Facebook, Twitter, and a Pair of Shoes

Facebook, Twitter
& A Pair Of Shoes

Facebook, Twitter
& A Pair Of Shoes
G Sankaranarayanan
First Edition: September 2014
Book Prize: INR 350
Copyright © 2014 by G Sankaranarayanan
All rights reserverd. No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Published 2014 by
Boardroom Bytes
(A publishing division of Younomy)
6, Pugazhendhi Road
Cotton Market
Rajapalayam 626117
hello@younomy.com
www.younomy.com
I dedicate this book to
Mr S Viswanathan, Editor & Publisher, Industrial Economist,
who gave me my first job in business journalism.
Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xi
CHAPTER 1 Humanize 1
I Am in The Army of Lord 3
One Status Update and One Lakh Likes 8
Om Shanti Om 12
How Do You Ask Matters 17
Cause to Paws, the Pet Store 21
CHAPTER 2 Socialize 25
I Am Lion, I Am Lion, I Am Lion 27
Her First Date 36
Where Do I Find Tigers? 43
I Want Happiness 48
Facebook, Twitter And A Pair Of Shoes 55
CHAPTER 3 Democratize 61
Ribhu And His Disciple 63
A Conference Of Scientists With God As Chief Guest 67
Do You Know Who My Son Is? 70
The X Newspaper 75
An Artist And A Cobbler 80
A Monk And The Floating Blanket 89
What Ganesh Chaturthi Festival Can Teach Business? 94
INDEX 101

ix
Foreword
By Prof M S Swaminathan
Chairman, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation
This book by Shri Sankaranarayanan is a timely one since the

role of social media in both information dissemination and
shaping public opinion and policy is growing.
The value of social media comes from its interactive potential.

Instead of monologue, it promotes meaningful dialogues. This
book uses stories and humour to explain social business con-
cepts. It also introduces many stimulating concepts such as hu-
mannovation (innovation with human face), social funnel (why
brands need to convert their social followers ultimately into co-
creators), total value matrix (the four types of value a business
creates – and how each type of value can be co-created using
social media) and customer identify matrix (types of identities
customers have – and how brands can nurture them for strategic
reasons).
I hope this book will be widely read since it will add a new
dimension to our understanding of social problems and social
thinking. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Sankaranarayanan
for his labour of love in the field of social communication.
Prof M S Swaminathan
Chennai
September 4, 2014
xi
Preface
Stories are great tools of communication. This book uses some
familiar ones to present new concepts in social business. The
recurring theme of the stories is this: “Social business is not just
about technology. It is a new - and a great - way of doing
business”.
In social media, brands want more likes. There is a race. Brands

even buy fans. But having a big following in social platforms
is not an end in itself. There should be a business goal and a
strategy.
The goal of a business is well known. It is to make profits. The

end of social business too is profit but its means are based on
the philosopies of humanization, socialization and
democratization.
These terms may sound like jargons. But they simply empha-
size that companies should be of, for and by people. We need
to make brands more likeable. We need to make the process of
value creation open for the participation of customers. These
are not feel good aspects but business imperatives.
Technology is ready. It can enable producer and consumer join

hands. The question is how prepared our brands are. I hope this
book does its bit to broaden the conversations we have on social
media and social business.
xii
Acknowledgements
This book is the collection of weekly newsletters I sent to 2,000-

odd subscribers. It is the positive feedback and valuable com-
ments of my subscribers that encouraged me to work on this
book. I thank my subscribers for hitting the reply button when
they receive the newsletter and share their thoughts.
I thank the legendary scientist Prof M S Swaminathan for his

foreword. I also thank him for being a subscriber to the newslet-
ter. Initially it was difficult for me to believe that someone of his
stature would read mails coming from a little-known writer on a
topic unrelated to agriculture or policy making. But leaders are
learners. They have no intellectual boundaries.
I thank Prof Michael Schrage for his ‘praise for the book’. The
management world knows him as a gifted thinker and author.
He is also a great mentor. Despite his busy schedule, he finds
time to write a quick note of appreciation or suggestion for my
articles. I am grateful to both of them for their appreciation.
I thank my Facebook friends (especially, Ms Vidhya Satagopan

Srinivasan and Ms Sharmila Raja). They gave many wonderful
suggestions for the cover design.
I thank my friend Saravanan for helping me publish this book.

I thank my designer, Govind Alagar, who was patient with me
and my frequent revisions.
I thank the authors and publishers of news articles, interviews,

and web content quoted in this book.
G Sankaranarayanan
Rajapalayam
CHAPTER 1
Humanize
1
“I Am in The
Army of Lord”
‘ Once there was a pastor in a small town. He was

known for his boring sermons. Hence, many people
stopped listening to him.
But the pastor was enterprising - he made home visits to

get people back to the church. One day, he met a certain
rich man and appealed to him: “My son, as a true Chris-
tian, I think you should join the Army of the Lord. Jesus
wants you to be at His table.”
The man replied: “But, I am already in the Army of the

Lord!” The pastor wondered: “Then, how come I never get
,
to see you?!”
The rich man looked around, as if to make sure that

nobody is watching, and whispered: “Because I am in the
secret service.

The Message:
If you are not interesting in social platforms, your audience will

continue to be in “the secret service”.
In a way, social media has “past-forwarded” business. The nature

of producer-consumer relations is getting personal, once again.
With social technology, we are getting back to the time of pre-
industrialization. Producers and consumers can know each other
and create value together. The difference is that the engagement
this time is digital.
Social media as a technology is here to stay. Not a week goes

without a launch of a social “If you want to be wildly successful in
platform to address yet an- social media, then you have to play for
other un-met socializing need
the long-term. That means acting like
of people.
a farmer, instead of a hunter.”
- Brad Smith, Founder, FixCourse
But, from the point of
“ownership”, social media
platforms belong to two groups: people and brands.
The likes of Facebook and Twitter are “owned” by people - No

one decides who talks about what, and how. The public social
sphere is wild - call it Wild Social.
In contrast, the official pages of brands in Facebook or Twit-

ter (and social websites) are private. They resemble ‘gardens’
because brands can control or influence conversations in these
platforms. A brand can allow a conversation thread to take root,
grow, and blossom in its page. Or it can decide not to.
In Wild Social, conversations are not directed. But at Social Gar-

dens, they happen “by design”, and “for design”.
5 Facebook, Twitter & A Pair Of Shoes
Engagement by design:
In a social platform like Equal Choice (www.equalchoice.com.

au), engagement happens by design. Owned by Equal, the sweet-
ener brand, this social platform engages customers on its own
terms, so to say.
On Equal Choice, conversations take place on select topics.

They range from fashion, environment and pop culture. Equal
designed the social portal to converse with women in Australia
on various choices they make in life.
Participants cannot create new topics on their own. They can

converse only on topics supplied by the brand (Box Item 1).
Engagement for design:
In MyStarbucksIdea and NikeID, engagement happens “for

design” (Box Item 2).
MyStarbucksIdea is social portal where customers submit their

ideas for Starbucks. NikeID is a product configurator. These
platforms help brands engage with customers and “design” a

product feature or a new product. That’s engagement for design.
Social Gardens can help companies capture “voice of customer”

and better their offerings. Brands should be present in both
these two types of social sphere and engage with customers for
strategic reasons.
Box Item 1: Equal Choice
Created by Equal sweetener, Equal Choice is a social website

dedicated to “digging into the choices” that people of Australia
make: “the frivolous, the serious and the seriously confounding”.
Equal Choice is like what would happen if you combined an
internet forum with an either/or poll.
With help from a panel of experts, the website uncovers topi-

cal issues and then lets its target audience tell “where you stand
on them, either with a simple vote or by duking it out in the
comments”. The company tracks the results live as people vote,
so they can always see if their side is “winning” the debate. The
panel of experts selects topics for discussion and debate. Then
it’s up to the visitor to choose a topic, a side and vote. The com-
pany also updates topics regularly so that there’s always a reason
for people to come back.
Box Item 2: MyStarbucksIdea

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
Mystarbucksidea is a crowd-sourcing platform, promoted by

Starbucks coffee company. The site sources suggestions, ideas
from customers and others to better its offerings. The social site
lists the ideas submitted under different categories like Food,
Tea, and Coffee & Espresso Drinks. It also lists the ideas under
review, ideas that are reviewed, ideas in the works, and ideas that
are implemented.
NikeID
NikeID is a social configurator that lets customers to customize

shoes and accessories. Customers “can create the boot the game
demands with custom traction options and bold colors…get
them made exactly the way you want to match your performance
and style demands”.
2
“One Status Update and
One Lakh Likes”
‘ It was a single Facebook post, from United Parcel

Service (UPS). Published in August 2013, the post received
about 95,000 likes. There were over 22,000 shares, and 4,600
comments. No doubt, it could be the most popular corpo-
rate Facebook post of its kind in recent years.
What was it all about? Here is the backgrounder: Mr Gavin

Crowsley, a UPS staff, was driving his delivery van on a
highway. He spotted a dog on a side of the highway. He
pulled over to find the dog on a short chain with no food,
no water, no shelter.
“I knew if that dog - a Great Dane - didn’t die from starva-

tion, he was going to die from the weather,” Gavin thought.
He didn’t want to have a confrontation, but he just couldn’t
leave him there. He called an animal welfare organization,
and the rescue took place within an hour.
After a few months of rehabilitation, Phoenix (the dog’s

new name) recovered, gaining weight. On the day of his
rescue, the dog weighed less than 70 lbs, but after rehabili-
tation, it was close to 160 lbs. Phoenix now knows how to
sit, stay and shake. He has become quite the superstar with
his own Facebook page called Phoenix Fighters.
The social team of UPS waited for months for the dog to
recover. When the team told the full story, they also posted
a picture of Phoenix with the driver, who helped save him.
The element of love and the timing of the post gave a huge
reach for the brand.
,
Likes, shares, and comments poured in thousands. A fan’s
comment exclaimed: “UPS drivers are the eyes and ears of
their communities!” And the comment itself received over
800 likes!
One Status Update and One Lakh Likes 10
The Message:
Virtue is the key ingredient of a “viral” content in social media.

Not that kind acts are rare in work life. But how many compa-
nies do have people to listen to everyday experiences of their
frontline staff ? How many could catch such simple acts of love
that have the potential to go viral? How many do have the talent
to convert acts of corporate compassion into corporate commu-
nication without giving the message a stretch?
In the case of Phoenix, the rescue happened in January, 2013.

UPS made the post in August. It waited for seven months for
the dog to recover - and the story to develop.
“We wanted the first photo you

“PR is about positioning, and social
see of Phoenix to be this sweet
media is about becoming, being and
boy reunited with the UPS
improving.”
driver who helped save his life,”
— Mr Chris Brogan
explained UPS to its fans.
In traditional corporate communication, it was all about press

releases. The challenge for a brand then was to find newsworthy
content. In corporate social communication, it is about cause
worthy content. There should be some human touch of intel-
ligence, emotion, creativity, and care in our content.
Social media releases are not press releases. They do not have
to be formal, serious. There is no need for big ticket announce-
ments. The size or scale does not matter. The depth of the hu-
man touch does.
An YouTube video could be about how your product or service

touches the lives of people. A blog could be about the efforts
you take to conserve water. A Facebook status update could be a
survey, trivia, seasonal greetings.
Social content comes in all hues and colours. The ideas that go
into filling your ‘content bucket’ should come from the entire
team. Social content is team content - not a CEO content.
Brands should set communication indicators especially for social

media. The indicators could be thoughts and deeds on corporate
values, and vision. The social team can explore the possibility of
developing content in appropriate formats.
Leading social brands - like Intel, Dell and Starbucks conduct

training programs for employees on social media. The trainings
help everyone to act like a brand journalist and contribute to the
social narration.
Getting the buy-in of the top management is important for

budget allocation. But that of employees across ranks is inevi-
table to not let social communication go out of steam for want
of interesting content.
3
“Om Shanti Om”
‘ Coca Cola announced that it is suspending all ad-

vertisements in all media channels in Philippines from No-
vember 10, 2013. It is for an indefinite period. The company
would use the ad budget to do relief work in this island
country, devastated by Typhoon Haiyan cyclone.
,
This news of Coke suspending ads for the relief work got
the admiration even from its strongest critics. So much so
that industry observers reported that the word of mouth on
the suspension of Coke ads did a better job than the ads
otherwise would have done for the brand. (Box Item 1)
The Message:
Earned media - “refers to publicity gained through promotional

efforts other than advertising” - wins hands down.
Mr Wally Olins, founder, Saffron Brand Consultants once said:

