As practitioners in the customer feedback game, we are only too aware of customer voices falling on deaf ears. And with the explosion of social media the imbalance between "user generated content" vs "enterprise generated action" has become the herculean challenge. Which is why any mechanism that enables an organisation to listen more effectively is, well frankly, gold.

This TED talk, Listening to Global Voices by Ethan Zuckerman is something of wake-up call. It is very easy for us - especially the digital us - to imagine that a global internet infrastructure means that we are all somehow automatically connected and gaining a broader worldview.

Resonate is pleased to announce the appointment of Darren Sharp as Senior Consultant, Community Management. Darren brings with him years of consulting and research experience in social media, online communities and user-led innovation. He has been particularly active most recently in the Gov 2.0 space working with a range of high-profile public sector clients on community engagement projects. Over to Darren who'd like to share his thoughts on some of the latest news related to customer co-creation activities. Jeff

The software industry and its acolytes have always fascinated me - even moreso as some of its fundamental tenets are challenged. So it was with great interest that I read Gartner's take on so-called "social software". And to be truthful, I was pleasantly surprised with the clarity of their analysis. Afterall, this is an emerging market dominated by the behaviour of that most unpredictable stakeholder - you & I - in our various social guises of customer, employee etc....

One phenomenon that no longer surprises us (though it still puzzles us in some product categories) is the considerable effort that some people will put into an online community that interests them.

For those of us involved in building healthy online communities, or indeed anyone just curious of where the social web will go, the emerging science of social networks is fascinating. Tim touched on an aspect of this his last post and as practitioners we are all learning - both from academia (see Duncan Watts Six Degrees - the Science of Connected Age) and from real lessons on the ground.

An explosive mix of social media, online communities, text analytics & visualisation technologies together with Net Promoter Score (NPS) programs is presenting marketers with the opportunity to deliver on the type of Customer Relationship Management vision promised 10-15 years ago. In my humble opinion of course... but as practitioners, we are now seeing some of the more innovative companies closing in on this position.

"Reach over 350 million active users on Facebook. Learn how to connect your business with real customers through Facebook Ads" - so goes the Facebook online pitch.

From a marketing viewpoint, when you look at the large public social sites such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter - are you just looking at traditional mass media advertising applied to a new channel?

The great challenge for contemporary marketing is summed up very nicely in Rethinking Marketing (Harvard Business Review, Jan 2010):

'Never before have companies had such powerful technologies for interacting directly with customers, collecting and mining information about them and tailoring their offerings accordingly.

And never before have customers expected to interact so deeply with companies, and each other, to shape the products and services they use.'

"The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." (William Gibson)

And so it is with organisations and brands as they experiment with social media how best to operate in the (increasingly) connected era.