Investments in social IT can be just as beneficial, or even more beneficial, to a B2B.  Social business is not just for engaging customers to sell more products or services (although clearly this is a big opportunity for many companies).  Social business is about using new tools and platforms (which we call social IT) to support collaboration, engagement and innovation.  We wrote about these ‘big 3’ in an earlier blog.

So how does this play out in a B2B?  A B2B has customers and those companies are still businesses made up of people.  And we’ve seen even the most technical people engage in communities.  That means there is opportunity for value from investing in a social business strategy.

Leading edge B2Bs can take advantage of social IT and begin to create a social business in several ways.

Internal collaboration: Building a robust platform for connecting individuals within the company.  We’ve been chasing the knowledge management holy grail forever.  Using a social network within a company provides a way for employees to both find experts, share documents and collaborate on projects.  But the added features present in social IT allows individuals to create and organize their own space in a manner that better aligns with their way of working.

External collaboration: Social platforms provide that needed link between employees and customers.  Technical support for customers is one example.  The B2B builds the platform for collaboration where customers and employees both share experiences, answer questions and engage in dialogue that supports the entire community.  We’ve seen examples on Twitter, where customer support monitors and responds to tweets from customers, and customers support each other over the same space.  We’ve seen examples in LinkedIn and Facebook, and in private communities created just for the B2B and their customer base.  We’ve seen branded communities that grew out of listservs where those with technical expertise respond to and collaborate with other customers just because they are members of the community.

Innovation process: B2Bs use social IT platforms to solicit and prioritize innovations, features and next generation products. Innovation platforms give all members of the community an opportunity to suggest enhancements to existing products and comment on enhancements suggested by others.  Members of the community can ‘vote’ on innovations they like.  Innovation platforms prioritize the ideas giving managers valuable information to incorporate into the decision-making process on which features to incorporate into the product and contribute to the community with information on how they will proceed.

Customer Engagement: This is where social really shines for B2Bs, but in an unexpected way.  Community members of the B2B are invested in the products/services offered by their suppliers.   Often they have become specialists in the use of their suppliers products/services, and the community is a unique way to share and be recognized for that expertise.  Further, we have seen engagement in the B2B community contribute directly to recommendations, repeat purchases, and new purchases because the more active someone is in the community, the more satisfied and loyal they are.

Leaders in B2B companies can find significant value in social IT investments.  Like all information systems investments, leaders must insure alignment with business objectives, compatibility with existing enterprise systems, and a clear strategy that insures value is obtained.  It’s still early days for social IT, but it’s not the bleeding edge any longer.  B2B leaders must join the social revolution and reach out to their communities on social platforms.  Their competitors are already exploring the possibilities.

1. “Today’s business managers are tech-savvy. They have grown up with technology, they understand it and they want to make their own technology decisions. They do not need a CIO slowing things down and making it more complicated. And don’t bother offering yourself as a “consultant” to the business. If they want a consultant, they will hire one with the specific expertise they need. After all, such consultants are a dime a dozen.
2. “IT is ubiquitous and no longer offers a strategic advantage. It has become a commodity that can be purchased on-demand and in the cloud. (Notice your own words being turned on you.
3. “What can’t be bought in the cloud can be bought from an outsourced vendor. From desktop support to payroll processing and on to nearly every business process, there are plenty of competent outsourcers out there to get the job done.”

His solution is a return to focus on the roots of the CIO, a focus on information, which helps counter these three reasons, since information is the real asset that is managed by the CIO.

This blog is particularly insightful and worth reading, if you haven’t found it yet you can find it here.  But it misses one really important aspect of the CIOs role and the role of information systems in our organizations.  Information management does not exist in a vacuum.  It’s part of the overall business toolkit just like financial management, people management, process management, and operations management.  We cannot look at IT assets, whether data, information, systems, hardware, or the IT staff themselves, outside of the context of the business organization. All of these components must be in alignment with the corporate strategy.  When taken out of context, and manipulated without thought of the consequences of the impact on the other components, it’s a recipe for disaster.