“You can only win if you create a huge brand that has nothing
to do with advertising.” If there is a quote that every brand man-
ager should read, as soon as they wake up, it should be this.
“You can only win if you create a In future, you can build a
huge brand that has nothing to do with brand only with earned me-
advertising.” dia. And you will earn media
— Mr Wally Olins not by throwing money at
newspapers, but by winning
people’s attention in social channels.
Attention creates brands. But here comes the next question:

Why would people pay attention to a company and helps it build
brands.
Samuel J Palmisano, former Chairman of the Board, IBM, an-

swers. In one of his annual letters at IBM, he wrote: “Today, as
in the past, when people turn to our company, I believe they are
looking for how IBMers approach problems, as well as for the
types of problems we choose to approach.” (Box Item 2)
Of course, he was speaking for IBM, but doesn’t it hold true

for any company? Your’s and mine? To “create a huge brand
without advertising” you should be choosing problems worth
solving. And your problem solving approaches should be like-
able too.
Behind all viral content is the message of “human touch”. It is

about the difference a corporate act (or thought) make in peo-
ple’s lives. Not just innovation, but “humannovation”. Brands
Om Shanti Om 14
need to be creative to remain humane. An inscrutable entity or

ruthless system does not win people’s admiration.
But humannovation could be about simple friendly acts. Re-

cently, Finnair brought out a booklet on how it touches lives of
its customers. One anecdote was about a Finnair flight attendant
personally picking up passengers on her way to work. And a viral
video of Finnair showed the whole cabin crew dancing to the
tunes of a Bollywood film song: “Om shanti om”. It was India’s
Republic Day. The crew on board a flight from Delhi to Helsinki
greeted Indian passengers by singing and dancing for this song.
Finnair’s video of the crew’s humannovation had gone viral with

over 5, 250,000 views in YouTube.
So, if you do not have budget for ad, that’s cool. “Put your
hands up and say, om shanti om”, because you can humannovate
and earn media.
Box Item 1:
Coke Suspends Ad Campaign For Best Reason You Could
Imagine
Source: Huffington Post
Posted: 11/25/2013
Even while Coke sales are declining, the soft drink giant is still
putting its advertising on hold to focus on a more important
cause.
Coca-Cola announced last week that the company is suspending

its brand advertising in the Philippines so that it can donate its
entire ad budget to typhoon relief efforts. The company has so
far donated more than $2.5 million in cash and in-kind contribu-
tions. “We wish to express our heartfelt solidarity to all Filipinos
in these difficult times,” Carlos Salazar Lomelín, Chief Execu-
tive Officer of Coca-Cola FEMSA, the bottling company of the

Philippines, said in a press release. “It is in times like these when
the Philippines sets an example of resilience and good spirit, and
where our values of supporting ourselves as a team come at its
best.”
The death count for Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest

storms on record, has surpassed 5,000. Still, 1,611 remain
missing. Experts say that rebuilding houses, schools, roads and
bridges in the ravaged areas of the Philippines could hit $5.8 bil-
lion, Reuters reported.
While many supporters have lauded Coke’s efforts in helping

typhoon victims, some have questioned whether suspending ads
is a marketing ploy in and of itself.
“It is still an advertising move,” one Reddit user pointed out.

“People will find out what they did, think they are a better com-
pany because of it, and buy their product to support it. As great
as it is it still gives them advertising.”
Box Item 2: A letter from Samuel J. Palmisano

Source: IBM website
For more than a century, when people have sought a relationship

with IBM—whether as a client, employee, partner or neighbor—
what have they been seeking?
Perhaps it was deep expertise in science and technology. Or a

partner with broad understanding of their industry or sector
of society. It might have been long-standing presence in their
market, their community or around the world. Or perhaps they
hoped to learn from a company that itself had undergone con-
tinual change.
There are, however, certain kinds of aspirations that can’t be
achieved through organizational capabilities, global reach or
Om Shanti Om 16
technology—or by applying the lessons of the past. To cap-

ture the biggest economic opportunities or to tackle society’s
most daunting problems—to imagine what the world might be,
and actually to build it—people have sought something more
fundamental: a unique ability to conceptualize opportunities, to
analyze developments, to tackle and overcome grand challenges.
In my view, the defining value that IBM has provided over the
years has been the way we think. Today, as in the past, when
people turn to our company, I believe they are looking for how
IBMers approach problems, as well as for the types of problems
we choose to approach. They seek a kind of relationship, in ad-
dition to the outcomes of that relationship. And they are drawn
to a set of values that reflect their own.
Most companies aim to satisfy their customers. Some go farther,

dedicating themselves to their clients’ success. A few define
success as bringing to the world innovations that make a lasting
difference. A handful build trusted, long-term relationships with
their owners, employees, partners, neighbors and the world at
large.
For more than a century, IBM has chosen to live at the intersec-
tion of these values. This choice has enabled our company to
prosper, to create value for our clients and owners, to provide
rewarding careers for millions of people, and to be a progressive
force in the societies in which we do our work.
4
“How Do You Ask Matters”
‘ Two friends wanted to learn meditation from a fa-

mous Zen Master. But they had a problem - they both were
passionate smokers and would never give up smoking for
anything.
They decided to explain their problem to the Master. The

first one went to the Master and hesitantly asked him:
“Master, can I smoke when I meditate?” Instantly, the
Master gave him one tight slap, and sent him out.
,
However, this did not deter the second one from trying
his luck. Having watched what happened, our man gave a
different spin to the question. He asked: “Dear Master, can
I meditate when I smoke?” The Master patted him on his
back, and exclaimed, “Why not?!”
The Message:
Coming to social media, a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

of marketers is: “Can I use social media for marketing?” The
answer can wait.
The success of Ms Estée Lauder, founder of Estée Lauder

Company, can serve as the context. Ms Lauder founded her
cosmetics company in 1946 in the US. She then had four or five
products. But Lauder decided to sell them only through upscale
department stores.
“Focus on how to be social, not
It took two years before Ms Lauder on how to do social.”
could find an upmarket store that — Jay Baer
would be willing to give order for
her products. Today, the company has an unrivaled portfolio of
27 brands that are sold in more than 150 countries. Ms Lauder
is duly credited with changing the face of the beauty business in
the US.
What’s Ms Lauder’s secret of success? She herself explained: “I

have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe
in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.” There has always been
a personal “high touch” in her marketing. She believed that “in
order to make a sale, you must touch the customer”.
She became a persuasive traveling salesperson, making in-store

presence in every fine department store in the US. There, she
spent a great deal of time advising customers and teaching
beauty advisors. She relied on this personal high touch for her
marketing.
One of Estée Lauder’s favorite quotes was “Tell-A-Phone, Tell-

A-Graph, Tell-A-Woman”. It was her conviction that once a
woman tried her product, she would “like it” and then “share it”
with her friends.
But, social media was yet born then. Had Ms Lauder lived to see
the explosion of the new media today, she would have exhorted
her staff: “Tell-A-Phone, Tell-A-Graph, Tweet-A-Woman”.
Ms Marisa Thalberg, VP Global Digital Marketing at Estée

Lauder, in an interview, observed: “Interestingly, you can see
social media as the modern extension of how Mrs. Estée Lauder
founded our company, on the principle of being ‘high-touch’.
She pioneered the woman-to-woman selling model, in the way
she connected so directly with women, on the floors of depart-
ment stores. Rather than digital representing the opposite of this
in moving us to the virtual world, I think social media is in fact
proving to be the way we are able to scale that behavior glob-
ally.” (Box Item)
Marisa believes that social media gives an unique opportunity for

her brand to have a continuous relationship with the consumer
and enable fellow brand enthusiasts to have a relationship with
each other.
Coming back to the FAQ, a big “No” to social media market-

ing, and a resounding “Yes” to the social way of marketing. It is
about personal, high touch.
Box Item:
Luxury Brand Cause Marketing with Marisa Thalberg, The
Estée Lauder Companies
Source: Experience Management Blog at Sprinklr.com
A few months ago, we sat down with Marisa Thalberg, VP

Global Digital Marketing at The Estée Lauder Companies, to
discuss the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign she and her
team help globally execute annually. The interview was originally
published in the Social Business Journal, and affirms that mar-
keters can no longer afford to look at social and digital market-
ing as segregated entities from traditional marketing – digital
marketing is even more easily tied back to marketing success

metrics (in this case, reach and awareness). Excerpts from the
interview:
Can you tell us a little bit about the role that social campaigns play for
brands in today’s prestige beauty market?
We look at social now as a key layer of integrated brand cam-

paigns, and it is also of course a unique opportunity to have a
continuous relationship with the consumer (and enable fellow
brand enthusiasts to have a relationship with each other). In-
terestingly, you can see social media as the modern extension of
how Mrs. Estée Lauder founded our company, on the principle
of being ‘high-touch.’ She pioneered the woman-to-woman sell-
ing model, in the way she connected so directly with women, on
the floors of department stores. Rather than digital representing
the opposite of this in moving us to the virtual world, I think
social media is in fact proving to be the way we are able to scale
that behavior globally.
What are your goals in executing campaigns across the global Estée Lauder
corporation?
We have a large portfolio of brands – close to 30 – so I would

be hard-pressed to give one answer as our goals in digital mar-
keting are generally no different than goals for our marketing in
general, tied to each brand’s specific business objectives. A goal
might be awareness, or keeping the consumer engaged with and
learning more about a brand, or considering it differently.
We also always want to offer our consumers great experiences.

As marketing matures we’re all getting a little bit more sophisti-
cated about understanding that digital and social marketing is
marketing.
5
“Cause to Paws, the Pet Store”
‘ This one is a real story of a pet store – named,

Cause to Paws – located in Coolidge Corner, a Brookline
neighborhood in Boston, US. A resident, Ms Terry Meyers
founded this store.
Once, a thoughtful friend gifted Terry a dog. Terry named

the pet Kanji. Soon, Kanji became a big part of her life.
Terry bought lot of toys, special pet foods, clothes, even
furniture for Kanji. But the shopping experience was not
that pleasant.
Terry realized that Coolidge Corner needed a new pet

store that is more sociable. She started one on her own.
Her store, Cause to Paws, sells all sorts of “functional and
frivolous” pet products. And also offers many benevolent
services.
Terry opened an official page at Facebook to connect with

her customers. If you were a pet owner living in Coolidge
Corner, you would find following Cause to Paws on Face-
book valuable.
Cause to Paws, the Pet Store 22
You will get personalized news. There will be tips to pro-

tect your pets in different seasons. Details of a missing
pet - so that you know who to alert when you find a pet
stranded somewhere.
You will get invites to birthday parties of pets living in

your neighborhood. Events like Yappy Hours, a socializing
event for pets. Free talks by pet trainers or Howl-o-ween
parties (that’s, Halloween for pets). Farewell parties for
pets and pet owners who are moving out of Coolidge Cor-
,
ner. Or the visits of pet owners to senior citizens.
Be it online or offline, Cause to Paws has become the place

to go in Coolidge Corner for “two-legged friends” who
have “four-legged friends”.
The message
One gets a feeling that Terry runs the store true to its name -
that is, more out of compassion for pets than passion for profit.
This one-woman store has a big message for large organizations:
put compassion over commerce.
Your people should be for a cause other than that of your busi-
“You don’t close a sale, you ness. To put it another way, you
open a relationship if you want have to share the compassion of
to build a long-term, successful your customers towards their cause.
It could be about caring for pets
enterprise.”
- Patricia Fripp
or healthy living or investing for
future.
Brands can sell - of course, Cause to Paws has commercial in-

terests. But it is the common interest that it has with customers
that helped it win friends. Cause to Paws has over 400 Facebook
friends - which is impressive for a pet store in a neighborhood
with just about 31,000 people.
If all what a company has is just commercial interest, it may

close a sale but may not open a relationship. Big brands spend a
lot of money in digital and social media to attract more friends.
They are so sociable that they even “buy” friends.
But it is time businesses understood how-to-be friendly as a

company. If they can become “companies of friends” first, they
can get “friends for companies”. The question is this: “Am I just
a company or a company of friends?
CHAPTER 2
Socialize
6
“I Am Lion, I Am Lion,
I Am Lion”
‘ Lion attacks became frequent in a small African

