1, 433, 939 starbucks fans but no corporate voice – go wild

May 5, 2009

Welcome to the Starbucks Facebook Fan discussion page – go wild. 

First of all – I’m fan of Starbucks.  I joined the “Starbucks Fan” facebook site because I should own shares for how much I’ve dropped in lattes, americanos and blueberry scones.   And whereas I do try to prefer the local yokal, small biz, organic fresh roaster ,  Starbucks’ free wi-fi two hours really seals my allegiance to the coffee king.   I love getting a free coffee coupon if my order is forgotten, and my daughters’ drawing is still taped to the back of my local Starbucks espresso maker. Its my office, my newspaper site, my cup of sanity with the kids.  

So join I did, added a wall post and watched it disappear after a refresh.  Hmm.. obviously there is protectionism on wall posts. 

Then I pursued the Starbucks discussion board and found “disappointed by Starbucks” – a discussion started by Florida’s John Parkes on February 9, 2009.   

There is a bit of John Parkes in all of us.  He loves Starbucks – wishes it was what it once was.  He posts and re-posts with the constructive, supportive criticism that can only come from a heavy user, loyal consumer.   Crap – he is just the kind of guy that oozes innovation.  His discussion posts are long – several paragraphs.  Over 33 people have commented and added their own voices.  He answers and reanswers  – all the while adding the kind of posts that qualitative researchers would die for.   Thru it all – I couldn’t see any corporate response.  None.   So I asked John if anyone from corporate ever answered his posts.  He admitted a few employees tried but as far as he can tell – no one from corporate office did.  It appears that the discussion board is completely unmoderated – at least in this thread.  So what is the point??

Interestingly – every time I added a comment to John, his “disappointed with Starbucks” discussion floated to the top of the discussions because the forum is organized by reply recency.  So that means his discussion has been at the top of the discussion list over 50 times.

John speculated that the Facebook fan site may not be ‘starbucks sponsored’ but with over 1MM fans,  join our Starbucks twitter feed, and corporate video section, it no longer matters who is sponsoring the site.  [added note - there is a community link from Starbucks.com straight to the facebook fan page - and so it appears that community participation is valued..].

Get in there Starbucks!  If you don’t have one already – get a coffee lover (both employee experienced and customer only experience) and create a country specific starbucks community chief [or advisory board].   Pick up groundswell and read up on Charlene Li’s pages (great section on Bob Lutz’ authenticity).  Hey – I know business is hard right now – store closures, the lay offs etc.  But it might be the best digital head count spend you make.   Your fans want you to.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Furl | Newsvine

1 Comment | Blogging, Innovation, social networks, web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Laurie Dillon Schalk

Future of Social Networks

April 27, 2009

Charlene Li from Altimeter Group hypothesizes that social networks will become like air  – a hypothesis that I would have to agree with.  

I’ve always believed that consumer behaviour leads corporate behaviour – and the social networking of facebook, myspace and twitter will mesh into corporate offerings as the usage of these tools continue among corporate canada/america.  

Charlene asks people to send their own ‘social networks like air’ ideas.  Here are mine.

  • Similar to what Charlene suggested – high levels of integration between social networks
  • I will look at my gps or google maps and see where my friends are, on a permissioned basis, who is in the park, who isn’t.  Similarly, I will be able to travel the world and be able to see where my global network of friends are and arrange coffee in paris, etc.
  •  I will own the ability to further segment my friends on my social networks -  I will be able to set up a radius of friends – family, best friends, mom friends, kids friend parents – rather than one big LUMP friend group.  
  •  My family circle will deliver me daily updates – consolidated from all sources and will auto print out at home for my morning coffee read.
  •  Wikis will become more common place and “users manuals” will be written by users – one word, one problem at a time.  The first section to be developed will be the trouble shooting section.
  • I also see the personal and private ability to set the hours of my participation.  I might choose to go off the grid from 10pm till 6am.  And I could do this centrally from my home, with one click or touch.

2 Comments | social networks, web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Laurie Dillon Schalk

Mesh conference available online

April 19, 2009

Whew!  Thank goodness.    MESH TV is here and ready for download.   Check it out to get up to date p.o.v’s on web 2.0 and social media.  Video burns my ipod batteries quickly but makes a great companion.

I missed MESH this year as.. crap..   I transitioned from full time mommy, to pink slip’d on mat leave to surprised full time pogey forced self employed business woman who caught a cool gig with an amazing e-learning company using social media and is starting to enjoy prospects.  Anyhow – I was itching to catch up at MESH but didn’t make it.

MESH is a fantastic conference held in Toronto, covering a broad range of social media 101 and beyond.  It rocked my boat in 2005 when I was beginning my research on web 2.0 at IBM.  

In picking up my favorite podcasts on itunes, I noticed “Mesh TV” is available.   And Sacha Chua’s panel on learning 2.0 is up there in full and so am delighted to have a good deal of the conference available.   Pretty high quality video and sound to boot.

Leave a Comment » | web 2.0 | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Laurie Dillon Schalk

Eureka! A place for blogs

February 20, 2007

I’ve been struggling since joining GG on how to introduce web2.0.  Truthfully, there are so many other e-business opportunities that I can’t just start at web 2.0 without web 1.0.. OR CAN I?  

My sister company in the US launched a blog and I had to slap my forehead.  While I respect their intiative and gumption, one doesn’t start with a corporate blog unless they have some experience blogging.  Right now their blog is a place for long winded press releases – argh!  no rss feeds yet, not many links, etc.

I met with a homebuyer of one of our condominums.  I asked if he would share his homebuying experience as I am eager to hear the experiences and am still putting surveys/research vendors in place (so haven’t done any formal research yet). 

He tells me that we do an exceptional job with the product.  The condominium is beautiful (it really is).  Based on this sophisticated jazz theme – the building is sexy, classy and wonderfully urban.  He says “you can have any information you want, but you have to ask for it”.  Wow – he admits that since he closed the sale on the condominium, the only communication has been legal.  (actually, there were two marketing communications but what matters is his perception – which is that all the communication is legal).  He wants to know about carpets, about lobby changes, about when the recycling program will start, etc .  What a great place for a blog.

Do I start the blog or do I encourage the condominium board to do it?  If I don’t do it myself then, will someone else?   So many questions.. but I do feel closer to understand how I can leverage the blog..

4 Comments | enterprise 2.0, web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Laurie Dillon Schalk

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