At the same time, IT assets represent significant investment for any organization.  To manage IT assets as silos, without regard to the interaction between them is also a bad idea.  How many networks does an organization need?  How many relationships with the cloud provider does an organization need?  Who manages the corporate level issues that balance out the cost savings gained by centralization versus the local control offered by decentralization? An overall IT strategy must be put in place to insure that corporate interests are addressed.  Local decisions on technology, applications, and outsourcing may be the best solution for the organization but the economies gained by corporate solutions must be considered before letting “1000 flowers bloom”.  Without someone charged with overall responsibility for the information systems strategy, a corporation is essentially moving ahead without a rudder to guide the ship.

So where does that leave the CIO?  What is the CIO’s role today?  All of the ‘reasons’ suggested by Mr. Shiller are, in fact, true.  Decisions can be made locally by more IT knowledgable managers than ever before.  Purchasing resources in the cloud or from outsourcers can provide local solutions, perhaps far superior to what the internal staff can provide. But to examine them out of context of the organization without an overall plan is similar to suggesting that no overall financial planning is necessary or that no overall people management is necessary.  It’s folly.

The CIO’s role is to create, communicate, and execute the information strategy of the enterprise, making sure it’s aligned with the corporate strategy, and in balance with the plan for people, finances, and operations.  That might mean being an information advisor rather than an information provider.   It might mean a completely different skill set than CIOs of even 5 years ago needed.    But no one else in the organization follows the management of information end-to-end.  And no one else make sure that information decisions at the local level are also in the best interest of the overall organization.  The CIO does that.

IT Leaders may want to take note of his recent OpEd piece which compared the social revolution happening on Wall Street with another type of social revolution happening in Silicon Valley. To quote Friedman,

“It is the biggest leap forward in the I.T. revolution since the mainframe computer was replaced by desktops and the Web. It is going to change everything about how companies and societies operate.”

Friedman reports that the drivers of this revolution are the convergence of social media, cheap wireless connectivity, web-enabled smart phones, and the cloud. He particularly points out that the cloud is responsible for speeding up everything from innovation, to product cycles and competition since it allows anyone (read that as IT Leaders and their business partners) to ‘have the computing resources of Google and rent it by the hour.’

As we think about the social IT revolution now taking place, we have a number of voices speaking up about what it means.  I particularly liked the acronym shared by Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com:

S is for speed
O is for open
C is for collaboration
I is for individuals
A is for alignment
L is for leadership

This acronym is particularly useful for IT leaders, as it highlights some key systems characteristics: speed, open, collaborative, and some organizational characteristics: aligned, individually-focused, and the need for leadership (which is the vision of how it will align with the business objectives).

Benioff paints the vision for the social enterprise in several recent personal apperances. In a talk he gave for Dreamforce in August 2011, Benioff suggests that listening to the customer and the employee is at the heart of the social revolution. The CEO who doesn’t grasp this, does so at his or her own peril. Further, Benioff shares his observations about the subtleness of the emergence of this the revolution  in another talk.

Friedman concludes with a quote from the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner,

“The great thing about the new IT revolution is that it makes it easier and cheaper than ever for anyone anywhere to be an entrepreneur and to have access to all the best infrastructure of innovation. And despite all of our challenges, it’s happening here in America.”

What does this mean for IT Leaders? Dion Hinchcliffe nicely lays out the impact for IT leaders in a recent blog. In it he shares the Salesforce.com vision of a social layer on top of the applications and data layer.  

This implies that IT organizations, and those that lead them, are part of the revolution to transform their enterprise into a social business.  IT leaders may not be the ones to ‘own’ the social applications use in the business. Like all other uses of IT in the business, the business leader must be on board and at least jointly take ownership of the business impact and expected results.  But certainly IT leaders must be more than order-takers in this discussion of transformation. Technology decisions affect both the opportunities and limitations of future business decisions. After all, social IT must still work with the overall corporate enterprise architecture, conform to corporate standards of security, and integrate with the other organizational applications.  This transformation won’t be quick and it may not be painless, but it’s critical…the revolution is upon us.

