Regular readers of Wikinomics.com will likely know that we’re gearing up to publish version 1.0 of the Wikinomics Playbook — the first peer produced guide to business in the twenty-first century — this fall. To keep the momentum going over the summer months we’re issuing weekly challenges to the Wikinomics community. Last week’s challenge was to rethink public relations for a world where traditional PR and spin are increasingly impotent tools. 6 days, 12 editors and 34 edits later, the Wikinomics Playbook’s Chapter on Open PR was written. Here’s an excerpt:
Traditionally the role of the public relations department was to control the flow and angle of information that went to company stakeholders. Making that process open and transparent involves rethinking the relationships with all your stakeholders, including the company’s own employees. Leading companies struggle with the concept for a number of reasons.
- Losing control of the information – PR departments struggle with the concept of not controlling the flow of information, or even having it released by other parties in the organization. It is a challenge for PR to understand that the message they communicate can be edited, added to and altered by other employees within the firm.
- Privacy and Intellectual Property – A companies worst fear is having trade secrets, new products and other private information leaked to the public by employees. The suggestion of Open PR will have legal departments scared stiff, now that anyone can post or private mission critical data on the web. The fact of the matter is that you must treat employees like adults. Typical employees don’t share company secrets on an internet chat room where they can potentially remain anonymous, so why would they post proprietary information on an Open PR wiki where their contributions are clearly tracked.
- Open PR but is great, but don’t tell sales and marketing – This is a problem that has cropped up in a number of large IT, software and manufacturing companies. R&D and product development teams are more than willing to be open and transparent with customers and clients, because there is an understanding that in the information being conveyed is in ‘beta’. Some of the ideas may never come to market, some may unofficially be released to the community, but never sold as part of a branded offering. The fear is that if Sales and Marketing get a hold of this information they will start selling and marketing these products that may or may not ever exist. This creates a disconnect between customer expectations and creates mistrust between employees.
A special thank you goes out to our leading Open PR editors Alex Todd (a Stakeholder Trust Consultant), Kate Raynes-Goldie (a PHD Candidate in Social Interaction), and (Business Model Strategist) Ron Long.
In this week’s challenge, the Wikinomics crowd will be opining on the future of popular culture. How might mass collaboration transform music and other cultural products? Could the masses have written a better end for the Sopranos TV series? Thousands of fans are writing their own endings anyway – so why not harness this enthusiasm? Does Wiki culture have a dark side?
You can wiki your thoughts here: http://www.socialtext.net/wikinomics/index.cgi?collaboration_for_culture