town. The news created panic and affected local tourism.
The local forest officials could not find the elusive animal.
Hence, the Mayor of the town sought help from experts in
foreign countries.
Officers from UK stepped in to help. The team spent many

days in the forest but they were not able to find a single
lion. They returned empty handed. Then officers from the
US arrived. They used all modern gadgets and combed the
forest. But even they could not find any evidence of lions.
Now, it was the turn of Indian police. Clad in khaki uni-

forms, they appeared with simple wooden sticks. Looking
at them, the African Mayor lost hope. But the Indian police
was quite confident. After all, they had a home grown
strategy.
The police went to the forest. They found a jackal. That’s
,
more than enough. They handcuffed it and lathicharged
the poor chap to make it “confess” that it was lion. After
custodial treatment, the police produced the jackal in front
of the Mayor. The jackal testified that it was lion and it was
behind the attacks.
The Message
By labeling social media as a marketing tool, consultants do to

social media what the Indian policemen did to the bear. People
use social platforms for socializing, and not to shop.
“Spend a lot of time talking to
Custora, a predictive analytics com-
customers face to face. You’d be
pany, studied over 250 e-commerce
amazed how many companies sites. They analysed four years of
don’t listen to their customers.”
data. Their aim was to find what
- Ross Perot contributions Facebook and Twitter
made in new customer acquisitions. They found that Facebook
contributed less than one quarter of 1 percent of new custom-
ers. And Twitter just one hundredth of 1 percent. (Box Item 1).
Social is not made for existing business functions - leave alone,

marketing. There is a business function that big businesses have
long forgotten to carry out. It is the function of conversing with
customers. Social is best suited for bringing conversation back to
business.
Let us take India’s retail scenario, where competition is getting

intense between the big and the small. Talking about retail in-
dustry, Mr Nadir Burjorji Godrej of Godrej Industries, made an
interesting observation.
He said that the biggest competition for India’s organized stores

comes from ‘kirana’ stores. Kirana stores are the mom and pop
stores run by neighborhood entrepreneurs. The Indian retail-
ers do not have to lose their sleep so much over the entry of
Walmarts of the world.
What makes the kirana stores so competitive? After all, they do

not have any bargaining power or clout with manufacturers. It is
true that they are not big but they thrive with the following busi-
ness strategies:
1) Credit: The kirana shops cater to the needs of local house-

holders they know well. They let their customers maintain
“accounts”. Customers make just-in-time purchases, every day.
But they can settle the bill once a week or month, depending on
when their bread winner gets paid.
2) Customization: The stores sell products in small quantities.

Customers don’t have to buy a full coconut. They can buy one
or two pieces of it, if that’s what all they need for that day’s
recipe. They shop edible oils and other grocery items in required
quantities and combinations.
3) Conversations: Kirana stores are places of witty and personal

conversations taking place between both parties. Shopping
becomes a socializing experience for shoppers. In contrast, large
format stores doe not have space for conversations.
But social media allows big retailers act like kirana stores. They
can engage customers before, during and after transactions in
conversations.
Conversations are not standalone functions. Brands can intro-

duce them to every aspect of business. Philips, for instance, has
embarked on what it calls “people research”. People research is
nothing but market research based on conversations. In market
research, brands ask consumers questions. In people research,
brands let consumers converse. Then they glean product or busi-
ness insights from listening to conversations.
Philips hosted a social platform and let women converse on their

kitchen dilemmas. It listened to their conversations, and de-
signed a new cooker itself. (Box Item 2). Proof that conversations
can give a firm a competitive edge.
Box Item 1:
Email Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff
Online
Source: Wired.com issue of July, 2013
In 2013, no company can expect to be taken seriously if it’s not

on Facebook or Twitter. An endless stream (no pun intended)
of advice from marketing consultants warns businesses that they
need to “get” social or risk becoming like companies a century
ago that didn’t think they needed telephones.
Despite the hype that inevitably clings to the newfangled,

however, it’s relatively antique tech that appears to be far more
important for selling stuff online. A new report from marketing
data outfit Custora found that over the past four years, online
retailers have quadrupled the rate of customers acquired through
email to nearly 7 percent.
Facebook over that same period barely registers as a way to

make a sale, and the tiny percentage of people who do con-
nect and buy over Facebook has stayed flat. Twitter, meanwhile,
doesn’t register at all. By far the most popular way to get cus-
tomers was “organic search,” according to the report, followed
by “cost per click” ads (in both cases, read: Google).
Custora came up with its figures by analyzing data from 72
million customers shopping on 86 different retailer sites. They
tracked where customers were clicking from (email, Twitter,
Google, etc.) and what and how much they bought, not just on
that visit but for the next two years.
Over those two years, Custora found that customers who came
to retailers from search were more than 50 percent more valu-
able than average. In other words, they were more likely to shop
more and spend more. Email customers were nearly 11 percent
more valuable than average. Facebook customers were just
about average. Twitter customers, meanwhile, were 23 percent
less valuable than average during the two years following that
first click. “I wouldn’t necessarily say Twitter is inherently a bad
way to do (online marketing), but we haven’t seen a lot of good
Twitter strategies right now,” says Aaron Goodman, Custora’s
lead data scientist. He says Twitter marketing campaigns right
now tend to rely on the chancy likelihood that someone will run
across a deal when they dip into their feed. Even if they do see
it, within seconds it disappears.
Email, on the other hand, has a certain unfair advantage in that

shoppers getting the emails have already given up their addresses
to a site, suggesting they already have some prior relationship
with that retailer. Still, despite the avalanche of spam we all get,
it’s easy to see how the staying power and greater potential for
personalization of a medium without a 140-character limit gives
email distinct advantages.
Custora’s findings don’t bode especially well for social media

business models, especially Twitter. Of course, ads on Facebook
and Twitter don’t have to lead to immediate clicks to have an im-
pact. They still have the potential to raise ambient awareness. Yet
Custora found that Google’s ads, by contrast, do lead not only to
clicks but to purchases—the holy grail of “conversion.”
To be fair, Google had a roughly 10-year head start to turn

search into sales. It’s hard to imagine that in a decade that social
media won’t be a more important channel for selling stuff. Al-
ready its “product cards” provide a very direct way for Twitter to
act as a storefront. Businesses probably shouldn’t abandon social
just yet. But if they had to pick, that old-timey mailing list may
trump tweets for a long time to come.
Box Item 2:
Menu Menu - Creating an online dialogue
Source: Philips Design’s website (Published on 10 January 2012)
While the use of social media in marketing is quite well-estab-

lished, it is less so in research. The recent Menu Menu project
within Philips Design was set up to explore social media as a re-
search tool, to gain a better understanding of people’s behavior.
Social media enabled the People Research team to take in-sight
generation and co-creation with consumers to a new level of en-
gagement and gain knowledge in areas strategic for the business.
The research team moved away from the more traditional meth-
ods of identifying needs and developing solutions. “We wanted
to gain an in-depth understanding of our target audience with
respect to food and cooking, and how they approach dilem-
mas and issues in the kitchen,” explains Jon Rodriguez, Senior
Research Consultant and Creative Lead for the Menu Menu
project. “Our target group were people who enjoyed cooking,
had children and also worked during the week.”
From passive to proactive
In order to glean a new level of information from participants,

the project involved them in a dialogue rather than just asking
them questions in the traditional style of research. Generative
techniques used the creativity of people to become aware of and
express their own experiences.
The project tested out three more proactive approaches: Moving

from questions to dialogue – having a conversation about cook-
ing; Moving from observations to provocations – participants
were set challenges and creative exercises to stimulate more
innovative ideas; Moving from the idea of individual users to
community – so that people would trigger each other.
The Philips Design People Research created a website to recruit
participants, and this was then became the main forum for keep-
ing them engaged and having fun with the project.
The initial focus was on Spain and Germany, where a small

number of participants were identified in each (30 in total).
The project ran for a specific period of just two weeks, during
which 10 days of challenges were set. When participants signed
up to be involved they were sent a box containing information
and materials relating to some of the challenges, as well as some
surprise envelopes. The challenges were all food related, with the
aim of gaining more information about context and rituals.
“Provoking a dialogue helped inspire innovative ideas that we

could explore with the whole group, as well as giving us deeper
insights,” explains Rodriguez. “For example, we asked people
to invite their best friend for dinner who would then interview
them. (We provided the questions on a place mat.) We also asked
participants to make a 360 degree video of their kitchen, and
asked which were their 5 favorite kitchen tools and their 5 for-
gotten tools. Fortunately people love to talk about food, and fun
was also a key element, so it had wide appeal and the participants
actually enjoyed it.”
At the end, the results and priorities were presented back to the
communities for further feedback and dialogue. The participants
were very engaged in the project and the methodology elicited
a lot more ‘real’ information that was set in daily context. This
participatory approach, leveraging online platforms, made it
much easier to observe the latent needs that people had, that
may not have been expressed in a more traditional research
exercise.
“This project was very authentic, we were completely immersed
in it and everything was shared between participants as well,”
says Rodriguez.
Overall there is benefit to be had in mixing different methods to

complement each other. For example, anecdotes expressed in a
generative session can elucidate the understanding of a field visit
observation. Participatory methods, such as Menu Menu, are in-
valuable in understanding latent needs and co-creating solutions
with consumers.
7
“Her First Date”
‘ It was her first date. The girl was curious to know

about her crush.
But she realized that the guy was a bragger. He was bab-
bling on and on about his hobbies, pet peeves, his driving
techniques. He even explained the standards he used to
select his barber.
,
The girl already showed the patience of a saint. She
thought she could not bear it any more. Just then, the guy
came up for air. “Enough about me,” he paused, before
adding: “Now tell me, what do you think of me?
The Message:
In social channels, brands blow their own trumpet non-stop.

The talk would usually be on product features and work culture.
Or their vision for entire humanity.
“The key thing in social media is But brands can go beyond “nar-
not how you relate to your audience,
cissism/advertising complex”
it’s how those people who make up - to borrow the words of Scott
Anthony of Innosight. They can
the audiences relate to their connec-
tions,” instead talk about their custom-
— Walter Pike, The Digital Academy ers or better let customers talk.
My company (Younomy) did a study on social campaigns of

some of India’s top retail brands. (Excerpts at Box Item) We found
that brands improved their engagement rate when they encour-
age customers express their identities.
Customers are individuals. They have many identities about

themselves. Their core identity could be I am ‘a single working
mother’ or ‘a health-conscious parent’, ‘a loving brother’...
They jump at the chance to express who they are. They look
for networking with people who have similar identities. Smart
brands like Barista, Colgate, Globus, and Trent seem to under-
stand this.
They make use of ‘identity celebrations’ - special occasions like

Father’s Day. Brands launch campaigns to get their customers
live out their identities. In the process, brands build their own
identities.
The study found two things:
1) Customers are their own brands. Like corporate brands, they

have their own brand identities.
Her First Date 38
2) In social media, brands can build their identities by letting

customers build theirs.
Box Item:
Customer Identities and Corporate Campaigns in Social
Media
Clue Train Manifesto is a set of 95 famous theses related to mar-

keting. The first thesis states: “Markets are conversations”.
Though published in 1999, the Manifesto is relevant to the social

era. After all, social media is a new market made of nothing but
conversations.
The conversations of people are passionate. At a deeper level,

people want to express ‘who they are’. We call them ‘identities’.
They may belong to personal, familial, professional or social
categories.
If they can nurture their identities by taking part in conversa-

tions, they take part. This is good news for brands looking for
boosting engagement rate.
Brands have tasted success. Occasions like Teachers Day, Raksha

