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Dear Sacha,
It's
been a while since I've mentioned community. I mentioned early on
that it would be a recurring theme and its time has come again.
This year, 2008, is being hailed as the year of social commerce.
Social networking is making an impact on retail, and whether or not
there will be a breakthrough this year, it will continue to gain in
power and influence. It is a phenomenon that retail cannot afford
to overlook and one that government procurement should not overlook.
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| Social Networking |
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Harnessing the power of the people
What is the relevance of community in today's day and age?
The
easiest way to answer that question is to consider community to be a
synonym for social networking. Social networking, in this
context, is the phenomenon of consumer activity being driven by the
consumers themselves. Their recommendation or referrals drive
other people to buy, or at least explore, the same or similar
products. It is pure viral, word of mouth advertising. It
is also incredibly effective and it isn't difficult to see why.
Would you rather trust a television commercial or twenty, forty, or
even a hundred other people who recommend a product (often times
despite its shortcomings)?
Simeon Simeonov explains why this is
important when he writes, "Consider for a minute how gargantuan the
social shopping/merchandising market opportunity is: the current US
retail market (excluding home and automotive) is around $4+
TRILLION/year and is supported by $150+ billion in advertising, the
bulk of which still goes to TV for immersive, emotionally impactful
ads. Capturing the proverbial 1% of that total market would represent
over $40 billion/year in transactions which is huge!"
$40
billion per year in transactions is an awfully large incentive for
businesses to look into changing the way they do business. Since
governments - you - are consumers, this will inevitably affect you as
well. When changes comes there is always the one question to ask,
"Do you want to be proactive or reactive?"
Why shouldn't the
government be on the lookout for a better deal? There is money to
be saved and these days everyone can certainly do with some
saving. If social networking is quickly becoming the best way for
the average consumer to get the best value for money, it can work for
the government as well.
If you have doubts, rest assured that
these are entirely natural. Jay Deragon writes of his experience
with executives from a Fortune 500 company: "When asked how many of the
executives were active participants in social networks 100% answered
they were not and 40% didn't even have a profile on Linkedin. When
asked how many of their employees (in excess of 20,000 employees) were
active in social networks their answers were "We don't know". How
can business executives draw conclusions with no experience or
understanding of the dynamic of the social web? The answer is they do
and they will continue to, right or wrong."
Clearly it won't be
as easy as creating a profile on any one of the numerous social
networking sites, since government procurement is anything but an
average consumer. This is why the ElectronicTendering System
is such an important innovation. Its very design as a community
oriented work platform puts it well on its way of being a social
networking site as well. Most importantly, it is targeted by
default - all the business and government profiles it contains are
dedicated to doing business with and by governments.
There are
many tools which the government can adopt or adapt to its own
use. Social networking is one of the most powerful, because it
revolves around people rather than technology. Technology is an
important facilitator, so a tool like the ETS cannot be overlooked, but
the most important element remains people. People like you. |
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Do
you wonder if you have ever used the power of social networking to buy
something? If you have ever looked up a product on a
peer/consumer review site, you've made use of social networking.
You've taken advantage of the power of millions of other consumer to
review and judge a product. Most importantly, you've probably
been surprised by the number of products you saw that you had never
heard of, but that got good reviews.
Think about that.
Sincerely,
Sacha Hartmann
YSER Inc.
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