A revolution is brewing. It is the “Intellectual Revolution”.
Wellington at Waterloo - Hillingford
We live in a time of the immediate information. If you want to know something, you just look it up. If you want to know what your customers think about something, you just ask them and you get an immediate answer. If you can’t decide which restaurant sounds good tonight, just get other peoples’ opinion.
Today companies spend millions of dollars to survey the desires of their customers. They spend this money, wait for months for the answers and all too often get the answers they were “wanting” all along. Instead, they have the ability of surveying their customers immediately. The tools are available for them to be in constant contact with their customers so they have the ability to have constant feedback for anything they want to know.
Now you hear these types of things all of the time; there is a new technology coming onto the market that it is going to revolutionize your life in five years. Well, it always takes at least ten years if not twenty before this new item really takes hold throughout society. It is human nature to get caught up in things when they are new, but quickly go back to their lives when the newness wears off. And it then takes many years before the new technology works its way into the fabric of life.
This is different. This is not technology, but instead, is intellectual property. This is the ability to use the collective wisdom of society with a click of a mouse. It is the ability to gain unknown information in a day’s time. This information then can be built upon immediately to move the process forward. Do you understand the power of this? Those of you who grasp this, who can master it, will be much stronger, no matter what field you go into.
Obviously, the cure for cancer probably won’t come from Twitter (although you might be surprised) but companies should, at least, be able to keep their hand on the pulse of their customers. With the ability to get immediate responses by way of comments to their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. there is no longer any excuse for a company not meeting the needs and desires of their customer.
Learn to use these tools. There are so many. Always keep in mind how these platforms can be useful to you, both personally as well as professionally. And get out there and “keep your hand on the pulse of America” (or the world).
