At today’s Social Ad Summit in New York City, Wikipedia founder co-founder Jimmy Wales gave a keynote presentation on the art of community — how to term it, time it, tame it, and trust it. Wales is in the midst of a new project called Wikia and said that its growth has followed that of Wikipedia. He described Wikia as a consumer publishing platform where millions of passionate fans come to discover, create and share a shocking abundance of information on thousands of topics. The man knows a thing or two about wikis.

Here are Wales’ five community commandments:

1. It isn’t about crowdsourcing.

Wales rejects the term made popular by Wired magazine editor Jeff Howe. The term, crowdsourcing, Wales said, misidentifies what’s going on on the Internet. The word is drawn from the term “outsourcing” which generally involves cheap labor. This, Wales stated, associates the community with forced labor. People don’t participate in online communities if they don’t want to. It’s more like a bowling alley, Wales suggested. People come to the community to do what they want to do — there’s nothing forced about it.

2. Growth takes time.

On average, Wikipedia entries, grow at a rate of 6-8 percent every month. It’s not like Facebook because Facebook isn’t a community, Wales said. Facebook is a tool that connects already connected communities. Communities, which are building blocks of social networks, take much longer.

The term “wiki,” however, is flourishing. Wales said that “wiki” has surpassed “blog” in search terms.

3. The world is becoming more information dense.

And, Wales stated, culture is getting smarter. Just look at the evolution of popular television shows. I Love Lucy –> Mary Tyler Moore –> Seinfeld. Storylines have become more complex. Take the show Lost, for example, fans gather in Lostpedia to learn more and try to understand the intricate details of the plot and characters. “Shows are now too complicated to watch,” Wales said. Viewers must look to superfans (like the participants in the Lostpedia network) to help them understand what’s happening.

Products are smarter, too — Just look at televisions and recording systems today.

4. Openness is not the enemy of quality.

Wales referenced a study a few years back that showed that, on average, there are four errors in a Wikipedia post. However, the same study found that there are, on average, three errors in each Encyclopedia Britannica post. The speaker said he doubts as many errors are live today; however, he admits that its not perfect. To address misuse and tampering of entries, the Wikipedia team will temporarily protect posts. “But we don’t like it,” Wales said.

Openness is of utmost important with online communities. He then mentioned Canon’s Hacker site in which the company allows a wiki site to educate consumers on how to hack into their Canon cameras and change the hardware. For the most part, though, Wales said, “We haven’t reached the point where companies are embracing this idea.”

5. The world is global.

Wikipedia is converted into more than 175 languages and Wikia is headed down the same path. Wales used superstore Wal-Mart as a comparison. Wal-Mart although dually criticized for this strategy, tapped into the power of business in small towns. The retail giant went into towns deemed too small for most other chains, and found great success.

First, Happy Halloween!

OK, that’s out of the way. To me, the best part about Halloween is that it marks the unofficial beginning of the holiday shopping season. At Macy’s in Herald Square, just a quick jaunt around the corner from CRM magazine’s office in Midtown Manhattan, you can already see Christmas lights being strewn up in preparation.

Not only are people getting a head start on hanging lights to spread holiday cheer, but they are also shopping earlier. With an economy that make many say “no, no, no” instead of “ho, ho, ho,” consumers are looking for the best prices as early as possible as their budgets for discretionary purchases continue to shrink.

With less than two months left until floors are littered with torn wrapping paper with images of sleighs, Charlie Brown, snowmen, and other images of holiday yore, many small businesses looking to cash in during this usually prime shopping season seem to be increasingly focused on shoring up the customer experience it provides to those poring through their shelves — or online catalogs. As my fellow CRMer Lauren McKay points out in an earlier blog post, the stakes are even higher this year for businesses because of the economic downturn.