Bandhan and Father’s Day are never to miss opportunities for
them to promote customer engagement.
There is another business benefit. Social conversations also

result in sales conversions. A customer liking, commenting, shar-
ing branded-content on Father’s Day, is more likely to buy – or
influence his/her friends to buy – gifts.
Following are examples of how select Indian retail created con-

versations around peoples’’s identities.
Personal Identities
As it is often observed by contemporary marketers, people are
their own celebrities. They do have a view, a distinct voice, and a
personality. So why not offer customers the status of a celebrity?
Many brands generate content by encouraging audience to share
their profiles and photos.
Cafe Coffee Day
Cafe Coffee Day promotes profiles of its customers through

its Coffee Mate of the Month feature. Its Facebook page and
internal magazine carry profiles of coffee mates. The magazine
is circulated in its 1000-odd branches.
Colgate
Colgate encourages its Facebook fans to share their pictures

of “dazzling white smile”. Its Facebook app lets customers to
upload and share across their smiles. One of its recent social
campaigns gave a chance for customers to get featured in a lead-
ing magazine with Hindi actor, Sonam Kapoor.
Globus
Globus, an upmarket fashion and retail chain, promotes Face-

book engagement in a novel way. It puts a standing banner at all
its stores. It asks customers to get a snap of themselves in front
of it and upload them at its official Facebook page.
The most ‘liked’ photos stand a chance to win Globus gift

vouchers worth Rs.5000. This incentivises a participant to get
her Facebook friends to visit Globus’s Facebook page and like
her photo.
Her First Date 40
Familial Identities
Familial identities relate to the roles people play in families.
When tapped, they help brands elicit an overwhelming response
to their campaigns. Samples:
Tanishq
Tanishq, a jewelry brand, conducted a social media contest on

the eve of Raksha Bandhan. It is a Hindu festival that celebrates
the love between brothers and sisters. Targeting its female fans,
Tanishq asked them to “remind your brother how much you
love him”.
The fans shared their funny little moments with their brothers
in Twitter. They should embed the #TweetaRakhi tag or tweet
to @TanishqJewelry. Tanishq awarded lucky winners with gift
vouchers.
Trent
On the occasion of Father’s Day, Trent, a retail store chain, gave

its customers a chance to gift their fathers a special magnet. The
magnet would be a personalized one with dedication to fathers.
Trent asked its customers to rewrite their Twitter bio starting

with #MyDadIs and tweet to @WestsideStores. Trent printed
the tweet messages of select customers on magnets and deliv-
ered them to the parents.
BigBazaar
BigBazaar attracted active participation for its #SiblingsConnect

contest during Raksha Bandhan. It asked its fans to create beauti-
ful rakhis, ‘ties or knots of protection’. It promoted tweets of
fans who recalled fond sibling-memories.
Big Bazaar also had run a social media campaign on Parents’

Day, asking its fans to express their feelings for their parents.
Cafe CoffeeDay
One of Cafe Coffee Day’s campaigns sought its fans to come up

with the funniest #FriendshipWeek meme for their friends. The
coffee retailer featured creative and funny memes in its exclusive
web section http://www.cafecoffeeday.com/friendshipday
Titan
Titan came up with “Celebrate Fathers Day with Titan” cam-

paign. It presented best Father’s Day gift ideas for its customers.
Titan asked its customers to like Titan’s official Facebook page
to receive Father’s Day ideas.
Social Identities
Social identities are what people use to engage with the society at
different levels. They could stem from affiliations with a caste,
class, religion, political party or interests.
BigBazaar
Big Bazaar sought entries - creative ideas, views, greeting mes-

sages or photos - from its fans on Ganesh Chaturthi, a popular
Hindu festival.
Its #GanpatiBappaMorya contest awarded winners with a gift

voucher worth Rs. 2000, redeemable at the nearest Big Bazaar
outlet.
BigBazaar crowdsourced pictures on the occasion of Pooka-

lam. It is a festival of Kerala. People make pookalam or flower
arrangement during the harvest festival of Onam. BigBazaar
Her First Date 42
published best Pookalam pictures sent by Keralite fans in its

Facebook page.
Barista
Barista encouraged its customers to make their teachers feel

special on #HappyTeachersDay. Customers have to invite their
favorite teachers for a coffee at Barista.
Conclusion: While creating content, campaigns and com-

munities online, brands could begin with identifying and appeal-
ing to customer identities that are strategic to business. When
brands promote identities of customers, they generate more
participation. This in turn promotes corporate identities.
Red Bull, an energy drinks brand, presents an interesting case of

nurturing customer identity to build coporate identity. In its so-
cial channels Red Bull promotes content that show high energy
actions from a wide mix of sports. It could be from motorcycle
racing to hang gliding to bungee jumping.
Much of its content are crowd sourced from people. The crowd-
sourced photos and videos show people involved in their own
little acts of adrenaline rush.
Red Bull’s social platforms help participants build a brand for

themselves as adventurers. Its Facebook page has a whooping
44 million plus followers. Fans consume and contribute content,
and connect with other adventurers.
8
“Where Do I Find Tigers?”
‘ A wildlife photographer wanted to take close-up

shots of tigers. He headed to a forest. At the foothills, he
met a tribal man. The photographer thought he might get
some useful information from him.
“Tigers? Not a big deal, sir. You can spot a lot of them
in this forest,” the tribesman assured, “I saw a couple of
them yesterday, when I was collecting honey”.
The excited photographer grew impatient: “Wow! Where

did you find them? How will I go there?”
The man started giving directions this way: “Head south,

sir. Soon, you would find a group of monkeys. Turn left
and walk for some more time, until you find a few grazing
deer. Continue further, then you would encounter a lonely
bison. Don’t worry. You can hide yourself behind a rock or
,
tree. Once the bison leaves, climb up a slope. Continue till
you find a couple of bears playing with their cub. Then…”
The tribesman continued, even as he wondered why the

photographer is looking dejected now.
The Message:
The information that the photographer got was 24 hours old. It

was not going to help him. Sometimes, people in business take
decisions with obsolete data. The customer data they have may
belong to customers who do not exist anymore.
For instance, our airline industry continues to manufacture seats

that fit customers of 1950s. They do not design seats for today’s
customers. A Study (Box item 1) finds that the standard width of
seats in the economy class is 17 inches. It was perfect for passen-
gers of the 1950s. Over the years, the Body Mass Index of aver-
age people has increased, owing to food and lifestyle changes.
Today’s customers need an 18-inch “Making snap business deci-

seat width to fit in and catch some sions based on social data is,
sleep on a long-haul flight. Will in part, what it means to be a
Boeings of the world meet the social business,”
seating requirements of the today’s — Shel Holtz, Principal, Holtz
customers? Communication + Technology
There is another case in Indian retail. A multinational company

was stitching men’s wear for Indians with measurements of
Britons. There was a newspaper report (Box Item 2) on Marks &
Spencer, a UK based retailer of food and apparels. This retail
chain has been trailing behind other formal-wear brands in India.
The reason, among others, was the size of its fashion products.
According to the report, the company stitched clothes keeping
measurements of Britons in mind. Now it is “reworking the size
by introducing smaller apparel sizes suitable for Indians”.
How do companies get obsolete data? Maybe, the limitations

of traditional market research channels are to blame. But social
media is real time. The “likes”, “comment”, “updates” can show
what people are thinking now. It can tell what are the current
needs of customers.
Brands can make use of social analytics tools. Dell has done a
great job in this regard. It developed a social analytics tool on its
own. Christened, Social Net Advocacy (SNA), the software tells
Dell who are raving and ranting its products now and why. Dell
acts on the social data and converts rants into raves.
That’s the power of social media listening. When you want to

meet existing customers, as they are, turn to the right source.
Box Item 1:
Wider airline seat can boost sleep: study
Relaxnews
Oct 29, 2013
For long-haul travellers who squeeze themselves into economy

seats, a new study finds that a tiny bit more wiggle room could
make a substantial impact as to whether or not they’ll get quality
sleep on board.
Aircraft manufacturer Airbus announced Monday that even as

much as an extra inch of room can boost the quality of your on-
flight slumber, and the organization is calling on airlines to set a
minimum seat width of 18 inch (45.72 cm) for long-haul travel.
Research conducted by the London Sleep Centre that measured

brainwaves and eye, abdominal, chest, hip and leg movement
of 1,500 airline passengers found that a seat width of 18 inches
improved their sleep quality by 53% when compared to a 17-
inch-wide seat, which was the standard set back in the 1950s
(when waistlines were smaller and long-distance travellers fewer).
The study involved participants recruited at four international
airports -- Singapore, Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, and Amster-
dam.
“The difference was significant,” said researcher Dr. Irshaad

Ebrahim in a press release. “All passengers experienced a deeper,
less disturbed and longer night’s sleep in the 18-inch seat.”
“The 17-inch seat is what we call the crusher seat,” said Kevin
Keniston, Airbus’s head of passenger comfort. “It is the seat
that prevents you from movement; it prevents you from getting
comfortable during the flight.”
“Our research reveals that not only does seat width make a dra-
matic impact on passenger comfort, there is a growing cohort of
discerning economy passengers who are not prepared to accept
17-inch seats and will instead choose airlines that offer better
seat comfort,” he added.
“We are encouraging all airlines to look at our research and con-
sider increasing the size of their seats because one inch makes all
the difference.”
Box Item 2: M&S aims to double store count by 2016

Source: The Hindu Business Line news report
Mumbai, Nov. 11, 2013:
International food and fashion retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S)

has put India on high-priority list, pushing back China. The UK
retailer plans to more than double its store count from 36 at
present to 80 by 2016, making it the largest number outside the
UK.
The company’s aggressive plans for India come at a time when

several other local retailers and brands are reeling under the
slowdown pressure, besides growing competition from the on-
line retailers.
M&S, which operates in India through a joint venture partner-

ship with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail, also plans to
venture into smaller towns such as Surat and Kanpur, without
compromising much on quality or pricing. It will also have a
uniform catalogue of styling across the country.
Marc Bolland, Chief Executive, M&S, said, “We changed our

priority market to India from China two and a half years ago.
In the last eight years, we have achieved exactly what we had
planned in terms of store count and sales. Last year, we had 28
per cent growth in revenue and double-digit same-store sales
growth.”
Bolland was addressing the media at the official opening of its

new high-street store in uptown Bandra. He, however, refused
to divulge any other financial details on investments and sales
forecast.
The British retailer, which entered as a formal-wear brand, is

now focusing on the youth by experimenting with colour. The
company is reworking the size by introducing smaller apparel
sizes suitable for Indians. It entered the Indian market much
before Spanish fashion brand Zara but is still trailing behind.
However, given the size of stores the company is planning,

it will be tad difficult for the company to make profits, retail
experts said. M&S plans to open larger stores of 50,000 sq ft.
Globally, M&S derives about 60 per cent of its revenue from
food retail, said India chief Venu Nair. He also said that at the
moment the company has no plans to bring that segment to
India.
Meanwhile, retail consultant Technopak Advisory in a report

said that international brands are now changing sourcing strat-
egies and are opting for local procurement channels to gain
competitive advantage, in order to be the preferred brand among
Indian consumers.
9
“I Want Happiness”
‘ Three friends met a guru to seek his blessings.

The first one was a sanyasin (the one who renounced the
world). He asked the guru: “I want happiness”. Guru
replied: “Forget about ‘I’ and ‘want’, what is left is ‘happi-
ness’!”
The second person was a grahastha (a householder). He

too had the same question. Guru advised, “Remove ‘want’
and ‘happiness’ from your question, focus on I.
Do your duty as per your roles: ‘I as husband’, ‘I as father’,
‘I as son’, and so on. You will be fine.”
,
The third one was a businessman. To him the Guru sug-
gested, “Do away with ‘I’ and ‘happiness’. Just create
“wants” for householders, you will earn more and be
happy.”
The Message:
The job of a business is about finding - and or creating -

“wants” of people. A business first identifies what people want.
Then look at their purchasing power. And design a product
or service, making right
“Smart organizations will use (social)
tradeoffs in terms of
technologies to empower customers to self- functionalities, quality
segment.” and cost - a widely used
— Michael Schrage, Author, approach to segmenting
Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?
market and creating value.
But Harvard’s Prof Clayton Christensen offered a new frame-

work for market segmentation. He called it “jobs-to-do” frame-
work. (Box Item 1). The premise is that people have jobs to
do. Businesses can segment market going by the types of jobs
people want to do.
What is left unsaid is that people create to-do lists to fulfill their
roles: as a father, engineer, social activist. This means there is yet
another way to segment a market. It could be based on roles.
Brands use information/variables related to demography (age

groups or purchasing power). They think of behaviour (purchas-
ing pattern, for instance) of customers. They also use informa-
tion on interests-activities-opinions of customers (“psycho-
graphic segmentation”). (Box Item 2).
Now social media introduces yet another dimension to customer

data. Brands can know the roles and identities of customers by
what they like, share, and comment. This is psychography with a
social touch - call it ‘likeography’
Grant Thornton consulting firm asked over 100 senior US ex-

ecutives what they use social media for. The firm found that one
of the three most important use of social media was customer
profiling or identification.
I Want Happiness 50
It is only half the story. To quote Michael Schrage of MIT,

