Bold researchers speaking at the University of East Anglia today have revealed that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (a popular psychological treatment technique) may not be all it's cracked up to be. Indeed, some studies suggest that CBT is just as useful as other, less popular therapies, like "psychodynamics".

It all reminds me of a study on eradicating the fear of public speaking. Nervous speakers were allocated to three groups. One group received CBT, one group received Neuro Linguistic Programming training and a third group had no help at all. The results showed that the reduction in nervousness and a boost in confidence was equal across all three groups. In other words, CBT and NLP had the same impact as doing nothing. Sometimes, things get a fancy name and we suddenly believe they are wonderful, only to find we were merely impressed by the acronym. SEO...? I digress...!

CBT is one of the "talking" therapies. Psychologists or therapists guide clients and help them "deal with their issues" by talking about them. A recent post-9/11 study actually suggested NOT talking about things is better for you. Indeed, there is growing evidence that it's not "talking" that makes you better when you have a psychological problem - but "listening" instead. The stiff upper lip might be a good idea after all.

All of these recent raft of studies goes to emphasise the importance of listening. There's the old cliché that we have two ears and only one mouth, so we should spend twice as much effort on listening as we do on talking. But listening is important.

Take the case of Dell, for instance. They set up a "listening" web site called Ideastorm. Here, Dell customers could discuss ideas for improving products or for new products. They can vote on the ideas and comment on them. The result has been the incorporation of over 50 ideas from customers to Dell products and services. The Google Blogger, Matt Cutts, also recently emphasised the value of listening.

Most online businesses appear to think that the web is one-way; they forget that customers want to engage - they want to be listened to. So how much does your web site listen? What opportunities do your customers and potential customers have to be listened to on your web site? It might not be therapy, but if you demonstrate you are truly listening to them, it will certainly make your customers feel a whole lot better.

Listening to your online customers is much more important than any three letter acronym - including SEO.

Labels: internet, internet psychology, user-generated

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At July 08, 2008 9:10 PM  Jeremy Jacobs said…

At July 19, 2008 11:41 PM  Bryan McCrae said…

At July 20, 2008 10:21 AM  Graham Jones said…

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Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, is a highly decorated and very senior commander within the US Army. Not only is he a military hero, he is now a hero for bloggers and those interested in the whole concept of "user-generated content". LTG Caldwell has gone further than any other senior military commander in the USA in his support for blogging. Indeed, he has recently sent out a memorandum to his subordinates saying that "faculty and students will begin blogging as part of their curriculum and writing requirements both within the .mil and public environments". LTG Caldwell is the commander in charge of much of the US Army's education programmes. His memo makes it clear that blogging will become a way of life for the military. Because the US Army is to use blogging within the education of its troops and officers, the whole notion of blogging will start to seep into everything the US Army does. The educational basis for blogging will mean it becomes second nature to US Army personnel. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back.

Also note the words in the memo; this isn't guidance or suggestions, this is a military instruction. Consequently it WILL happen. Many American soldiers already write blogs, but this command is going to see a huge explosion in the numbers of military blogs being produced. To date, many in the military have campaigned against blogging because of the potential support it provides to "the enemy". Clearly the powers that be in the Pentagon are now convinced that the benefits of blogging outweigh the risks.

So, if the US Army reckons that blogging has so many plus points - and are prepared to insist upon its use in spite of the potential for informing "the enemy" - why do so many businesses ban blogging, or are simply ignoring it? Blogging is not something your business can ignore. In a sense, blogging is conversation between you and your customers and potential customers. Ignoring blogging is rather like setting up a High Street shop but keeping the doors permanently locked.

In a similar way, for the US Army, ignoring blogging would be rather like setting up camp and not even telling your own troops it existed. True the Army will also tell the enemy and true businesses will reveal loads to the competition. But to think that the enemy doesn't know where you are, or to think that your competition doesn't know much about you is simply naive. And that naivety could hold back the progress of your business.

Labels: blogging, internet psychology, user-generated

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The BBC has been pioneering the use of the Internet for several years. It has invested huge amounts of cash in its new media strategy and is seen as having real leadership position for the way it has incorporated the Internet into what was a rather fuddy-duddy organisation.

Now, though, it has started openly censoring user contributions to its web site. The Radio 2 presenter Sarah Kennedy has made several gaffes on-air, some of which have drawn public criticism. Audience members had made their feelings known on the BBC web site; but not any longer. The BBC has now announced that user contributions about Sarah Kennedy are banned.

At first sight this appears to make sense. After all, you would want to protect your employee and your investment in them. You might think that the negative views are minority positions anyway and so they shouldn't be given an unfair hearing. There again, if you were the BBC, you might not want your own web site to contain negative material about your organisation.

It's a new world online
Welcome to the new world BBC. We are going to have to live in a world where we do carry negative material about ourselves and our businesses on our own web sites. Audiences expect it; no longer is the biased, one-sided, overtly "promotional" view of a company or organisation acceptable. People now expect honesty and openness. Censoring the views of your audience is red rag to a bull, these days.

