[...] Dangers and Opportunities of the Crowdsourced Company As I write in this month’s NZMarketing Mag, transparency will come and get you if you don’t volunteer it. (tags: socialmedia transparency web2.0) [...]

[...] Jeremiah Owyang, die weer via Twitter (ja ja…) de tip kreeg is hier dan een volgende nieuwe loot aan de [...]

Great article – thanks! It is really interesting to see how others are leveraging crowds for a wide range of business and personal uses. But, while services like Glassdoor and SalaryScout have valuable information, they don’t feel truly collaborative to me. They are databases of information that individuals can contribute to and use for their own purposes, not crowdsourcing in a meaningful participatory sense.

True crowdsourcing models allow users to connect in a more meaningful way – think iStockPhoto, Threadless, or even Flickr. These are sites where users learn from one another and benefit from one another’s experience, talents, and insights – not just raw data. If companies allowed their employees to truly share, in the sense that these leaders are about sharing, they could gain great value, knowledge, and loyalty from their workers.

We posted a few weeks ago about the power of collaborative creativity: http://blog.crowdspring.com/2008/05/14/the-power-of-imagination/.

Thoughts?

Let’s be honest, $10k here or £10k there (pre tax) doesn’t make any much difference (and remember salary (certainly in UK reserach) is far less important to GenY than it has been to X or Boomers – although lets see how some economic slow time affects that), however bad recruitment / employee experience (as much as bad customer experience) has the potential of spreading like wild fire and affecting your potential candidates’ perceptions of working for you. You’ll still generate candidates, sure, but if you’re not listening and actively telling your side of the story (as well as ensuring that actually you are a good and / or fair organisation to work for with robust, fair and transparent recruitment processes) then you might just start to find it harder than ever to attract that top talent as word gets out, or at least one strain of your employment truth emerges.

And that’s the point. As you know, the digital world broadcasts individual truths – so corporates’ have to get their heads around this and ensure that as well as their employment house being in order (the starting point!) that they are listening, ready and willing to tell me their truth.

What we should hopefully see is a realisation by those now properly tracking the correlation of these things that investing in and maintaining a strong Employer Brand is just as important as all other marketing channels. Rather than just stating “people are our greatest asset” companies may realise that their whole recruitment and retention piece actually becomes intrinsically linked with their overall brand. You have a bad work experience / recruitment process with company X – would you buy their brand or switch to company Y? And when you have such an experience how much more p**sed are you than if you just get bad service / the wrong order / cut off? And there the effect begins in earnest.

I blogged about the new payola here:
connectme.typepad.com/news/2006/02/the_new_payola_.html

Just like TV shows, this kind of gaming will be focused on what some companies affectionately call ‘cash and prizes’, or salaries and benefits. I think it’s going to be particularly important for companies to see how crowdsourcing affects healthcare administration.

Also…when Forrester talks to CEO bloggers, how have the attitudes of the legal department changed? Specifically, how do the legal beagles think about comments, and the CEO blogger’s response to said comments? (…especially if the comments come from someone who fancies themselves a whistleblower??)

Our company launched an intranet forum to discuss ideas, gather feedback, etc. Participation was lukewarm at first, now cooler. I’ve since put together a private group on Facebook for our franchisees and HQ employees to share feedback, submit ideas, comment on suggestions, rant, rave, etc. It seems to be gathering steam. It all happens outside of official channels, albeit with the corporate blessing.

My June 4 post about the New Employee gets to the fear many companies have. I’d love your feedback.

One could use a genearal title, like “Marketing Manager” or “Marketing Director” then

[...] on glassdoor here, here, here, here, here, here and [...]

Good point. I’m hesitant to make recommendations about my current employer in public forums, it makes sense to first do this in private.

The difference between influencing and complaining is that influencers can get the corporations to actually make a change –willingly.

Complainers? well that get cast by the way side, or are dealt with.