Here’s the situation:  You send someone an email with a request.  How fast do they have to respond before you wonder if they are ignoring you or if the technology failed to put the email message in their inbox?  10 minutes? 1 hour? 1 day? 1 week?  Multiply that by the number of emails people get every day and you can see the quandary.   We can’t just drop everything to respond instantly to emails (although I admit, some days that seems to be the only thing I get done).  On the other hand, we don’t want to be rude and not respond in a timely manner. What is the new etiquette?

I did some research on this topic seeking advice and best practices.  There are many websites on this topic.  Here’s a few of the insights and recommendations I found:

First, the Bank of America’s Small Business site offers some advice to business owners.

How long does it take you to respond to an email? In the world of the internet waiting more then 24 hours is considered a long time! Recent studies have shown that you can get an indication about a person based on this issue of responding to emails. If it takes someone a long time to respond and it happens over and over again – then you know that this person simply doesn’t care about your email. Stay away from them and focus on building your business with serious people.

Miss Manners also had something to say about this:

Gentle Reader: 
As we are all slowly discovering, the problem with email, as well as its great advantage, is that it is efficient. So everyone uses it to convey every little passing observation to everyone else.

That is all very well for those who want to keep expressing themselves, but the result to the recipient, even aside from the spam and junk, is as if everyone one knows is talking all at once. Of course one should sort email out in terms of what needs attention when, but that is no sooner done than another load of messages arrives.

As you have noticed, some people just give up. So yes, Miss Manners is afraid that when you need an immediate reply, you will have to hope that they have not turned off their telephones and deserted their offices to work at home.

Virginia Shea has been crowned the “Miss Manners of the Net” in part because of her book, Netiquette, which outlines the do’s and don’ts of online communication.  Here’s her advice:

Q. My organization just installed an email system, and everyone is starting to use it. How often do I need to check my mail?

Preferably three or four times a day, but at least twice a day. You should always check your mail in the morning when you come in to the office and in mid-afternoon, or an hour or two before you leave. That way, you pick up messages that were sent while you were out of the office (late-evening messages if you’re a morning person, early-morning messages if you’re not) and act on them immediately. Your mid-afternoon check allows you to deal with the day’s business promptly. A midday check and a final check before you leave for the day are always a good idea, as well.

If you’re really too busy to check your mail that often, or if you’re going to be out for more than a day, consider deputizing someone to check and respond for you.

I also found a website on business etiquette written by Judith Kallos, an email etiquette expert who has written several books on this subject and has appeared on TV and radio shows to talk about business email etiquette.  Here’s a version of what she recommends:

What is the rule for how fast you should be responding to e-mails?

The short answer: As soon as you can.

The long answer: It is obvious that some e-mails will be more important to you than others. It also is clear that we only have so much time in a day and there will be days where you will be unable to reply to any e-mails at all. So, you do the best you can to reply to everyone as soon as you can.

Onliners look at e-mail as an instantaneous medium. They know that their e-mail is in your inbox waiting to be downloaded or ready for you to read usually within minutes to hours of clicking Send.

By not making the Sender aware you are away with a courteous away message, the Sender will assume their e-mail is received and if not responded to promptly, in your view, not a priority. If you are so busy that you cannot respond at all (you’re there but not “away” to require an away message be in place), you are in fact deciding to ignore the Sender — even if for the time being — and that’s exactly what they will assume. You’ve made a decision that their e-mail is not important to you or you would have responded.