“Smart organizations will use these (social) technologies not
just to better identify and ‘segment’ their customers but also to
empower customers to ‘self-segment’.
(Excerpts of his interview to Younomy at Box Item 3)
Schrage is the author of the bestseller, Who Do You Want Your

Customers to Become? He thinks that social networks like Facebook
give visibility to different identities of people. “This (visibility)
will make marketing and targeted customization/innovation
more agile and cost effective. Anything that transforms the eco-
nomics of customer identification, selection and segmentation
should be good for a business - and industry,” he says.
In social media, one of the first activities that customers do is to

create their profiles. They provide information on their current
jobs, their future career aspirations. They enrich their profiles
with their ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ in the context of movies, books,
songs, political views, causes. They make their profiles compre-
hensive in order to increase their social reach.
As Schrage said social participants are already telling you who

they are. They are ‘self-segmenting’. It is upto brands to listen
to what customers say who they are. Infer what their wants are.
Make more business and be happy.
Box Item 1: Jobs-to-be-Done

Source: www.christenseninstitute.org
The jobs-to-be-done framework emerged as a helpful way to

look at customer needs and motivations in business settings.
Conventional marketing techniques teach us to frame customers
by attributes – using age ranges, race, marital status, and other
categories that ultimately create products and entire categories
too focused on what companies want to sell, rather than on what
customers actually need.
The jobs-to-be-done framework is a tool for evaluating the

circumstances that arise in customers’ lives. Customers rarely
make buying decisions around what the “average” customer in
their category may do — but they often buy things because they
find themselves with a problem that they need to solve. With an
understanding of the “job” for which customers find themselves
“hiring” a product or service, companies can more accurately
develop and market products well-tailored to what customers are
already trying to do.
In both education and health care, understanding the jobs that

students, patients, parents, administrators, practitioners, pay-
ors, and other decision-makers need to get done has shed great
light on improving the quality and accessibility of products and
services.
Box Item 2: Psychography

Source: Wikipedia
Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes,

interests, and lifestyles. Because this area of research focuses
on interests, attitudes, and opinions, psychographic factors are
also called IAO variables. Psychographic studies of individu-
als or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing,
demographics, opinion research, futuring, and social research
in general. They can be contrasted with demographic variables
(such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as usage rate
or loyalty), and organizational demographics variables (some-
times called firmographic variables), such as industry, number of
employees, and functional area.
Psychographics should not be confused with demographics,

for example, historical generations may be defined both by
demographics, such as the years in which a particular generation
I Want Happiness 52
is born or even the fertility rates of that generation’s parents,

but also by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality
formation, and cultural touchstones. For example, the traditional
approaches to defining the Baby Boom Generation or Genera-
tion X or Millennials have relied on both demographic variables
(classifying individuals based on birth years) and psychographic
variables (such as beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors).
Box Item 3:
“We are co-evolving with the new capabilities of social
media networks and devices”
Mr Michael Schrage, MIT
Michael Schrage is a Research Fellow, MIT Center for Digital

Business. He is a Visiting Fellow at Imperial College Department
of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
His book, ‘Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?’ has

turned the direction of innovation - from designing new prod-
ucts to designing new customers.
Michael has been a contributor to publications like Harvard

Business Review, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He
writes about innovation. His blog talks about innovation in en-
terprise social platforms.
Excerpts from an interview he gave to Younomy:
If the business impact of machines is industrialization, what do you think

is that of social media?
The biggest - and most important - impact of so-called ‘social

media’ will be the ability of talented people to quickly ‘organize
to improvise’ to solve problems, explore opportunities and/
or create value. Social media encourage and facilitate ‘emergent
behaviors’ - that is, unanticipated, unplanned and undesigned

responses to unexpected or unusual circumstances. In a business
world of standardization and routinization, these behaviors are
very useful; in a business world of volatility, competitive innova-
tion and chaotic customers, they become essential.
You observe that one of the potential uses of social media lies in self-
organization. How can business benefit from letting its people and business
divisions use this potential?
I do observe that. But the question leaves out an important

word: power. Organizations - especially more traditional organi-
zations based on hierarchies and ranks - have to understand that
‘exchanging information’ is not the same as ‘empowerment.’
Does an organization encourage people from different depart-

ments to coordinate to respond to a customer request for a new
feature or function? Are internal ‘experts’ allowed to share in-
formation to run an experiment without waiting a week for top
management approval? Are there ‘budgets’ or ‘permissions’ that
make it easy for individuals and small teams to take the initiative
to explore a new market opportunity? My observation and expe-
rience suggests that most organizations have only begun to ask
these questions. Traditional leaders seem very ambivalent about
using social media to better empower their people rather than
simply give them greater ‘situational awareness.’
For people who still believe that ‘information is power,’ they’re

being silly. If you can’t take advantage of or actually do mean-
ingful things with that information, you don’t have power - you
have frustration.
People now can do “self organizations” and do their jobs. They can get the
support of their social connections. However, what makes people (or even
organizations) successful in creating and using self organizations?
I Want Happiness 54
I think the question is even simpler than that: Can our willing-
ness and ability to organize in this way really solve a problem or
address an opportunity? That is a judgement about capability
and risk. To make a vulgar analogy, we know how to get from
one part of the world to another. Does it make more sense to
get on a plane? Or make a phone call? Or do a videoconference?
We need to learn what we need to learn about the economic
value of self-organization. This will be a real challenge and some
individuals and teams will develop ‘best practices’ worthy of
emulation and imitation. Let’s not forget that we are co-evolving
with the new capabilities of social media networks and devices.
Do you think helping customers feel and become co-creators an ultimate

milestone or goal for organizations that are evolving social business strate-
gies?
Yes..yes…yes! And I wrote books on this very issue over 20

years ago. The technologies have more than caught up. But the
attitudes of designing ‘with’ customers instead of ‘for’ them
is sill a cultural and organizational obstacle. That said, it is no
longer an ‘economic’ or ‘technical’ obstacle.
Social networks like Facebook give visibility to multiple identities or

interests people have. Do you think this visibility can help an organization
choose the types of identities customers have and provide them platforms to
nurture certain identities that are strategic to its business?
This is an excellent question. My view is that smart organiza-

tions will use these technologies not just to better identify and
‘segment’ their customers but also to empower customers to
‘self-segment’. This will make marketing and targeted customi-
zation/innovation more agile and cost effective. Anything that
transforms the economics of customer identification, selection
and segmentation should be good for a business - and industry.
10
“Facebook, Twitter And
A Pair Of Shoes”
‘ Two handsome American boys find a beautiful

Indian girl on Facebook. They both tried their chance at
winning her. The first one chats with the girl every day. He
sends her flowers and gifts. Then one day, he flies down to
India and meets the girl. Kneeling down with a rose in his
hand, he proposes to her.
The second one was smart. He too chats with the girl every
day. But, knowing how marriages work in India, he social-
izes also with the girl’s parents. He calls them often; sends
them birthday gifts and shows them photos and videos of
US life.
Then one day he flies down to India and meets the elders.
,
Touching their feet to show his respect, he asks them to
marry their daughter to him.
Haven’t you already guessed who had the last laugh? Of

course, it was the second guy. Because this guy identified
the real ‘influencers’, and did ‘influencer marketing’.
The Message
One of the powerful applications of social media is analytics. It

can help us identify influencers and connectors. No other tech-
nology can give us this visibility to how word-of-mouth works.
But wait, what happens when influencers are not users of social
media? A report from a business daily on how a truck company
engaged with its influencers in real world (Box Item).
“My view of social media is
The company in news was Ashok
that it is a set of tools, not a
Leyland, a leading automobile
manufacturer in India. It was about religion.”
- Bill Keller
to launch a new truck. It knows that
drivers are one of the key influ-
encer groups. Hence, the Managing Director of the company,
Mr Vinod Dasari, took the new model to a quarry and had the
drivers test drive it. What did the drivers say? Here’s a passage
from the report:
“When Dasari asked the truck driver what he liked the most
about the vehicle, he was expecting him to gush over the “beauty
of the cab”. But the driver said emphatically: “A 6-CD changer
is nice but all I want is a USB port to listen to Tamil music.
Often, the CD does not work with the dust. A DVD player is
a distraction while I drive. And no need for a radio – in a mine,
there is no radio signal.” He also said a “large luminous” light
on top was useful to read a newspaper or magazine as he waited
inside the dark quarry.”
Ashok Leyland sourced ideas not by mining social conversa-

tions. It went to mines where drivers work and engaged them in
conversations.
When our influencers are not online, it is time we wore shoes
and stepped out for real social engagement. Shoes too can be
social tools.
Box Item:
Slowdown’s not a fire to look for the exit: Ashok Leyland
MD
Source: The Hindu BusinessLine newspaper
Chennai, June 24, 2013:
While test driving the N-truck, a code name for its yet-to-be-
launched medium and heavy commercial vehicle, at a quarry in
Keerapakkam, Tamil Nadu, Ashok Leyland’s Managing Director,
Vinod Dasari, learnt a simple truth. One may pack the vehicle
with fancy gizmos, but the user may not want any of the “un-
necessary frills”.
When Dasari asked the truck driver what he liked the most
about the vehicle, he was expecting him to gush over the “beauty
of the cab”. But the driver said emphatically: “A 6-CD changer
is nice but all I want is a USB port to listen to Tamil music.
Often, the CD does not work with the dust. A DVD player is
a distraction while I drive. And no need for a radio – in a mine,
there is no radio signal.” He also said the “large luminous” light
on top was useful to read a newspaper or magazine as he waited
inside the dark quarry.
Ashok Leyland is eager to pack in a lot of such learning, as it

gears up for the launch of its N-truck, a 16-to-49 tonnes ready-
to-go vehicle with a factory-built cab, made at its factory in
Pantnagar, Uttarakhand. This will come later this year, after the
Boss, an 8-15 tonnes intermediate commercial vehicle scheduled
for launch next month.
Made in Pantnagar as well, the Boss (which Ashok Leyland sells

in Europe as Avia) vehicles have clocked five lakh km of test-
ing (including running on two left tyres as vehicles sometimes
swerve off roads with a narrow tarmac).
In the Boss (“our vehicles’ names are following a pattern, Dost,
Partner, Boss..” he says), Ashok Leyland has installed an au-
tomated manual transmission, developed in association with

Wabco. Unlike auto transmission, in this, a sensor on top of
the manual transmission box chooses the gear based on engine
RPM, pedal position and load condition. Dasari talks excitedly
about the lady owner of a large fleet who drove this vehicle and
was totally taken in by it. Leyland, he says, bagged an order for
150 trucks with this system.
Rust-proof warranty
The Boss also promises a three-year rust-proof warranty, bum-

per to bumper. The company will pay up if the vehicle rusts,
insists Dasari.
The company hopes the Boss will plug in the gaps in the 7.5-15
tonnes segment. Historically, Ashok Leyland has had only a 2-3
per cent market share in this segment. With the upgrades to its
Ecomet vehicle, it gained share to 11 per cent last year, albeit on
a small base.
At the lower range, Ashok Leyland has the Dost (with a payload
of 1.25 tonnes), in a joint venture with Nissan, which gave a
respectable boost to Leyland’s volumes last year.
The company is also launching its Neptune engine this year

which offers higher horse power and will be available on multi-
axle vehicles. Its LCV joint venture with Nissan will launch the
Partner and Stile, apart from Dost variants.
The slowdown has seen Ashok Leyland’s 5,000-odd executives

taking a five per cent pay cut this year. The company has also
scaled back investments in capacity addition. But no cutting back
on investments on new products, says Dasari.
“We can either cry about the market or offer the right things to
the customer so that he chooses you and rewards you. Last year,
the total industry volume fell 25 per cent; we gained a market

share of 3 per cent. We can’t do anything about industry volume
falling,” he explains.
The idea is to be “future-ready”, reiterates Dasari. “This is not

a fire where we are running towards the exit. In times like these,
the customer is watching if you are really serious. There will
be no slowdown on tooling and employee development pro-
grammes that enhance the quality of the company.”
CHAPTER 3
Democratize
11
“Ribhu And His Disciple”
‘ You and I are one and the same” tells an Enlight-

ened Master, Ribhu to his disciple, Nidhaga. (He was
talking about a Hindu philosophy called Advaitha or non-
duality.) But Nidhaga finds it difficult to understand. The
Guru knows it.
Out of compassion, one day the Guru goes to Nidhaga’s

village. He finds his disciple watching a royal procession.
The guru is in the guise of a rustic. He asks Nidhaga:
“Young man, what are you looking at?” The disciple re-
plies: “Can’t you see? I am watching the king’s visit. Look,
the king is there…on the elephant!”
And thus starts the conversation between the two: “I can

see the two, but who is the king and who is the elephant?”
“What a stupid question! The one who is above is the king

and the one that is below is the elephant?”
“Oh I see. But what is above and what is below?”

