Had an interesting conversation with a group of people yesterday, and I think I failed because they were unwilling to commit to a social networking service. While I am not a sales person, I do think that social networking is one way of helping customers and companies connect. Connection, the 1 to 1 relationship is something that is slowly transforming how we do business and how we relate to each other. During the presentation, the people making the decision were against the social networking thing, and at the end of the discussion they were willing to look at it closer. I was hoping for a home run, taking a social networking skeptic to a social networking champion.

I should be happy with the idea that they are willing to go back and revisit the whole subject.

The problem is I was expecting them to green light the project.

When dealing with a company that is new to social networking they want to make sure that they are at least doing what the competition is doing. They want to know where the competition is, who they are talking to, what returns it has given to them in terms of locking down people to a product or service. The problem really boils down to what expectations were going along with the proposal, one wanted more information and they got enough to at least revisit the subject. The other problem was the expectations going into the room were on two opposite poles, one who is well versed, and the other that had already shut down the project in their own minds.

The fact that we were able to meet in the middle is the important part, and the good part. Not so much a failure, but a matter of different expectations that in the longer run keeps the door open to pursuing a social networking project. While eventually the organization will make the final choice, the presentation was good enough to at least keep the door open. In the political context of an organization, being able to sway hearts and minds is important.

While I know that politics has a major influence on the role and adoption of systems, it is interesting seeing it from the outside of the actual company. The decision process for starting anything right now, even a social networking project has to show where it worked for others, what they gained, how they did it, and what the pitfalls were to cut down on the risk of failure. While I think that yesterday’s meeting was a failure, in the longer run by showing that there is a value to social networking, it might just help a company, and their customers/clients in the longer run.

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