Full Circle Associates

Shel Israel blogged earlier this week about blogging and PR. I've fled the world of PR enough times to not deeply care about the domain from a commercial standpoint, but it still is an issue in the non profit/non governmental organizational world. It is an issue for those with causes and societal needs. So I still keep an eye open.

Naked Conversations: Blog Monitoring, an Emerging Business Service

"As I've stated before, PR firms in this new Conversational Era need to focus their efforts from pushing messages out to facilitate conversations between clients and their constituencies. The hardest part for new business clients is understanding how the tools work, and how to use them to listen better to conversations they did not start themselves.

I'm still learning to master Technorati, PubSub, Feedster and Bloglines. I've abandoned a few others. For businesses just trying to get their arms around it all, these tools are as hard to master as they are important to understand. This is a place for a PR agency to jump in. Use them to listen and learn for your clients. Serve as an early warning system for what is being said by both topic and company. Over time, these tools will get easier and an intermediary will not be used, but not in the near term."

I think Shel is hitting on some really important stuff, but the "take" I got off the post was "master the technologies to find the conversations." The next piece is mastering the practices to engage and, where appropriate, facilitate the conversations. And by facilitate, I do NOT mean direct or control. To go back to the route, facilitate means "to make easy."

In a customer situation, facilitation many mean things like:

• Having your key employees who either need to listen/hear what your customers are saying are in the conversation. Not just as lurkers, but as real, authentic people. When they can add to the conversation, they should (like offering information, help, feedback.)
  
• Don't stifle criticism, but seek to understand it. Ask non-judgemental questions. Clarify. If something hurts you, it is ok to say it hurts, but if you go defensive, the conversation degrades or worse, shuts down.
  
• Help the dominators chill out for the quieter voices. In blog comments, this may be more difficult, because unlike forums with registered users, you don't know who is listening. But asking questions after heavy commentors to see if any other ideas are out there may help. I'm not sure. Blog conversations are still relatively new. Lot's to learn.
  
• Acknowledge participation. Thank people - maybe a simple email, or at the end of a thread, name the contributors. Tell them what you are going to do with what you learned. If they made a difference, TELL'EM.
  

Of course there are other things. I guess my bottom line is, don't assume technical knowledge is all you need. I know. Obvious. But I had to say it!