I was re-reading a blog post I had starred called
The Situationally Aware Business. Great post about a companies awareness of their brand, customers and world around them in real-time.
I am always blown away by how ignorant many companies I work for are about their customer base, their industry, and other elements of their business. Some companies pick one competitor and are obsessed with monitoring them, while others have no benchmark of who the competitors are or what they are doing.
I have worked with several companies on their social media marketing efforts, even went so far as to develop strategy for an entire "social media department" at one company. All of them talk about wanting a social media initiative but all key stake holders have no clue what this means. Many companies view employees who read blogs via RSS as play time right along with social networking and social media activities.
I am just getting back into my groove with my Google Reader and the tech and cloud computing blogosphere after a grueling spring of events / conferences. It makes me feel naked, alone, and ignorant to not be reading my blogs and understand who the leading tech players and technologies area.
Companies should be employing RSS for basic blogosphere monitoring to develop an understanding of their industry, customers, and the competition. All companies should have active RSS monitoring and collaboration programs within key leadership if not the entire company. Then a company might have the capacity and tools to even think about becoming a
situationally aware business.
