Posts Tagged growth

Best Buy Reorg and an Open Social Approach

Best Buy has been forced like many companies to make tough decisions with the economic downturn.   Recently, a voluntary buyout was offered to all corporate employees.  On Jan 5th, employees had to decide whether Best Buy was the company they wanted to work for.  It was a tough week as people turned in their decisions.  Barry Judge, our Chief Marketing Officer blogged about his perspective on the package (read it here).  I think he wraps up most people’s feelings who decided to stay.

Gary Koelling and I decided to stay.  We did for a lot of reasons but one of the big ones for me, was the major transformation I feel like Best Buy is going through.  It feels like this is one of the major milestones that will define Best Buy’s future.  How we choose to organize to do work.  How we choose to talk to/with our customers.  How we choose everything now is different.  Its no longer business as usual and this isn’t a blip in the road.   Read the rest of this entry »

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Guest Blog- Social Technology in a Tough Economy

Blog excerpt from Gary Koelling at www.garykoelling.com.  Get it all here:

Social Technology in a Tough Economy

My social Network on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter...

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Here’s how it goes. When times get tough people get a bunker mentality. Lots of de-risking behavior.  Cover up. Cut costs. Consolidate. Anything that looks like it might not work out is set aside. Any exposure to dependencies, internal or external is scrutinized and minimized. Most anything ‘new’ gets a bullet. New products, ways of doing things and new ideas in general are eschewed in favor of the familiar.  Everyone is thinking this way, you and your customers.  No new spending. No new initiatives.  New? No.  Whatever companies or brands were making or doing before the downturn looks and feels highly experimental. Anything ‘experimental’ or ‘unproven’ makes a natural target in a down market. And for a lot of companies, social media or social technology will fall into the category of new.

So this is bad news for social tech / social media. Right? Not really.

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