“Aren’t you kidding? Now bend down (the master obliges

and the disciple gets on top of him)…now I am above and
you are below? Got it?”
“That’s a great way of teaching. I got it. Now I know the

difference between king and elephant. I know the differ-
ence between above and below. But can you please teach
me what is “you” and what is “I”?”
The question jolted Nidhaga - for it is not an ordinary

question, from the spiritual perspective. He prostates in
,
front of the rustic, saying: “Who else can ask this question
to me, other than my guru? Teach me the ultimate truth of
non-duality.”
The teachings are known as Ribhu Gita (Box Item -1).

The Message:
“The role of producers and
Forget ‘non-duality’ in the context
consumers would begin to blur of philosophy. But the business
and merge,” version of it is now emerging. The
— Alvin Toffler
line between the producer and
consumer is getting blurred, thanks to a large extent to social
technologies.
In 1980, futurologist Alvin Toffler predicted what is happening

today. He coined the word, ‘prosumer’. He envisaged the coming
together of “producer” and “customer” to create value together
(Box Item – 2).
A few quick examples here:
A “customer” designs a T-shirt with her computer. She uploads

it to Threadless.com, a “producer” of t-shirts. Threadless puts
the design on its ‘social’ website and asks visitors to rate. If the
design elicits good response, Threadless produces it on a mass
scale. The “customer” who made the design buys it. She also
receives a share from the sales of her design. Here, who is the
“producer”, and who is the “customer”?
A “customer” draws a car model. He submits it to Local Motors,

a “producer” of automobiles. The engineers at Local Motors
have a look at the design. They enhance its feasibility and manu-
facture a custom car. Here, who is the “producer” and who is
the “customer”?
At the restaurant of a Disney cruise, a “customer” doodles on

a plain paper. She was waiting for the food. A crew member
collects the paper. And even as the food comes to table, a short
animated film appears on the restaurant screen. What a surprise,
the film features an animation character made from the sketches
of the customer! Here, who is the “producer” and who is the
“customer”?
Today, the customer has the same information and computing

power the producer has. The enterprise and engineering applica-
tions have gone social. They can now involve customers in prod-
uct development. Like Threadless, Local Motors and Disney, you
can be a prosumer. Or, to borrow the language of spirituality, a
transcendental manufacturer.
Box Item -1: Ribhu Gita
The Ribhu Gita is an acclaimed advaita, monist and/or nondual

song at the heart of this Purana. The Ribhu Gita forms the sixth
part of Siva Rahasya Purana. It details in about two thousand
verses the dialogue on the Self and Brahman between Sage
Ribhu and Sage Nidagha on the slopes of the Mount Kedara in
the Himalayas.
Box Item -2: Prosumer

Source: Wikipedia
Prosumer is a portmanteau originally formed by contracting pro-

ducer with the word consumer. In a commercial environment,
it describes a market segment between professional and con-
sumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a “cross”
between consumer grade and professional grade.
12
“A Conference Of Scientists With
God As Chief Guest”
‘ Once, scientists from different disciplines orga-

nized a global conference. They invited God to be the chief
guest. God gladly accepted the invite.
Scientists presented to God the advances they made in their

fields. The biologist said, “In fact, we can create a new life
itself.” A physicist said, “We can create a new sun itself.” A
computer scientist said, “My robo can think better than a
man.” Thus, the presentations went on for the whole day.
At the end of the conference, many scientists had a genu-

ine question: “Okay, now what is the role of God? Is
there something that He can do that we cannot do?” God
,
laughed out loud. He gently challenged: “Can you create
a strand of hair?” One scientist raised his hand. “Give me
five minutes”…thus saying he bent down to take a fistful
of sand. God swiftly caught his hand, “No, without using
my product!
A Conference Of Scientists With God As Chief Guest 68
The Message:
All creations are co-creations. The creation of an economic val-

ue is no exception. Business has always benefited from outside
inputs. They check whether customers like a product idea before
they produce. Post launch, they seek feedback from users.
But social media enables an organization to collaborate with

customers throughout a product development life cycle.
Today, brands go overboard about the quantity of following

they have in social channels. More following is a great news. But
it is of no use if brands do not know how to make use of the
creativity of followers for innovation or marketing.
‘Social Funnel’ presents a new conversion road map. It supposes

that a brand can get four types of participation from its com-
munity for its social media activity such as an idea contest or a
developer challenge.
The Funnel gives four labels for contributors: followers, evange-

lists, disciples, and creators.
“Engagement marketing is premised
upon: transparency - interactivity - im- Followers are curious to
mediacy - facilitation - engagement - co-know what a brand is up to.
They would remain sub-
creation - collaboration - experience and
scribed to a brand’s chan-
trust, these words define the migration
nels of communication:
from mass media to social media,” newsletters, feeds, social
- Alan Moore, Co-Author,
pages.
Communities Dominate Brands
Evangelists are more than followers. They like what a brand

does. Hence, they promote it. Evangelists amplify a brand’s
reach by sharing it’s content. They create a positive word of
mouth.
Disciples are converts. They would spend what it takes to com-

plete a brand task. They would submit ideas for idea contests.
Take time for surveys or polls. They review prototypes. Disciples
add value.
Creators do what brands do. They configure, customize or

co-create products. They answer queries of newbie users in fo-
rums - offering customer support, which is doing a brand’s job.
Creators create value.
These labels are of course generic. And no member remains

with one category forever. A follower of a brand can become a
creator or the other way round.
Conversion gets a new meaning in social business. It is different

from the conversion of a potential customer into customer. The
key challenge for social brands is to convert followers as evange-
lists. Evangelists into disciples; and disciples into creators.
It may sound simple. But it is about making content and prod-
ucts engaging.
13
“Do You Know Who
My Son Is?”
‘ Three Catholic women and an older Jewish lady

were having coffee. The first Catholic woman tells her
friends “My son is a priest. When he walks into a room,
everyone calls him ‘Father’.”
The second woman chirps, “My son is a bishop. Whenever

he walks into a room, people call him ‘Your Grace’.”
The third woman says, “My son is a cardinal. Whenever he

walks into a room, he’s called ‘Your Eminence’.”
As the old Jewish lady sips her coffee in silence, the first
,
three give her this subtle “Well...?” look, so she says: “My
son is 6’2”; he has broad, square shoulders, lean hips and
is muscular; he’s terribly handsome, has beautiful hair,
dresses well and always smells wonderful. Whenever he
walks into a room, women say ‘Oh, my God...’.”
The Message:
The ultimate recognition one can get is that of a creator.
In a social community, not all fans/followers are made equal.

Brands seek participation of its fans. They crowdsource ideas.
“All of us need to understand the On average only one
importance of branding. We are CEOs percent of a community
of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in are creators. They are “one
business today, our most important job percenters”. Over 90% of
the members remain pas-
is to be a head marketer for the brand
sive. And the rest of them
called You.” amplify a brand’s reach.
- Tom Peters
Knowing who makes what contributions is important for com-

munity building. Brands should know who are creators and rec-
ognize them so that it motivates others to become one. Brands
should give their members different types of bragging rights. In
social media, the practice is to offer participants ‘badges’.
Social badges are powerful motivators for people to contribute.

Because badges give members more visibility in the community.
The contributing members, thus, can become popular. They can
build their own following within the community.
One best example of a brand using ‘social badges’ for customer

engagement is Huffington Post. This online news portal offers
different social ‘badges’ such as Networker, Superuser, Modera-
tor, and Politics Pundit. Huffington Post awards the badges -
nay it lets readers to award the badges - to contributors based on
the types of their contributions. (Box Item).
The badges help new readers know influential writers, and fol-
low them. Badges give visibility to contributors and help them
build their own following.
There are no one who does not like social recognition. Those
who don’t are already in caves, renouncing the world. Brands
that want to build social communities could have a social badge
plan. When they do a good job of recognising members, they
build a community of community builders.
Box Item:
Introducing HuffPost Badges: Taking Our Community to
the Next Level
Source: Huffington Post
Blog by Arianna Huffington; posted on 29th April, 2010
From the beginning, HuffPost has been blessed with a very

passionate and engaged community. And, over the years, we’ve
tried to deepen the ways you can engage with the site and with
each other. It’s why we launched HuffPost Social News last
summer -- so you can easily connect with your friends from
Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Google Buzz, sharing stories and
having conversations about the ideas, issues, and buzz-worthy
items you care about.
Today we are taking that to the next level, with a redesign of our
comment section and the introduction of HuffPost Badges -- a
fun new way of recognizing and empowering our community.
To start with, we are recognizing our top users in three key areas
of activity on HuffPost: connecting with others, engaging with
our content, and moderating comments.
If you’ve attracted lots of fans and followers, you receive a

“Networker” badge. If you share a lot of stories via Facebook
and Twitter, and have been busy commenting on HuffPost, you
receive a “Superuser” badge.
And if you’ve flagged a number of inappropriate comments that

we ended up deleting, you receive a “Moderator” badge. (For
more details on each of these, and on how to earn one of these

badges, see our HuffPost Badges FAQ.)
This last badge is part of something we’ve prioritized from day

one. We’ve always wanted HuffPost to be home to conversations
in which people connect, discuss, share ideas, and have lively
debates about the issues -- while remaining civil. To this end,
we’ve used a combination of human moderation, tech tools, and
the input of our community members to flag inappropriate and
objectionable comments.
The Moderator badge allows you to more actively participate in

this process. If you are a Level 1 Moderator (earned by flag-
ging at least 20 comments that we deleted, with a high ratio of
good flags to mistaken ones), your flags now carry five times the
weight of a standard flag. Level 2 Moderators (those who have
flagged 100 comments that we deleted) are trusted to delete
comments directly. We’ve seen how engaged you are in making
sure the conversations on HuffPost remain interesting and pro-
ductive, and are excited to have you become even more involved
in helping maintain a non-toxic atmosphere.
We’re also excited about a new feature that allows HuffPost

commenters who are on Twitter to easily attract more followers.
A reader just has to click on the Twitter icon under your user-
name and they instantly are added to your followers.
And this is just the beginning. We have plans to add more badges
and more features that will make being a part of the HuffPost
community even more dynamic and rewarding.
Of course, if you don’t want to participate in HuffPost Badges,

you can easily opt-out by sending an email to badges@huffing-
tonpost.com. Be sure to send your email from the email address
you used to register your HuffPost account, and include your
username.
So far, people seem to like the new design. Yesterday, when we

quietly rolled it out, we received the most comments we’ve ever
gotten in a single day -- over 100,000. Our community members
are now leaving over 2.3 million comments a month.
As always, we want to hear your feedback. Let us know what you

think -- either in the comment section or by emailing badges@
huffingtonpost.com. And be sure to keep adding friends and
fans, posting comments, sharing stories, and flagging inappropri-
ate comments -- so you can earn a badge or level up the ones
you already have.
(Note: Since the launch of the Badges programme, the Huffington Post
has been updating its Badges policy. What you read here gives you only the
initial thoughts behind the badges program. Refer their site to know how
badges work now.)
14
“The X Newspaper”
‘ Many centuries ago, a printer started a newspaper.