There really is no gray area here. Perception is alive and well in regard to how quickly you respond to those who take the time to e-mail you. That is why it is so important to have a informative away message in place if you are not available at all. Senders will then understand if they don’t receive a prompt reply from you.  If you are simply swamped or have other responsibilities that keep you from responding in detail, a short message stating your situation and that you will respond in detail as soon as you can is highly recommended.

Remember, e-mail isn’t just about you, how busy you are or what you feel is important to you at that point in time. There is another human being involved (the Sender) on the other side of your screen who e-mailed you for a reason and is expecting your prompt response.

Finally, not all emails need a reply.  Here’s a short list from Scott Young, author of The LIttle Book of Productivity.  He wrote a blog, published at at PickTheBrain.com about email habits that make people hate you.  In it he came up with a list to help make the decision about when a reply is needed:

• Introductions – reply needed
• Requests – reply needed
• Thanks/Signing Off – no reply needed
• Mass Info Mailings – no reply needed
• Mass Request Mailings – reply needed
• Follow-up Questions – reply needed

So what can we take away from this research?  For emails, a response is expected fairly quickly, even if only to say that the recipient is busy and can’t give a long reply right now.  If you get an email, you need to reply promptly.  If you send an email, you can reasonably “expect” a reply promptly.

Realistically, however, we need new netiquette with the exploding number of electronic channels today.  Here’s my suggestion on the urgency communicated by each medium:

• Text- very urgent, quick reply expected
• Email- important, reply expected within reasonable timeframe (day or two)
• Facebook message- read it next time you are on Facebook, and reply in the same medium (within a few days)
• Linked In message- See Facebook message.  The expectations are the same.
• Phone Call- important, and expect real-time connection.  If voice-mail is left, expectations are that a return call, email or text will be forthcoming (within a few hours)
• Paper mail (snail mail)-  when it’s not junk mail, a physical letter implies a legal matter is at hand, a bill needs to be paid, an invitation has been extended or simply a formal connection is in the works. The communication is not urgent, and a reply is requested, but expectations are dependent on what the letter says.Urgent matters that come along with expectations of instant response aren’t sent by mail; they are emailed.

Enter Fast Company’s 30 Second MBA. The leaders at Fast Company have figured out what it takes to teach adults, and I’m impressed with their website. Talk about fast learning, this site features short 30 second video clips of advice and examples from leading executives from well-known companies. For example, recently Amy Radin, Chief Innovation Officer at E*Trade shared her thoughts on the question, “How do you acknowledge individual contribution in a collaborative environment?” Amy’s response?  To communicate, engage and recognize employees they have launched an innovation intranet and are about to launch an innovation challenge to surface, recognize and reward creative ideas from employees.

The format is very engaging. A question is posed, and someone of stature, expertise or reputation answers it. A clock on the video ticks down the time so you know it’s really just 30 seconds. Some of the more recent topics included:

-“How do you inspire a team that has failed?” answered by Ann Hand, CEO, Project Frog

- “What’s the best way to put a board together?” answered by Jared Hecht, cofounder of GroupMe and previously, the Business Development Manager at Tumblr

- “In a highly networked, global world, has the meaning of leadership changed?” answered by Alan Mulally, CEO Ford Motor Company

-“When should I leave my job and strike it out on m own?” answered by Conan O’Brien, TV personality

-“How do you know when it’s time for a change?” answered by Tony Hsieh, Founder of Zappos

Years ago, when I wrote my book, Zero Time, it had a chapter about Instant Learning. I envisioned a workplace where the information needed by individuals was available to them in the instant they needed it. In that book, we talked about Instant Learning as one of 5 disciplines needed for the ‘next generation enterprise.’ The other disciplines are Instant Value Alignment, Instant Adaptation, Instant Execution and Instant Involvement. Fast Company wrote about the book. Since then, Fast Company has documented many organization who respond instantly.  This time, they are the example; Fast Company’s site exemplifies instant learning.

