Groundswell: Imagine…Lovely Atlanta Weddings

“Technology is shifting so quickly—chasing it is like trying to jump on a speeding merry-go-round. The resulting dizziness is what causes groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome” (67). I found this analogy that Bernoff and Li use in Chapter 4 to be very on point. Although I am not a CEO of a company or even employed yet, I can see how business people fall victim to “groundswell-avoidance syndrome.”

Bernoff and Li explain that when people know they or their company need to get involved with the groundswell, but become nervous or overwhelmed as to how, they develop “groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome.” I can see how this would be a very easy syndrome to adopt, but after reading this chapter and thinking of hypothetical situations, I feel I could successfully develop strategies for tapping the groundswell.

The “POST method” for people, objectives, strategy and technology, is the technique Bernoff and Li consider the groundswell planning process. Once you have used this method to analyze your particular situation, you must pick one of five primary objectives that best illustrates the goals of your company or organization. Finally, Bernoff and Li list four helpful suggestions to successfully execute your strategy.

I was reading through this chapter and taking in the instructions, and I began to think of a hypothetical situation. Then I would ask myself what I would do in that situation. As I have stated in other blogs, I would love to work in wedding planning one day.  I began to picture myself working for a wedding planning company in Atlanta, Ga. Let’s just call it Lovely Atlanta Weddings. Lovely Atlanta Weddings is a young company only a few years old. It has a good corporate structure, uses marketing methods well (banner ads, search ads, email) and everything is working well internally. It is making decent profits, but is looking for new ways to attract clients. Their main competition has a MySpace page where previous, current, and prospective customers exchange information. This page is doing very well, and Lovely Atlanta Wedding has taken note.

Making up this hypothetical situation, I was able to think about what I would do for Lovely Atlanta Weddings. Using the “POST method” we can look at what we already know about our current situation. We share the same young target audience as our competition, and we know our competition’s MySpace page is doing very well in terms of information exchange. We know our customers are willing to join social network sites, post personal information, ask questions and comment on other’s posts (we know this from following our competitor’s MySpace page). Our main goal is to attract new clients by spreading messages about our company. Thinking about this, we can conclude that Lovely Atlanta Weddings’ main objective, as listed by Bernoff and Li, is “Talking.”

“Talking” means that we want to “use the groundswell to spread messages about [our] company.” It also means that Lovely Atlanta Weddings currently uses marketing well but is “ready to extend these marketing initiatives to a more interactive channel” (68). Lovely Atlanta Weddings should start their own blog on their website, a question and answer board, and/or even their own social network site. Because we know our target audience is willing to be active in social network sites, we know that there could realistically be participation. This site would allow clients to talk about their experience with us, post pictures from their own wedding, and most importantly it would spread information to potential customers.