Comments on: The art of listening 2009: it's not just for customers anymore

By: Public Relations in 2009 « Nick Lucido’s Blog

Public Relations in 2009 « Nick Lucido’s Blog — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:08:05 +0000

[...] seen a lot of posts going around about social media in 2009, specifically ones from Brian Solis, Shannon Paul and Todd Defren. Check them out – those are some pretty solid posts. So in anticipation of the new [...]

By: Richard Anstruther

Richard Anstruther — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:21:27 +0000

Shannon,

Listening is hard for quite a lot of reasons, but two notable observations stand out: when you ask trainees to nominate someone for a Gold Medal in listening, their total pool of candidates is 1-2 people from their entire lives. Which means that we have very few role models.

The brain processes words way faster than speech. So getting lost in our own dialog fills in the ‘spare time.’ Cultivating presence, or a laser-like attention, is the first step to listening mastery.

I hope this helpful. For me superb listening [and of course, responding] is one of the keys to life. I’ll leave you with this quote:

‘The reward for listening when you’d rather be talking is wisdom’. Anon.

By: penina

penina — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:35:17 +0000

To those of us whose first response to this article is (or was), “Of course! I am already doing that!” I’d like to share my personal take-away after reading: “I can ALWAYS listen MORE.”

Thanks, Shannon!

By: Jesse Liebman

Jesse Liebman — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:48:49 +0000

If we all executed the philosophy of, “actions speak louder than words,” not only would be integrate the preaching of listening, but we’d follow through on those spoken desires.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:37:20 +0000

Steve – Love that you commented! :) The felt need is the issue, but to be fair, companies often want the benefits and the intangible cool-factor that come along with social media engagement, but they’re not always willing to let down the barriers in the most ideal way to achieve success. This calls for a lot of creativity on the part of anyone hired or contracted to implement social media strategies. How can we be successful and take baby steps?

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:35:13 +0000

Sonny- Thanks! I wrote this because I realized I had been guilty of this kind of broadcasting within my own company and community. At some poitn I asked myself, ‘should I keep telling others to listen or show them how it’s done…?’

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:57:32 +0000

Rebecca – Great point! If other parts of the company aren’t in a position to support this kind of outreach that definitely makes things much more difficult. I’m not familiar with this particular company or the circumstances, but adding a social component to something the company already does well can be a better place to start since they’re more confident about their abilities and any improvements/cost savings will be greatly appreciated. Things don’t have to be extremely complicated and often there’s a work around. If one area of the company adopts a more social strategy and is also successful, that success can translate into upper management suggesting changes to the other departments in order to follow suit.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:51:06 +0000

Thanks, Todd! I appreciate the positive feedback. Hopefully I can come up with more good things to keep you coming back.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:49:31 +0000

Matthew – There is a lot of fun to be had with social media, but waiting for anyone else to “get it” isn’t going to get most people anywhere. Large organizations, to some extent, may allow us to handle the social media stuff, but in most instances we can’t expect them to learn to speak our language without first learning theirs. It’s just polite. Sometimes we have to remember who’s house we’re in.

By: Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:09:19 +0000

Eric – I love your perspective and experience as well as your willingness to experiment with so many social media tools in your business. The people steering the ship of an organization are usually found at the top. Can the way corporations do business change? Sure. Should it change? Probably. Can we change it by fighting those at the top? No way. Even in companies that recognize the need for change, fostering relationships and trust is necessary to convincing anyone to do something as contrary to the status quo as engaging in social media-style conversations.