Our companies can benefit from this case study, too. When thinking about delivering information and training to our staff, the focus must be on how they will consume the information. Do they have time for training classes? Can they find the expert they seek through the collaboration system?  Do they need information outside of the formal training classes?  Just like the Apple Apps Store is a model for delivery of applications, The 30second MBA is a model for delivering instant learning inside your company. Short videos of executives and internal thought leaders, organized around subjects or questions, can go a long way to create culture, share information, and enable staff to learn in the moment. That’s instant learning.

How do you learn?  And where do you find time to learn?

Tracking a process instantly is not new.  FedEx took tracking at new heights when it made package tracking the focus of it’s business years ago.  Sending a package by FedEx allowed a customer to track it through pickup, shipping and delivery.  Customers sent packages FedEx just so they could keep track of it until it reached its destination.  But tracking a pizza?  That’s a great idea.  A customer can watch his pizza go from order to delivery, through 5 steps:  Order placed, Prep, Bake, Quality Check, and Out for Delivery.  Certainly Domino’s has internally kept track of the process of it’s pizzas, but sharing it with customers is a brilliant integration of process management and customer relationship management.

Domino’s takes it even further.  Customers can submit a review of their experience online.  Many companies have that function.  But at Dominos, reviews, good and bad, are then broadcast in Time Square on a large screen for the world to see.  Clever.  Their future customers can watch real customer reviews scroll across in big, bright lights.  Wonder how to get potential customers to see the reviews of your current customers?  Buying space in Time Square is clearly one way.  Watch this video to see it in action.

Dominos has taken the customer experience to a whole new level with the Tracker. Other companies can learn from this case, too.  Making your production process transparent to your customers is one lesson.  Customers enjoy seeing the process you take to create their product.  This applies to any product or service customized for each customer, like cars, laptops (remember Dell Computer’s build to order concept?), and even pizzas.

But the idea of broadcasting the reviews in Time Square makes Domino’s Pizza Tracker something to buzz about.  It becomes a media event.   Perhaps more subtle, but just as important, is the effect on customers (and even employees, as shown in their video).  Imagine seeing your review and your name in lights above Time Square.  All can be had for the price of a pizza.  Brilliant!

Then along came smart phones, text messaging, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, company social networks and of course my personal cell, office and home phones, my personal and office emails, and my multiple voice mailboxes.

Now it’s not so simple to reach me.  You need to know many more contact addresses and numbers.  You need to know which of these places I’m checking today and when I’m likely to check them.  If you want me to respond quickly, you need to call special attention to your message so I know it’s urgent.  And you need to hope that I’m checking the place where you left a message and that I find it.

I’d prefer to know where you are leaving your message so I know which place to check.  Of course, I’ll respond quickly, but it may not be quick enough since I do have other things going on besides checking all these places for messages.  So you may need to leave me a second message, maybe on a different medium.  So goes our attempt to have a dialogue using electronic media.

Today our ‘contact list’ includes several ways to reach everyone.  Our efforts to be always connected have an unintended consequence of also making it significantly more difficult to communicate.  It’s more time consuming since we may have to check multiple ‘places’ to reach each other.   It’s more complex since we may leave multiple messages on different media just to make sure we connect.  And it’s more difficult to respond, since once we get a message, we have to figure out how to respond, starting the cycle all over again. All of this is on top of the new expectations that once we leave a message, we will hear back quickly.

So you see the dilemma.  You not only need my contact information, but you need to know which is my preferred medium at the time you want to reach me.  Then you have to keep it updated so you are not sending messages into a black hole where I used to be.  And of course, you may be expecting me to get back to you as soon as I can, and you are wondering if I didn’t get back to you yet because you didn’t use the right channel, you have the wrong contact information, or maybe I’m just plain busy.

How silly is this? It’s really hard to be instantly responsive.  There must be a better way for us to find each other these days.  There must be a better way to harness the power of multiple channels, multiple media and multiple places to leave messages.  Today’s way of communicating is just to complicated and it’s getting in the way. How do you handle this?  I’d really like to know.