He called it “The X Newspaper”. It employed a bunch of
people, called journalists. It also employed another set of
people, called distributors. The journalists wrote news. The
printer put the news on paper, and with the help of distrib-
utors, offered people something to read.
After many decades, a digital technologist took over The X

Newspaper. He still employed journalists for writing but he
fired distributors. He put the content on Internet for people
to read using their computers.
After a few years, a lady became the CEO of The X News-

paper. She employed no journalists. She let people to write
their own news/views and comment on the ones published
by others. Her only job is to distribute what people wrote.
(Doesn’t sound like Huffington Post?)
And then, a college kid took over The X Newspaper. He

transformed the epaper from a ‘news’ to a ‘networking’
platform. That means, he let people not only write their
The X Newspaper 76
own content but also share (“distribute”) them to their own

friends.
,
Now people are actively “writing, publishing, and distrib-
uting” news for The X Newspaper. And The X Newspaper
(a.k.a Facebook) has become the “world’s best personal-
ized newspaper” (Box Item).
The Message:
The story of The X Newspaper is fictional but it is based on

real world business models in media. The story has relevance
for your business. It should set you thinking of ways that would
make you the new face (or Facebook) of your own industry.
“We are seeing the emergence of an The illustration in the

economy of the people, by the people, for next page captures the key
the people.” impacts different technolo-
- Prof C K Prahalad gies had on business. The
impact of social media
technology is the democratization of business.
In our context, democratization is about letting stakeholders take

part in value creation. The challenge for business is to treat every
customer as a potential co-creator.
In many mainstream business conversations, consumers still rep-

resent numbers: some demographic data. Customers are there to
bargain and buy. But this attitude is changing with the adoption
of social media in product development.
Social technology is making collaboration with customers pos-

sible, effective, desirable. And even, a business imperative.
Companies that treat customers as co-creators can use social

media in the right way. List what you do, and ask why can’t you
do it with your customers. You will end up democratizing your
business, while making your customers happy.
The X Newspaper 78
Box Item:
Facebook Is Making The World’s ‘Best Personalized
Newspaper’
Mar 7, 2013, 11.43 PM

Source: Business Insider.com
Facebook is making a major News Feed announcement today.

The changes will be the biggest in News Feed’s 7-year history.
They’ll make News Feed easier to sort through and more per-
sonalized.
But one of the points Zuckerberg has been hammering home
today seems to be a swipe at Flipboard, a social iPad news
reader.
Zuckerberg told the crowd: “We want to give everyone in the
world the best personalized newspaper in the world.”
15
“An Artist And A Cobbler”
‘ An artist was giving finishing touches to a painting.

It was a king’s portrait. Just then the artist saw a cobbler
passing by his studio. The artist called the cobbler.
He asked him to look at his painting. “Do you think the

shoes in the painting appears real?” he asked. The cobbler
was happy that the artist sought his opinion. He paid close
attention to the shoes. “I think you have to dim the shining
a bit, sir,” he suggested.
The artist immediately agreed. He thanked the cobbler

with a small gift. Next day, there was a knock on the door.
The artist opened the door. The same cobbler was wait-
,
ing outside. The cobbler said: “I have a suggestion for the
king’s crown, sir.”
But the artist was not pleased. He replied: “Thank you for
volunteering, but limit yourself to shoes.”
The Message:
There are areas where crowd-sourcing is not desirable. It takes

individual genius to design iPad, write a Harry Porter novel or
deliver a “I-have-a-dream” speech.
But, crowdsourcing is applied in unthinkable ways. A political

outfit in India, Aam Admi Party (AAP), has crowdsourced its
manifesto itself.
“The multitudes have answers to ques- It is a party of unfamiliar

tions which have not yet been posed,” faces (aam admi in Hindi
— John Berger, British writer means “common man”).
Still it had swept the Delhi
Assembly Election in 2014. It was a victory of not just a politi-
cal party. The mandate was an endorsement to the participatory
approach in politics.
AAP was hell bent on crowdsourcing. It took every decision af-

ter consulting with people. It sought the opinion of public when
it had to decide whether to accept the invitation to form a gov-
ernment with the support of a rival party. AAP conducted town
hall meetings and polls to engage people directly. (Box Item 1).
Social media came handy for AAP. The party used Facebook and
Twitter for crowdsourcing ideas from the public. A business can
follow suit in the adoption of social media for crowdsourcing.
The illustration in the next page (Areas of Engagement) high-

lights the values a business can co-create with social media.
The scope is vast but we can group them in the following four
‘chambers’:
Relationship: Organizations like Huffington Post, Intuit, and

Threadless are case studies in community building.
Marketing and Innovation: Dell involves customers at the

fuzzy front end of design. In its dedicated social portal (www.
ideastorm.com), customers can submit new product ideas.
Execution: Barclays runs a credit card in the US. The card com-
pany manages its entire business with the help of the commu-
nity. It lets the cardholders to decide on the annual service fee,
and late fee charges. The cardholders decide how the company
allocates its CSR budget.
Food major, Nestle crowd sources definitions of key perfor-

mance indicators (KPIs) that it can use to measure its business
performance.
Vision: Organizations like HCL Technologies, IBM, and NEC

Japan crowd source ideas (albeit from employees) for future
business.
Usually, brands start their social journey from the top - from
relationship. For many brands, customer relations and public
relations are the starting points. Then they explore opportunities
to engage customers in product development.
Very few organizations involve customers in the business of a

boardroom. That is, crowdsourcing of strategy and vision.
But co-creation is possible in all zones of business: from shop

floor to boardroom. Social is so versatile. It can host ordinary
conversations as well as support extensive collaborations of
product development.
Talking about social media and co-creation, Mr Ric Dragon,

author, Social Marketology, says: “C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ra-
maswamy wrote their book on co-creation back in 2004 - before
social media was really taking off. Yet they described the scenario
in which customers and brands were going to work together to
create value - then, boom! Social media came about, and it was a
natural fit.” (Box Item 2)
Box Item 1:
AAP and Participatory Politics
Source: Younomy’s Blog
The stunning show of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the recent

Delhi Assembly Polls has become a subject of case study for
political parties as well as business. Many have already written
what brands can learn from AAP in the areas of setting vision,
evolving strategy and execution.
But it seems the key lesson that AAP can teach is how business
can connect with aam admi (“common man” or equivalent of
“the Average Joe”) and build a participatory brand and products.
AAP has been successful in crowd-sourcing key functions of its

business: 1) vision, 2) manifesto, and 3) to some extent, delivery

of government services.
AAP itself was formed after a poll, conducted using social

channels, seeking opinions of volunteers of ‘India Against
Corruption’ on forming a political party. With the vision of a
“corruption-free India”, the party promises to see through the
passing of Citizen’s Ombudsman Bill (Jan Lokpal), an anti-cor-
ruption bill, into law. Jan Lokpal Bill is drafted and drawn up by
civil society activists with inputs provided by “ordinary citizens”
through “an activist-driven, non-governmental public consulta-
tion”.
And AAP “kick-started” its election campaign with crowd-funds

(or crowd-donations). Now, it says it formed a government only
after ensuring that the crowd (voters of Delhi) approved its deci-
sion to get the support of another political party.
The political victory of a participatory approach can open eyes

of people who occupy corner rooms as to how powerful the
idea of crowd-sourcing and co-creation can be, and why the
time to act is, probably, now.
Box Item 2
Younomy’s interview with Ric Dragon:
Mr Ric Dragon, CEO and co-founder of DragonSearch, has

more than 20 years of experience in graphic design, informa-
tion architecture, web development and digital marketing. He is
a sought-after speaker, having spoken at many marketing and
technology conferences. Ric is also a regular guest columnist for
Marketing Land, and Social Media Monthly.
His book, Social Marketology, was published by McGraw-Hill in

June 2012. Following are excerpts of his interview to Younomy:
With social media brands can engage with customers on an individual basis.
But, how practical it is for large brands to engage with individuals at a one
to one level?
I definitely think they can. Now, with that said, there are a lot
of different categories, countless brands, and a world of chal-
lenges that are different for each. From a customer care stand-
point, there are brands that make a point of answering each and
every mention of their brand. Discover Card is a great example,
there. Other brands are focused on pushing content out to their
audience segments, but never respond. While we “social media
experts” might tsk-tsk those brands, some are successful - al-
though they tend to be what I call “love brands” - those brands
that have extremely high customer loyalty, such as Harley or Red
Bull.
You talk of co-creation of value. How do you associate co-creation with

social media?
C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy wrote their book on co-

creation back in 2004 - before social media was really taking off
- yet they described the scenario in which customers and brands
were going to work together to create value - then, boom! Social

media came about, and it was a natural fit. Later, those same au-
thors saw the connection, and wrote extensively about it in HBR
- so naturally, its executives have been exposed to the concept
early on.
We’ve also had some great case studies of co-creation through

social - like the My Starbucks Idea, which generated some prod-
uct enhancements that were successful. When brands open up
the conversation so that customers’ voices can be heard, they
often get both the value of the innovation, and the good will
created by listening.
How do brands use social media engagement to trigger word-of-mouth or

capture voice-of-customers?
I think the focus shouldn’t be on creating more WOM - that’s a

nice benefit - but if brands are focused on engaging in order to
create customer value - fulfilling customers needs whether those
needs are explicit or hidden - they’ll receive the WOM and voice-
of-customer.
But, there’s the answer - focus on customer value. We have

the precedent in the Lean Manufacturing revolution in which
everything we do much create value for the customer, otherwise
it’s waste. We also need to have a deep understanding of psy-
chology. Humans have a strong need to be acknowledged - to
be heard. Just this morning, a co-worker tweeted out to Amtrak
that the QR code on their tickets didn’t work. Immediately, an
Amtrak community manager responded - turns out the QR
code is just for the train conductor - not for customers. Kind of
stupid, and a little annoying - and yet the person forgave Amtrak
because they responded quickly.
You have been an advocate of processes. How different is social-media-as-a-

project and social-media-as-a-process?
Well, a project infers a closed system - we’re setting out to do

something, like build a house. At some point, we’ll finish build-
ing the house, and we’ll move on to the next project. You might
very well have projects within your social media, but they’re
likely to be small parts of a larger process.
The Agile programming concept of sprints can be very use-

ful here. If you can break down your efforts into small time-
periods, you can iterate quickly - or to adopt the contemporary
mantra, “fail quickly” - and move on to the next iteration. The
technology and even cultural aspects of this is all changing so
quickly - every day is a rush of new information.
With that said, it’s extremely valuable to use project manage-

ment in your work - particularly in strategy building. There are
tasks that should be done that are dependent on other tasks, all
culminating in the strategic plan arriving to its execution. But
even there, from an execution viewpoint, you might look to John
Boyd’s ideas of OODA Loops (Observe, orient, decide, act) -
so that while the overall desired outcomes are in view, how you
arrive there may need to change at any given moment.
How can companies use social data (the likes, shares, comments and other
social activities) for customer segmentation?
All of this information is incredibly valuable. You have to be a

bit of an ethnographer and observe what’s going on, and then
a psychologist to interpret the meaning of the various actions.
Then you will want to do a backwards look at the participants,
and any demographic, psychographic, or behavioral patterns that
can be sussed-out from the data available.
Every industry is different - whether you’re in B2B or CPG’s -
how you can use this data, or whether there is sufficient data - is
going to be different. And then, you have to apply a marketer’s

insights into the meaning of the data. For instance, you might
have a non-traditional micro-segment becoming excited about
certain things - yet it’s an aspirational audience -and thus you
don’t necessarily want to address them head on. Marketers
have to become hyper aware of the information they have and
sometimes use it in ways that are not apparent to the audience.
Target’s use of big data is a great example. You might know
that a customer is pregnant - yet you must sandwich the baby
products ads between lawn care products, so that the customer
doesn’t know they’re being understood so well!
You talk of customers projecting their personality on brands. How social

media enables this?
Yes - we know that people DO project personality onto brands.

If the project is off-course for you, you’d want to try to modify
how you’re being perceived. In social - particularly in those fla-
vors of social where a brand is truly engaging with customers (as
opposed to just broadcasting) - every utterance can have a voice.
Are you friendly? Are you cold? Are you intelligent?
It requires a great deal of discipline - understanding and training

of community managers - to have a consistent brand personality
and voice. At the end of the day, though, it can build on itself
and be a powerful component of branding. In branding - we
need that consistency. If one day you’re off-voice, it can destroy
a lot of work!
16
“A Monk And
The Floating Blanket”
‘ Once an ascetic, living in the Himalayas, saw a

woollen blanket floating down the Ganges.
A woollen blanket can be one of the few most valued thing
there.
So, as soon as he saw it, the ascetic plunged into the river
and reached the floating blanket in few strokes. Others on
the banks blamed their ill-luck for not spotting the blanket
themselves first.
But, the ascetic in the river started screaming for help, as

he went with the flow of the river, catching hold of the
blanket. “You fool, your life is precious than the blanket.
If you can’t drag it, leave it and come back,” those on the
,
banks shouted.
The ascetic in danger cried out: “No, I can’t. First it is not

a blanket but a bear. Second, I am not holding it, it is hold-
ing me.”
The Message:
On average eight out of ten new products fail in the market.