If the BBC had thought for a second they may have realised that online it is not possible to censor views. You might ban them from your own web site - upsetting your audience in the process - but you can't make those views go away. There are already a couple of anti-Sarah Kennedy groups on Facebook and a search amongst blogs finds a huge array of negative criticism of her - not much positive.

In the past we could have "buried" such negativity. People may have written and complained or phoned in with their criticisms, but the "public" would never have known. Organisations and companies have been able to sweep under the carpet all the negativity about their business for centuries.

Not any more. Even if you ban such negativity from your web site, it will surface and be made very public, very quickly. Businesses will avoid that situation if they accept negativity on their own web site. Transparency is the new order of the day - online you avoid that at your peril.

Labels: blogging, internet psychology, social networking, user-generated

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Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, was in London earlier this week speaking about the benefits of Web 2.0 for businesses. He'd highlighted what he was going to say in an interview last month with Computing magazine.

However, in spite of his enthusiastic support for Web 2.0 and online collaboration, most of the businesses who will have heard him or read about Web 2.0 are not convinced. According to research conducted by the IT services company, Parity, and published in their White Paper on Web 2.0, less than one in three businesses use any form of Web 2.0 technology. Almost a half said that they could see no benefit in Web 2.0 at all.

So, there's no benefit in being able to connect and converse with your customers? No benefit in allowing staff to collaborate more easily and effectively? No benefit in sales staff, for instance, sharing best practice?

Interestingly, the Parity research revealed that a significant slice of IT managers did not even understand what Web 2.0 was about. There is growing evidence that the modern way of doing business online is leaving traditional businesses behind. Is it any wonder when boardrooms are still full of people who would rather use a pen than an email? Or when IT specialists don't even understand the technology they are supposed to be responsible for? I'm predicting wholesale change in the FTSE100 in the coming years. We are going to see traditional big businesses disappear, being replaced by those "young upstarts" who use all that "internet thingy".

Labels: internet, social networking, user-generated

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At December 07, 2007 12:13 AM  Jeremy Jacobs said…

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I am sitting in my hotel room in the USA watching a fascinating CNN program which is a "debate" between the Republican leadership hopefuls. What is interesting is not what they are saying - usual political flim-flam that doesn't really answer the questions.

Rather, the interesting bit is what is going on with the way the program is being produced. The questions being asked of the Republican candidates by members of the public. Their questions were all submitted via YouTube. These videos are then being broadcast on CNN itself. Meanwhile, at CNN.com, the whole debate is being discussed online in a blog, as well as a rolling "ticker".

So "user generated content" has hit mainstream broadcast TV; and it is being used again to help produce a blog and further web pages. It is also creating a community of people whose questions have been chosen for broadcast, whose videos could attract more comment and answers than the CNN program can manage in just an hour.

The debate is likely to continue online in a multimedia way. Yet, will any of the old, grey-haired, wrinkled men (who are the candidates) get involved online? I doubt it - and that in itself probably tells us enough about their value as a president.

Labels: social networking, user-generated

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Online shoppers should be writing much of your web site. That's a clear conclusion from a new study of Internet retailers by the Internet marketing consultancy, e-consultancy.

Their study, done in conjunction with the social commerce organisation Bazaar Voice, shows that the presence of customer reviews of your products and services has a dramatic impact on your sales. According to the study, the presence of customer reviews can increase your conversion rates by 79%. Plus, the additional content provided by your customers helps search engine placing, improving things by an average of 59%.

Amazon led the way with customer reviews, such as these recent reviews of books. By adding such reviews, the credibility of the site and its products are increased.

For your web site this means adding facilities which enable people to add reviews of your products and services. One of the most popular ways of doing this is to add a script to your web site. A well known one is called Red Queen. Other are to be found listed on a script index. If you don't have the technical skills to add these scripts, many of the programmers who wrote them will do the installation for you.

You could also use a forum, a guest book, or blogging software to enable reviews. However, these are more cumbersome and more open to abuse. If you sell products online, having some kind of review system, though, appears to help you sell even more. So this should be a high priority item to consider.

Labels: shopping, user-generated

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Executives in some businesses have, in the past, been 'economical with the truth' - to say the least. Years ago the holiday industry in the UK was famous for publishing details of hotels that didn't actually exist. They would then take the booking, transport the holidaymaker to the destination and then say 'sorry, you'll have to go to another hotel.' This lie was exposed and new rules were set in place for the industry.

Yet, we still see examples of business executives interpreting the 'truth' in different ways to their customers. Software that doesn't do what the adverts claim, flights to airports that are not actually near the supposed destination and 'low fat' are all examples where marketers have tried to pull the wool over our eyes.

Well, according to Trendwatching, businesses need to watch out. Thanks to social networking sites, review sites and customer feedback pages, people are beginning to share their experiences of products and services, telling the 'truth' that perhaps eager marketers might not want us to know.

