What If the Manufacturers & Providers You Cared About Were on Twitter, & Actually Listened?

I just finished watching Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo. This week, among others, she interviewed Kathy Ireland, former model and lust object, about her projects, entrepreneurial spirit, and her ideas about her success.

Kathy said that for her, being on Twitter allowed her constant feedback with her customers, said to be busy mothers, and that the communication being so quick allowed much fine tuning of course direction, product selection, and product development.

I got to thinking how great this would be, and Twitter could actually be a force for good, and not an inane distraction of the masses.

What if Microsoft, with the development of Windows, or Office, was actually listening to what people were tweeting about? The problems that are found, the ability of the Twitter community to help each other with certain problems, and those problems that user-to-user interaction simply could not help.

The entire model of change would be different. No longer would we wonder about whether changes being made were the result of user interaction outside the halls of the Redmond campus. It would improve customer opinion of the company immensely, remove doubts about motives, and though no changes might come that individuals wanted, reasons for not implementing them could be made clear.

Now I know that many will begin their rebuttal with the ‘design by committee’ jokes and anecdotal tales, but bearing in mind that it could slow some things down, we should (and Microsoft, or whatever company we talk about) think about it this way: If the slowing that comes from interaction avoids mistakes and missteps along the way, has not the benefit already been shown?

Think of the Vista path. If a greater number of people were shown the changes being made, the misdirection could have been avoided, and the release could have been sooner, and successful.

Of course, no company like Microsoft will do this, I’m only pontificating about that. The mentality of that company is too far gone. Companies who engage in the siege mentality could never operate this way. But what if a newer, leaner, and less paranoid company were to work in this fashion? The results might be astounding, even in this age, and with comparison to larger, entrenched in the old style companies.

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Quote of the day:
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. - Laurence J. Peter

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