Early in my career, I recall a great corporate ad campaign that urged all of us to give more attention to listening. Sadly, I don’t remember the company, or the aesthetics, but I do recall the campaign. Some years later, I recall reading how Jack Welch, then CEO of General Electric, emphasizing the same in his executive seminars.
Of great interest are two recent blogs calling on us to remember to use the power of social media to, yup, listen.
It is not that marketing and sales don’t listen, but we have developed strong habits for how we listen. In my office, we’re discussing yet another focus group for a project. On another project, we at JMC are recommending a survey. And for a third client we’re deep in the trenches mining data that will be followed by what we call Soundings Research. All of this is good.
But I also like the reminder that we should consider new communications as a tool for listening to the publics in addition to being vehicles for communicating to and dialoging with our groups. I saw this mentioned in Jennifer Laycock’s blog in Search Engine Guide, and followed her to The Buzz Saw blog from Bill Balderaz.
Now we have to learn how to listen effectively!