Companies have two options to boost the success rate. The first
option is to hire a genius like Steve Jobs, and the second is to tap
the wisdom of crowds. “No matter who you are, most of the
smartest people work for someone else.”
The first option is risky – – Bill Joy, Cofounder Sun Microsystems
the problem of mis-hire is
so common. As the fate of the poor ascetic can show, you will
never know who you are after, until it is too late.
But the second option is safe. Countless organizations are tap-

ping the wisdom of crowds and reaping rich dividends. A case in
point is Threadless that sells over 7 million t-shirts a year. But it
reports “zero product failure”.
According to an Inc Magazine report, titled “The Customer is

the Company”, every single t-shirt design of Threadless is a hit
in the market.
When about 80% of new product launches bite the dust in many
consumer markets, how this t-shirt maker manages to enjoy a
100% success rate?
The reason: all t-shirt designs are crowd sourced. It is the

“crowd” again that votes what design goes to production. When
a company co-creates with customers, zero-product failure is
possible. Customers cannot be wrong.
Customers are already the stakeholders in the life cycle of a

product. They buy, consume/use, change, mix, resell, recycle.
But companies now have the opportunity to make customers as
the stakeholders of the product development cycle.
To do that we simply have to decide two things:

1) What products (/services) can be opened up for customer
participation?
2) Which is the most appropriate method of customer engage-
ment?
The Total Value Matrix:
This requires us to think of types of business value. A business

may have any number of products. But going by how strategic
and profitable they are to the business, we can group them in
one of the following four categories: flagship, fill gap, future,
and free.
Flagship product is a core product that is driving a company’s

growth. They bring in maximum profit and are strategic to a
business. They represent a company’s core competency.
Fill-gap product is not strategic. But it can be profitable. Fill-

gap products complement flagship products. Take a bank, its
flagship product is a deposit or loan product. But it can sell a
mutual fund and fill the gap in its financial services portfolio.
Future product is a lab product - only a small segment of the

market will need it today. But the product could grow to be a
mainstream product in future. In short, a future product is stra-
tegic but may not be profitable yet.
Free product is a product that is neither strategic nor profitable.

These are good will or charity products that a business creates to
discharge its corporate social responsibility.
Value Types versus Engagement Methods

For each type of value, the method of tapping the wisdom of

crowds may differ. The following table matches the method of
engagement with the type of value.
A flagship product is well established and accepted. Hence, a

business might need customer innovation only at the fag end of
the product development. It could get customers to customize
the product. So, a product configurator is a best bet.
Whereas in the case of a future product, it makes perfect sense

to get customers involved in the fuzzy front end. Companies can
try crowdsourcing of product ideas.
With customers as stakeholders of product development, a busi-

ness can better its existing product or innovate a new one. In the
process, it can enhance the experience of customers.
17
“What Ganesh Chaturthi Festival
Can Teach Business?”
‘ According to the Hindu mythology, Goddess

Parvati created Lord Ganesh using sandalwood paste. Her
husband Lord Shiva was not at home then. Parvati asked
Ganesh not to allow anyone to enter the house, while she
was taking bath.
Ganesh was obedient. He was on guard in front of the

house. Shiva returned from his work and found a cute little
boy guarding the house. He asked Ganesh to let him in.
But Ganesh gave no permission.
Enraged, Shiva threw his trident at Ganesh. The weapon

cut the boy`s head. Parvati was shocked to know what hap-
pened. She explained to Shiva that the little boy was her
child and the boy was just carrying out her orders.
,
Realising his mistake, Shiva promised to bring back
Ganesh to life. He ordered his men to go and find a head
of any living being. The men brought the head of an
elephant. Shiva fixed it with the boy’s body and infused life.
The Message:
Even gods are customized and cocreated. In India people cel-

ebrate the birthday of Lord Ganesh – known as Ganesh Chatur-
“The most creative thing a thi, in a grand manner. Devotees
person will do...is to be creative would re-imagine Lord Ganesh in
unthinkable, modern avatars: as a
cusumer”
social activist, a soldier, a cricketer,
— Robert H Anderson,
RAND Corportation to name a few.
In a way the Chaturthi is a function of mass customization of

the god. It can teach a key lesson on customer engagement and
open innovation to business.
In functions like Ganesh Chaturthi, devotees are free to create

or customize their favorite divine forms, albeit within a ‘frame-
work’ offered by the particular religious school of thought.
God performs three basic functions: creation, protection, and

destruction (of the evil). It’s the religious idea of god. Devotees
give different ‘weightage’ to these attributes and create ‘special-
purpose’ gods. India is a factory of gods. There is a god to
protect water reservoirs. One to bless women with children. One
to protect livestock. One to remove stumbling blocks in life, and
so on.
In short, the religion treats its customers as creators. If business

wants to unlock customer value to the core, it has to treat its
customers as creators as well. With web 2.0, every website can be
a factory – a social factory at that. Customers can configure or
create new products using “innovation blocks”.
An example: Zoho Creator, a software platform for software

development. Zoho offers innovation blocks of software – ‘pre-
built codes’. Customers drag and drop the blocks to create their
own software. They create necessary software modules: input
What Ganesh Chaturthi Festival Can Teach Business? 96
forms, data views, business logic, and reports. There is no limita-

tion to what the end product could be: ERP, CRM or a simple
‘courier management software’.
Zoho is making use of Web 2.0’s collaborative potential. “If

there was ever a poster child for the Web 2.0 world, this is it!”
wrote Mark Gibbs, contributing editor at Network World. Zoho
is also tapping the co-creative potential of the social web.
We can have Zoho Creator-equivalents for every imaginable

product or solution space. It is technically possible. But it calls
for a change of mindset. Businesses has to treat social as a
manufacturing platform, and customer as creator.
So far, business remained at the centre of value creation. The

rules are changing. With social media, customers create value.
Customers are the new Original Equipment Manufacturers.
They are open innovators. The job of a business is just to help
customers innovate. Instead of creating a product, the business
can offer ‘innovation blocks’ to the customers. So that custom-
ers can use the innovation blocks to create a product of their
own imagination.
The first innovation block ever invented was perhaps a hollow

brick. This physical block let people build whatever they wanted.
But the idea of innovation block has not caught the imagination
of other industries. Why not innovation blocks in automobiles,
smart phones, computers, consumer electronics? Why not such
innovation blocks offered to customers online? Why not cus-
tomers create their own automobiles, smart phones, computers,
consumer electronics?
Or even club products and create a new industry. Customers

don’t respect industry boundaries as much as industries do. They
do not have vested interest in keeping legacy thinking alive. They
can driver convergence better than a industry. An industry has to
address a variety of business concerns before it could innovate.

Customer’s don’t have to.
If a brand can realize that Web 2.0/social is a cocreative plat-

form, it can tap the cocreative potential of its customers. This
is the only way to become a participatory brand and a real social
business.
Religion is a rigid institution. When it does not have any qualms

in allowing its ‘customers’ to create, why should a business hesi-
tate?
INDEX
INDEX 102
A Estée Lauder, 18, 19

Aam Admi Party, 81, 83, 84
Alan Moore, 69
Airbus, 45, 46 F
Alvin Toffler, 65 Facebook, 4,8, 10, 29, 31, 72,
Areas of Engagement, 81, 84 76, 77, 79
Ashok Leyland, 56, 57, 58 Finnair, 14
B G
Barclays, 82 Ganesh Chaturthi, 95
Barista, 37, 42 Globus, 37, 39
Brad Smith, 4 Godrej Industries, 29
Big Bazaar, 40 Google, 31, 32
Bill Joy, 90 Google Buzz, 72
Bill Keller, 56 Grant Thornton, 49
C H
C K Prahalad, 83 Humannovation, 13, 14
Café Coffee Day , 39, 41 Huffington Post, 71, 72, 73, 74,
Cause to Paws, 22, 23 75, 81
Chris Brogan, 10
Clayton Christensen, 49
Clue Train Manifesto, 38
I
IBM, 13, 15, 82
Coca Cola, 12, 14, 15
Inc Magazine, 90
Colgate, 37, 39
Innosight, 37
Customer Identities, 37
Intel, 11
Custora, 29, 31, 32
Intuit, 81
D J
Jay Baer, 18
Dell, 11, 45, 81
Jobs-to-be-done, 50
Disney, 65, 66
John Berger, 81
E L
Equal, 5,6 Local Motors, 65, 66
Estée Lauder Company, 18 Likeography, 49
103 INDEX
M Social Funnel, 68, 69

Marisa Thalberg, 19 Social Gardens, 4,6
Marks & Spencer,44, 46, 47 Starbucks, 5,6,11
Michael Schrage, 50, 52
T
N Tanishq, 40
NEC Japan, 82 Threadless, 65, 66, 81, 90
Nadir Burjorji Godrej, 29 Titan, 41
Nestle, 82 Tom Peters, 71
Nike, 5,7,10 Total Value Matrix, 91
Trent, 37, 40
O Twitter, 4, 29, 31, 32, 72
Open Innovation Blocks, 95,
96 U
UPS, 8,9,10
P
Patricia Fripp, 23 V
Philips, 30, 33, 34 Venkat Ramaswamy, 83
Prahalad C.K, 77 Vinod Dasari, 56, 57, 58, 59
Prosumer, 65, 66
Psychography, 51 W
Wally Olins, 13
R Walter Pike, 37
Red Bull, 42 Wild Social, 4
Ribhu Gita, 64, 66
Ric Dragon, 83 Y
Robert H Anderson, 95 Yahoo!, 72
Ross Perot, 30 Younomy, 37, 52
YouTube, 10, 14
S
Sam Palmisano, 13, 15, 16 Z
Saffron Brand Consultants, 13 Zoho, 95, 96
Scott Anthony, 37
Shel Holtz, 44
Social Badges, 71, 72

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& A Pair Of Shoes

Copyright © 2014 by G Sankaranarayanan

All rights reserverd. No part of this book may be reproduced,

This book by Shri Sankaranarayanan is a timely one since the

The value of social media comes from its interactive potential.

In social media, brands want more likes. There is a race. Brands

The goal of a business is well known. It is to make profits. The

Technology is ready. It can enable producer and consumer join

This book is the collection of weekly newsletters I sent to 2,000-

I thank the legendary scientist Prof M S Swaminathan for his

I thank my Facebook friends (especially, Ms Vidhya Satagopan

I thank my friend Saravanan for helping me publish this book.

I thank the authors and publishers of news articles, interviews,

‘ Once there was a pastor in a small town. He was

But the pastor was enterprising - he made home visits to

The man replied: “But, I am already in the Army of the

The rich man looked around, as if to make sure that

If you are not interesting in social platforms, your audience will

In a way, social media has “past-forwarded” business. The nature

Social media as a technology is here to stay. Not a week goes

The likes of Facebook and Twitter are “owned” by people - No

In contrast, the official pages of brands in Facebook or Twit-

In Wild Social, conversations are not directed. But at Social Gar-

In a social platform like Equal Choice (www.equalchoice.com.

On Equal Choice, conversations take place on select topics.

Participants cannot create new topics on their own. They can

Engagement for design:

In MyStarbucksIdea and NikeID, engagement happens “for

MyStarbucksIdea is social portal where customers submit their

platforms help brands engage with customers and “design” a

Social Gardens can help companies capture “voice of customer”

Box Item 1: Equal Choice

Created by Equal sweetener, Equal Choice is a social website

With help from a panel of experts, the website uncovers topi-

Box Item 2: MyStarbucksIdea

Mystarbucksidea is a crowd-sourcing platform, promoted by

NikeID is a social configurator that lets customers to customize

‘ It was a single Facebook post, from United Parcel

What was it all about? Here is the backgrounder: Mr Gavin

“I knew if that dog - a Great Dane - didn’t die from starva-

After a few months of rehabilitation, Phoenix (the dog’s

Virtue is the key ingredient of a “viral” content in social media.

In the case of Phoenix, the rescue happened in January, 2013.

“We wanted the first photo you

In traditional corporate communication, it was all about press

An YouTube video could be about how your product or service

Brands should set communication indicators especially for social

Leading social brands - like Intel, Dell and Starbucks conduct

Getting the buy-in of the top management is important for

‘ Coca Cola announced that it is suspending all ad-

Earned media - “refers to publicity gained through promotional

Mr Wally Olins, founder, Saffron Brand Consultants once said:

Attention creates brands. But here comes the next question:

Samuel J Palmisano, former Chairman of the Board, IBM, an-

Of course, he was speaking for IBM, but doesn’t it hold true

Behind all viral content is the message of “human touch”. It is

need to be creative to remain humane. An inscrutable entity or

But humannovation could be about simple friendly acts. Re-