Community: a term that has been given new life in our vocabulary of late. The common connotation today is a collective of enthusiastic people organized around the lifestyle, activities and/or ethos of a brand in an online channel(s).

The term “community” has been anointed with a multitude of mystical powers thanks to Web 2.0 and Social Networking

Ok, so your business is no longer the industry leader. You’ve lost your market dominance. You’ve lost the support of your core audience and supporters. Your sales have plummeted beyond even the worst predictions. Your product has become a laughing stock.

What do you do? Well, I can tell you what you don’t do. You DON’T Wake Up Bold!

Research In Motion (RIM) recently staged a mock protest outside of an Apple Store in Sydney, Australia with the chant: Walk Up Bold!

Successful businesses must now stand for a great idea, not a great product.  Products, no matter how great they may be are commodities. The need for a product or the value it has in a consumer’s life is too easily dictated by public opinion – to its benefit or its detriment.  Business leaders looking for an edge must create another point of differentiation: the brand’s ideology. 

Brand Ideology is that almost mystical association a product or business has with the aspirations, beliefs and lifestyle of its target market.

Winning requires the ability (and courage) to change the rules of the game completely. Innovation must be so radical that the competition is left scratching their heads.  

This is the first in a new series of posts that will set forth challenges for businesses looking to change the rules of the game in their industries. However, before any discussion of tactical changes in business functions can be had, we must look at changing an underlying business philosophy; one so critical to the process that if you cannot muster the courage to change it, you might as well forget the rest. 

Last evening’s #bizforum Twitter debate focused on the impact of social media-powered customer service on the brand. We saw an excellent exchange on both sides of the various resolutions that were being debated but one had the community divided more than others:  how does a brand close the Twitter-loop on a customer service issue?

The assertion was most businesses who respond to customer complaints on Twitter do so with the standard: “

we hear you…we’re sorry…call us and we’ll take care of it for you

” message. We’ll assume for a moment that most of these issues are resolved satisfactorily offline, yet how many customers then take to the Twitter stream to publicly acknowledge their satisfaction?