicate, express solidarity and take part of the process. Today I came across a video that showed Libya's president, al-Gaddafi, taking part of some shootings (killing people that refused to take his orders). I'm not going to share the link to that video now (because I want to save you from some traumatic experience) but the point of me sharing this is to show how social media, too, can be used as bad propaganda. We h ave talked a lot about examples of horrible PR campaings that are born and reproduced in the web - it's the same with a government. If I, as a websurfer miles and miles away from Libya see something that reflects negative upon the country's president, then I'm most likely to be sympathetic to the protesters that are trying to overthrow him. This could possibly translate into me spreading their message further on the web, making a donation to the movements, blogging about it (!) and standing in solidarity with those Libyans working for change.

The power of the web, in that and many other senses, is unprecedented. I think you would agree with me, right?