[I originally had named this post every company needs a Scoble but that would be a cheap attempt at links and likely send the conversation into a Robert good/bad debate which isn't the point.]
[Note: I wrote this a few days ago and, sure enough, I'm not the only person thinking about this. Others are calling it Ombudsman, I'll stick with untouchable. Clearly, I need to post faster.. :-) ]
After watching the PR disasters at Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook, I'm reminded of a general problem when companies grow, stumble, try to find their way, and generally loose touch with the very things that got them where they are today. The list of boneheaded moves (Facebook's ToS being a good example) are almost endless yet lots of them can be traced to senior management being out of touch with users, employees, and the prevailing winds of public sentiment.
Enter the untouchable. Back in the day, the developer relations group at my former employer, Microsoft, was for all intents and purposes, a bunch of untouchables. We had a boss who was tied directly to the CEO and the mission of getting mass numbers of developers onto the Windows platforms was paramount. We could get code from other groups, release pieces for people to ship before it was generally available, and do lots of things that were simply not for the faint of heart. The other, arguably more important, function was making sure the developers message/issues/etc where all heard loud and clear by the C level management. We'd piss off far more internal people then external folks and that was a good thing because it meant we were doing our advocacy job correctly.
Fast forward to today. I think the CEO of Facebook, for example, having a user advocate reporting directly to him and blogging in a very public way when boneheaded things are about to happen or have happened would potentially prevent self-inflicted wounds.
I think a senior Scoble type reporting into the senior levels of management and being very public about her blog, would have gotten the first WTF on the severance issue and probably saved some level of PR mess.
Ebay having somebody speaking up about the slow destruction of the very group of people who made the company what it is (Power sellings), might have better dealt with all of that mess.
From my perspective, you hire somebody on a 3 year contract, they report to the CEO, the CEO is serious about listening, demanding answers, etc. The person knows it is a fixed period of time and is responsible to make sure the CEO knows what's bubbling up but also is a human face that sticks up for the developers/users/community, whatever it happens to be.
The larger point here is that loosing touch can seriously hurt a company, sometimes fatal, sometimes not but usually painful. While my suggestion will seem extreme, the reality is that we are rapidly changing world, made even more profound by the current economic issues. Every company needs ever edge they can get.
On edge might just need to be a loud, unfiltered advocate, wandering the halls, banging the drum. I'm not at all suggesting one person should/could change anything rather making the case that the information gathered in an unfiltered, non-political manner, might be useful.
Or I could be wrong.
In the middle ages, the court jester's unofficial duties included telling the king through subtle humor where he stood with his subjects. The jester could communicate the message because it wasn't an blatant in-your-face statement that the "infallible" king wasn't.
Many of the technorati have lost touch with the way the rest of the world thinks. ( witness Scott McNeally of Sun telling people to get over the lost of privacy in the internet era.) A few court jesters are needed by the kings out there (in what ever industry. )
Posted by: Pat | March 04, 2009 at 04:12
Isn't that effectively Marissa Mayer's role @ google? I'd be even more interested to see a similar advocacy role in some of the older ICT firms, like say Bell Canada or outside technology, any major B2C firm, such as Air Canada. It's just that with those firms, customer dissatisfaction is a dog bites man story...
Posted by: nigel | March 04, 2009 at 08:38
If you find those jobs, let me know. I'd like to apply.
Posted by: reinkefj | March 04, 2009 at 12:48
Loose: Adjectjve
Lose: Verb
Once it's funny. Twice in the same post and it might be time for a refresher ;-)
Keep up the great posts though...
Posted by: PGuy | March 04, 2009 at 22:01
Last time I was in a large company, I had my knuckles solidly rapped for even entering into a blog conversation (to defend the company, which was IMHO in the right).
This is a great idea for anyone who is or who wants to be an ex-employee of a large company.
You first. :-)
Posted by: Kevin | March 05, 2009 at 07:53