And don’t worry, I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can.  Thanks for leaving me a message.  What’s the best way to reach you?

Not only is this a heartwarming story about the good side of humanity and the extraordinary efforts of a few to help those they don’t know, it’s also an interesting story about being instantly responsive.  By using Facebook, Ms. Bullion created a way to instantly find the lost owners of found items.  According to the New York Times, “the first images that Ms. Bullion has posted was identified a few hours later by the sister of the two children shown in the black and white photograph.”  It’s fantastic that these treasures will be reunited with their owners at all, but it’s incredible how fast this has happened.  The disaster happened on a Wednesday.  By that night, items were being posted on this Facebook page and the conversations began.  Comments like “wow. those kids favor Laura and Carlos” and “I know for a fact that this is ours;) I have emailed you about this. Will you please get back with me as soon as you get a chance. Thank you so much.” were posted soon after.  As I write this, 3 days later, the Facebook page has over 65,000 people ‘liking’ it and, with the NY Times article, has garnered global awareness for the human interest story and the possibility of reuniting people with their items.

This Facebook page may only be relevant for a relatively short period of time. Like many other groups, this one has come together for a purpose and will likely disperse after that purpose is served.   It will have connected a number of people with items they lost, and I predict it will also connect those people with the people who found them, creating a new community.   While this is a big positive-side-of -humanity story, it’s also a story about social networking creating temporary communities to be instantly responsive to a current need.

Thank you to Patty Bullion for being so forward thinking and so giving of her time.  It’s been inspiring to me and I’m really looking forward to hearing about all the successful reunions that her site has generated.

I got snapshots to show my family. And all of this was courtesy of YouTube, the Royal Wedding Official website, Twitter and the BBC.

About thirty years ago I watched Diana and Charles marry.  I remember that day too…sitting with my roommates Lois and Carol and watching the TV.  There was probably live coverage for that wedding too.  But I recall seeing Diana’s wedding dress and thinking how romantic it all looked.  But this time it was very different:  No roommates around and my family sleeping in the next room, yet this time I felt more connected to the event.  What was different? I think it was the clever use of technology that made this incredible affair both intimate and public.

This time the web brought the wedding into my home in a very different way than the TV did so many years ago.  This time I was watching the BBC’s live feed on YouTube.  In a separate window I was on twitter, where a conversation was taking place with the press and other royal watchers. I was able to instantly download clips of segments of the ceremony that happened before I got online. I was able to see the clip of Prince William and Prince Harry leaving Clarence House and Catherine arriving at Westminster Abbey.  I saw Elton John singing in Church.  I felt the excitement of watching a new bride and groom walk down the aisle together for the first time as man and wife.  I was able to take ‘snapshots’ of key scenes on my laptop (much better ones than I would have had if I’d actually been there). Further, I was able to read comments and banter with others who were just as into the event as I was.

What’s interesting about all of this is the instantly available information, video, photos, commentary and community involvement.  In the past, there would have been reporters TV crews recording every aspect of the event, and we’d get to see their videos and read their stories when they were ready to show them to us.  This time, and with all the instantly available mechanisms, we not only see what the reporters record, but we see what the common people think, see, and record.  We see many different views give the many different audiences, all at the same time.  It’s a community event where everyone in the community can participate instantly.   It’s also instantly archived.  All of our interaction is preserved, for better or worse, to be retrieved later.  So what was instantly available is also continually available for review at our convenience later.

This has implications for how our enterprises might think about information dissemination.   Royal Weddings bring out the ‘everyman’ and increase exposure to and comfort with these technologies.  As our communities become increasingly used to online interaction, the broadcast mediums of the past give way to the interactive mediums of the present and future.  Events not near as grand as the Royal Wedding, but just as important to their respective communities, can reach their communities, even if geographically dispersed, in a much more intimate way than ever before.   It’s that coupling of intimacy, instant availability to a broad group, and archiving of it all for later review (with strong search engines that make it retrievable) that we saw used so boldly with the Royal Wedding and that our executives can learn from for their future interactions with their communities.

