Communities

The president of Emerson's Micro Motion Coriolis flow & density measurement business, Tom Moser, has a great article in the Jan/Feb edition of ISA's Intech magazine. The executive corner article, Online collaboration: A win for all of us, is a strong call to action for process automation suppliers and process manufacturers to take advantage of social media (a.k.a. Web 2.0) to improve listening, research & development, and the way we learn and interact.

Tom frames the opportunity:

Today, as consumers, we have the opportunity to evaluate, share, research, and comment on any product or service online. Consumers can change the course of a new product introduction and influence what companies will develop and sell to us in the future. While this might put us outside of our traditional comfort zone, one thing is for certain--we all need to accept it and embrace it.

Through social media applications like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, RSS searches, etc. companies can immediately improve their listening skills. Tom describes in an Aberdeen Group report on listening to online conversations, that organizations:

...realized a 93% improvement in their ability to capture consumer insight that drove a new product or service development. In addition to contributions to new product development, these organizations achieved an estimated 63% customer service cost reduction and 82% improvement in identifying and reducing risk to their brands.

With these types of ROI figures, it's understandable how social media initiatives in business-to-business (B2B) companies have moved beyond the organizations' grassroots levels into the executive management levels.

Tom notes that the tools themselves are not costly. What does consume resources is the organizational commitment to the time required to regularly track, participate, and use the flow of information that improved listening provides. Taking advantage of the insights that users of your products and services share can be the differentiation your company offers versus your competition to grow your business.

Beyond better listening, Tom enumerates other benefits such as closer connections, tapping ideas/solutions more easily, better best practice sharing, faster access to information, improved personal development, and more.

I highlighted in an earlier post, Join the Micro Motion Online Community, how the Micro Motion team is fully embracing Tom's ideas with an on-line community around Coriolis flow and density measurement. If you have these measurement devices or have the interest to learn more about the technology, this community is a great place to ask questions and learn from experts.

In the article, I couldn't agree more with Tom's closing thought:

Social media is dramatically changing our behavior as end consumers. In the B2B world, it is time to fully leverage the capabilities that Web 2.0 enables. We will all win.

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Update: Welcome, readers of the What's Working in Marketing blog! We appreciate any thoughts you have on collaboration.

Part of an organization's willingness to bring their talented folks to the surface, is the organizational commitment to this as a strategy for it to be sustainable. Emerson's Aaron Crews eloquently shares his thoughts on this subject in his post, Social Media Marketing and Sustainability.

One place I see great promise in a sustainable community is the new Micro Motion Online Community. Its focus is to be your online resource for Coriolis flow and density measurement. Not a repository of documents like traditional websites, it's a community to connect people with similar interests in these measurement technologies and expertise. I had a chance to get a sneak preview from Emerson's Mike Tongwarin at the Emerson Exchange.

When I received the email last Friday that it had officially launched, I asked Mike and Lee Rumbles if they had more background about the effort that I could share. I thought I'd include their response in its entirety:

There's really one main reason we created the online community - Customers. Our Customer Advisory Board told us several months ago that one of the key developments they would like to see is an online way to connect with peers, share experiences, build their knowledge and grow their network. This group was clear in their desire to have a forum to act as a knowledge base for sharing knowledge, giving them the ability to self-help through their issues. This high-ranking request was right in line with our commitment to online activities and our growing emphasis on connecting with customers, users, prospects and students on the web.

Micro Motion has spent the last couple of years increasing our internet presence and have noticed that our customers are receptive to those efforts. We've had a spike in web visits and an increase in online requests for documentation, quotes, and general questions among others. This trend towards technology can also be seen by our shift to replace paper manuals to CD manuals, which also is in line with our environmental goals, as well as our web focus.

The Micro Motion Online Community offers a Forum as its main focus with other value-added features we continue to develop further including a Knowledge Wiki. We encourage our members to post their questions or customize an answer based on their knowledge and experience.

The social aspect of the community also plays an important role and one that we hope connects our customers not only to us, but also to each other. We hope this community brings users together to share experiences and knowledge and also builds their networks. Some of the social features include the discussion forums, starting private or public groups, chat room, and the ability to make friends.

We are already making changes to the site based on recommendations and suggestions received. The beauty of the online environment, of course, is the flexibility it offers for continuous improvement - something Micro Motion believes strongly in. Of course, the success of the Online Community is users. We currently have 575 members and it's their involvement and activity that will drive success!

I'd say a community with 575 folks already is off to a great start. If your plant has Coriolis flow and density measurement, you might consider visiting and joining this community.

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