A study conducted by RatePoint, a Needham, Mass.-based customer feedback solution provider for small-to-midsize businesses (SMB) finds companies are getting the message loud and clear:

• more than 80 percent said business reputation and solid customer support impacts their ability to attract and retain consumers;
• forty percent report they are hiring up to five new employees for customer support over the holidays to help manage inquiries, orders, and returns; and
• most will spend an average of 10 hours monitoring their reputation to safeguard against any possible early warning signs of customer issues.

To Richard Turcott, chief marketing officer or RatePoint, this shows him many in the SMB segment are realizing the importance of forging quality customer relationships, as he says this is directly correlated with company reputation. He was particularly shocked by the second survey nugget, the fact that almost half of SMB owners say they’re hiring up to five new employees despite the economic environment.

While he admits the new hires may not all be full time, it is the principle that matters most. “The SMBs are sticking their necks out, providing exemplary support, and demonstrating they are customer-centric businesses,” he says. “These [new additions] are primarily part-time employees, but [nonetheless] provide a great view in which the small business community sees feedback and service as an important driver to helping them stay strong through this tough economic climate. These [organizations] are building equity rather than short-term hits.”

In a time when Web 2.0 technology is the soapbox du jour for many consumers sounding off about a company’s products or services, having a strategy to proactively cull and act upon customer feedback is even more important. “The prevalence of social media perpetuates the ease in which competitors and disgruntled employees can say negative things about a business,” Turcott says. “For small businesses, it’s more a necessity than a luxury to actively manage its online reputation. If they don’t know it now, they will very soon.”

For the SMBs — and also larger enterprises — out there gearing up for the holiday season, what strategies are you using to manage customer feedback and consequently improve the experience your shoppers have?

It’s official: I’m the final CRM staffer to post to this blog.

That just about kills me.

Considering I was among those pushing (screaming, pleading, cajoling, begging, whimpering) for its creation, almost to (or beyond?) the point of annoyance, it’s verging on hypocrisy that it’s taken me ‘til now to join the fray.
Other staffers—particularly Jessica Tsai, Lauren McKay, and Christopher Musico—have been diligent, if not prolific, contributors here over the last month, posting and testing the boundaries of this medium, one that’s old hat to others but still new as a feature of CRM magazine and destinationCRM.com.

Fact is, blogging’s been around for a long, long time—and yet I’ve never partaken of it on my own. Part of the mental block was the nagging sense that I’d missed the boat somehow—that enough bloggers (and blog readers) had already staked their claim to make a Johnny-come-lately hardly stand a chance of building an audience of any real value.

Talk about missing the point.

Today, of course, I realize that excuse was just that—an excuse. And a particularly lame one, to be honest. Looking back on it now, it reminds me of that great (and perhaps apocryphal) tale of the official at the U.S. Patent Office who decided in 1899 to shut the place down—on the premise that anything that could have been invented already was. In 1899.

If the world followed my lead on this point, there’d be no innovation, no art, no literature—no creation of value whatsoever. On a more mundane level, companies would stop introducing new products—and, even worse, the most vibrant, dynamic, world-changing companies might never have emerged at all.

So let me eat my words by posting these few: We’re here. We may be late to the party, but this puppy’s an all-hours rave, and we’re kicking in with our own playlist. Now that you’ve found us—and me—stumbling upon us the way all great (and lesser) finds get found on the Internet (by chance, by recommendation, by dumb luck, by design), I hope that you’ll stay around for a bit, poking around here and there for what we have to offer, and telling us when we fail to deliver.

This blog, in particular, is still finding its legs, and we’re not yet sure where it may take us, aside from “into uncharted territory.” Part of where we end up—and, even better, the path we take in getting there—is going to be your call: Your comments, critiques, and community will help shape this effort, and we hope you’ll be as loud as possible with all of that, and more. As far as I’m concerned, you’re our customer, and we plan to do right by you—after all, we’ve got our magazine’s title to live up to.

And just because it took me years to blog doesn’t mean you get to wait years to respond. That “Comment” button is around here somewhere…

Joshua Weinberger
Managing Editor, CRM