netzooid

Good adivce from Scoble for all my corporate PR & sales friends:

My friends have been asking me “why doesn’t Wall Street believe Steve Ballmer?”

That’s an easy one. Cause he didn’t convince the grass roots influence networks first. Why have Google and Apple done so well in the last three years? Cause the grassroots loves them. That’s the [power] of the industry. Ideas here don’t come from the big influencers and move down. No, they start on the street and move up. Anyone miss how Google got big? Not by throwing a press conference.

I believe there is a word for this… disintermediation. The great thing about making people in your organization available at conferences and on blogs, is that you’ve cut out the middle man. You’re getting the real deal from the real source. Thats why its so interesting to read Robert’s blog, or Jonathan Schwartz’s or any number of other people’s. Provided you have a compelling story, people will go on to talk about you.

This meshes really well with open source. It starts at the developers (the roots) and works its way up. You don’t even need a big marketing budget. If everyone on the street is using you, the press, analysts, big companies, etc will have to take notice. (Of course some of this is because the software is free as well, but I think the point still stands…)