Ben McConnell writes about The 1% Rule: Charting citizen participation showing how a small, active minority of contributors take responsibility for most of the content of Wikipedia (and other community-based sites). This reminded me of James‘ post – Why Hells Angels Know Best, citing how Harley Davidson turned its business round by embracing, rather than scorning the “one percenters”.
It’s easy for organisations to stigmatise the one-percenters. Marketing types often sneer at fanatical customers for their lunacy in being more passionate about the organisations’ product or service than the professionals are. Focus groups exercises tend to average out the views of a wide customer base rather than looking at the core enthusiasts. New business drives focus on acquisition of the new rather than enthusing with the existing customers.
Seems to me that this is a mindset worth reviewing.
(Thanks to Rob Paterson, whose emails prompted me to post this)
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