When corporations kill their evangelists

Every businessman/woman will tell you that the best business they ever earned came from a reference or word of mouth. There are numerous brands around the world that have survived decades on the cult following alone, despite being technically inadequate or ridiculously overpriced. This is no less true for the software and hardware industry than it is for the motorcycle industry. When you have individuals or groups passionate about the products you put out, they can make or break your business initiative or the latest advertising campaign.

Earlier this week Dell shut down its highly popular message boards and effectively alienated a lot more people than they imagined and effectively cut the heads off their evangelists.

Their reasoning: it became a support forum.

Well no (expletive deleted). When you sponsor a community, encourage it to promote your product, on your site, organized and promoted by your stuff — what else can you expect?

Corporations do not understand that by opening themselves up to feedback they will receive the good with the bad. That level of transparency is nothing but positive for the company and gives them a realtime feedback on the shortcomings of their product. Corporations have massive market research budgets aimed at just that: tell us what you want.

Second of all, no corporation should sponsor a forum and turn its back on it. One of the most successful forums I have ever seen in my life has been the EV1 Servers forum where the CEO, along with many managers, takes the time to post news from time to time. Dell seemed to take it hard when people complained about the product quality. EV1 CEO had to answer to his customers complaints that the company hosts terrorist web sites with movies of American civilians having their heads chopped off.

Fact of the matter is, many corporations do not understand what community initiatives are all about. They talk about community as if it is a department in one of their subsidiaries. Bottom line is that it is all about people. People who are seeing assistance from other people. You cannot approach this group with a set of initiatives, a to-do list, or a memo. You have to learn how to reach them on the personal basis. With all the executives simply ignoring the Maslow’s Hearchy of Needs it is sometimes puzzling how many of them even made it out of the business school.