A long time ago my girl friend (Leslie, now wife 0f 20+ years) and I were sitting with co-workers in a bar unwinding after a long day. During the evening one co-worker came up with the enthusiastic idea that we all go sky diving the next weekend. Fueled by the evenings offerings we all agreed, and one week later four of us actually made it to the sky diving field (notably the proposer was not in attendance.) After a morning of practice and prep for what to do we found ourselves in small groups flying up to make our first jump. After our mostly successful jumps (guy number 3 twisted his ankle) we all gathered to watch the video tape of each jump. Leslie and I did pretty well — apparently we were natural skydivers (although we’ve never gotten close since). The funny thing was how many people got to the door of the plane and couldn’t get themselves out the door. Most stepped out on the wheel strut but had trouble with the final release, resulting in all manner of unglamorous tumbles — and that after a full morning of preparing for that one short moment.
Well hopefully you stuck with me through that little walk down memory lane. But I’m reminded of that story as I reflect on the promise of the web 2.0 user involvement that is now possible. For instance Amazon’s customer reviews has a big effect on sales.
A new study from the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management that examines the effect of consumer reviews on book sales at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com finds that this community content does have an impact on what consumers buy. - Yale Center for Customer Insights
But in a meeting just this afternoon, when I proposed the idea of customer reviews the topic was immediately sidelined. If you only read RSS feeds, blogs, etc. you’d think everyone embraces the idea of user-contributed content on a website. Well, let me tell you, in the REAL world people are a lot more nervous about the concept. That doesn’t mean they don’t read and get influenced by Amazon user reviews, but the thought of exposing themselves (0r their company’s content and by relation themselves) results in a collision with a brick wall. And I understand, it is a big unknown risk. Just like letting go of that airplane (there was a point to paragraph one!) its a pretty scary affair. There are many known risks (Chevy Tahoe Ad) and its is really, REALLY easy to anger your boss.
But Microsoft let Lenn Pryor start Channel 9 where he and his compatriots take video cameras into meetings and then post the content, with little or no editing, for all to see — customer, competitors, press, you name it! It did cause some grief, but its still online. The scary thing is we like to control ‘the message’ and the idea that negative comments are an inevitable part of user-reviews is tough to bear. But the average reader IS smart enough to balance those negatives against the inevitable positives (if we’re doing our job). If something really does stink, everyone knows it anyway — why pretend they don’t. And if we’re brave enough to let it hang out there on our web site when it does stink we’ll build loyalty and credibility with our audience. It feels scary to let go, but you do make it to the ground relatively intact (with maybe a twisted ankle to show for your risk.) So let go, let your users comment on your stuff, and let it all hang out!
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