Thanks to the Internet, the future of business is going to have to be more transparent. Those companies who try to hide things from us are likely to suffer significantly, if not disappear altogether.

If you have an online business this all means that you simply have to be completely honest and transparent. No more 'marketing speak', no more 'puffery', no more hiding behind anonymity. Instead you are going to have to be upfront, open and honest - even if that means a particular product has fewer sales. So to overcome that, online entrepreneurs are going to need even more market research at the outset, so that they can be mroe frank when they actually launch their product or service.

Labels: future, internet, user-generated

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A new report on user generated video shows that almost half of all online video watched last year was provided by Internet users themselves. The report also predicts that this will rise to 55% by 2010. In other words, user generated content will dominate. However, for the online video sites user generated videos only represented 15% of revenues. That means more people watch user generated material, but they don't pay for it, or it doesn't support advertising. With the obvious benefits of user generated content and its attraction to Internet users, it is going to be tough for people to make money from it. It requires a wholesale change in business models and attitudes from company directors or individual marketers. Any ideas on how we can make money from user generated video content? So far, traditional models clearly aren't working well.

Labels: future, user-generated

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At January 19, 2007 12:16 PM  Doolols said…

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Google has just published it's list of the most searched terms for 2006. Seven out of the top ten are for user-generated sites. That tells us that most people are searching for sites where they can contribute - not just read. Your web site users want to take part - let them....! (By the way you can add your comments below....!)

Labels: user-generated

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You will have read a few times in this web site that user-generated content, in my view, is an essential component of a good web site. (You can add your comments below if you disagree..!) However, it's not just me bleating on about this. Every year, Time Magazine announces its "Person of the Year" and for 2006 it's person of the year "you". Time Magazine has awarded it's coveted prize to us, the people who contribute to web sites. The magazine believes that user-generated content is so vital to the global success of the Internet that the award this year has gone to the very people who write the web pages - you. Well done. However, the story has particular importance for people trying to run their business online; it shows how vital it is to engage your audience and get them involved in your web site.

Labels: user-generated

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As if the power of Google, MySpace and other big players isn't enough to convince you of the need for user-generated content, consider a report in this week's New Media Age magazine. A report on page 6 is headlined News International seeks user content for new free-paper site. The story goes on to report the fact that The London Paper is focusing on user-generated content for its online edition. According to the paper's online editor, James Law, they want to steer away from merely repeating the content of the printed newspaper. User-generated content allows them to do just that.

Labels: user-generated

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If your web site doesn't include the option for user-generated content, the chances are it won't be the kind of web site that is required in the near future. Up until recently the web was one-way - someone published a web site and someone else read it. Now, new technologies mean that the web can become two-way, with users adding material to your web site. Because some of the most popular web sites involve a great deal of user-generated material, many Internet users are becoming used to adding material to other people's web sites. If your web site doesn't allow user-generated content, fairly soon you will be seen as out of date, past it, non accessible.

As an example, Amazon allows users to generate content in the form of reviews and book lists. MySpace, Technorati and DiggIt are all entirely user-generated. Google is almost entirely user-generated. And look at what Google is cooking up for the future - almost everything in its labs section is devoted to user-generated content. This should be telling you something. It should be pointing out that those people who look to the future of the Internet believe that user-generated content is the way to go. If you don't cotton on to that thought, your web site may have no future.

Labels: user-generated

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I was chatting with Karen Skidmore today and we were discussing why women don’t take part in Internet activities as much as men do. I know that’s a sweeping generalisation but we agreed that on business sites, such as Ecademy, the bulk of the discussion is performed by men. Then we looked at Bounty which is frequented by first-time mums. This has an active and thriving online community, in spite of the fact that the participants must have more on their mind (with a young baby in hand) than contributing to an Internet site. So what gives women the incentive to take part in Bounty, but not Ecademy? For one, Bounty is clearly more “feminine” in its colours and approach. Ecademy is black and blue and very masculine in look and feel – in spite of the fact that it was invented by a woman (Penny Power). The fact that there are lots of men contributing in a very manly way, may also be a disincentive to women on web sites that include both genders. On Bounty, it’s clearly a women’s club, so perhaps they chat more freely because men are not taking part. Whatever the actual reasons behind the difference between Ecademy and Bounty, one thing is clear. If you are setting up a web site where you want involvement from as many people as possible, you need to take into account gender issues.

Labels: internet, user-generated

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All the media coverage would have us think that MySpace is the place where teenagers and those in their early 20s hang out. But demographic data from MySpace shows us that this is far from the truth. Indeed less than a third of the users of MySpace are aged under 24. The biggest age group, with almost 30% of MySpace usage are the 35–49s. What this shows us from an Internet marketing perspective is not to believe all that you read in the press. Instead, use actual data to guide you through the Internet marketing maze. If you want to target people in their 40s you may well miss out MySpace users. But with the demographic data in your hand, you would focus on MySpace. To help your online marketing campaigns, always use reliable data rather than guesswork.

Labels: social networking, user-generated

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