PS: It’s now the next day, April 30, and I’ve learned from the NY Times that the estimated audience was 3 billion.  This won’t be the last time we see an intimate community of this size, given the capabilities and reach of our newest social technologies.  Maybe next time we’ll have holographic images that add the dimensionality to the video and photos of the day, and we can feel like we’ve really brought the event into our living rooms, or our desktops.

The service is scheduled to launch in April, so it’s not yet proven. But from the description of the service, it has all the hallmarks of a very successful app. Here’s how it is supposed to work:

You are standing on the street corner deciding where to eat. You tap the “I’m hungry” button. Up comes a list of restaurants nearby and the deals they are offering at that moment. Each eatery has offered a coupon good for food for a specific day and time when their tables would otherwise be empty. You want to eat, and they want you to eat there right now. It’s brilliant. It’s simple. and it’s instantly responsive. Restaurants who do fill up can then remove their coupon. Bowling alleys who fill their lanes can remove their coupon. And consumers like you and me can get the value of a Groupon without purchasing it days or weeks prior and then forgetting to use it. You can purchase it in the moment and use it then.

The characteristics that will make it successful are:

1.  it’s simple to use.  Apparently Groupon staff wrestled with a number of options but settled on two very simple buttons, I’m hungry and I’m bored, for the interface. It makes this easy to use, intuitively obvious how to use it, and functional.

2. it’s useful, instantaneous and relevant.  The vision for this app is to use it when we are looking for a place to eat or something to do.  It’s designed to fill a need we have at the moment we have that need.  It provides options, so it’s not autocratically telling us what to do, but the options are limited to what’s available, so it’s manageable from Groupon’s perspective (it’s not all the restaurants in the area, just the groupon coupon-providing ones).  This follows the principles we’ve discussed in an earlier blog about Zero Time Organizations.

3. it doesn’t depend on the masses to be useful.  While I like the idea of having a critical mass of interest before a deal is on, I like the idea even better that a deal is on just because it’s offered and I want to do it.  There’s no stress wondering if a deal is going to make it, and no lag time between when I find it and when I get it.  The transaction happens without another party’s involvement.  Many apps, trying to build on the benefits of social, end up being dependent on the masses to make them a trendy app or not.  Unlike it’s parent app, Groupon Now will work just because I want to buy and the vendor wants to sell.

I can see applications for this type of instant mobile app in many other industries. A retail store can offer spot discount coupons for overstocked items. My daughter would certainly hound me to take her to our local Forever21 if she had this app with a coupon for a significant discount on jean shorts or trendy tank tops. My local grocery store could use this type of coupon to sell all the roasted chickens they made before the end of the day (or right before dinner time) when we are all there trying to figure out what to serve the family tonight. The gas station could tell me about a discount car wash when their system was open. Granted, at the moment, these are all consumer-oriented businesses, but give the industry a minute or two and I’m sure there will be apps for b-to-b, non-profits, educational institutions and others, too.

For this to work, Groupon is asking us to form a new habit…one of checking Groupon whenever I am about to go to a restaurant or recreational spot. Right now I ask my husband where we should eat, or go to the movies (and if you are like us, it’s a constant source of tension…I think I’m being inclusive, he things I’m being indecisive). But a list of instantly usable Groupons for places nearby would definitely factor into our decision. And that is why it will work. The vendors win, the customers win, and Groupon wins. The only group to lose are the vendors who are userped by their competitors who get my business in the moment, because they were not on the list of choices when I checked Groupon Now. My biggest problem with Groupon is that I purchase coupons, then either forget to use them, or when I go to use them the resataurant is so crowded that we can’t get in.

I am excited about this new app and I can’t wait for them to offer it in Austin. Come on guys…I’m hungry and after writing this blog, I’ll be bored.