Sentient Being

Blogging may not change the way South African consumers deal with businesses and brands (because less than 5 million South African are online) but this doesn’t meant that companies should just ignore its philosophy.

The Internet has created the forum for single individuals to converse, publicly, with companies. This is a powerful philosophy – especially for South Africa. Conversation between the little guy and the big powerful-in-charge-of-a-company guy is exactly what we need – especially if we can get honest, real-time conversations happening.

I was talking to Branko, editor of Maverick (www.maverick.co.za) about this today and he was talking about the need for large organisations like Transnet to talk to their 65 000 stakeholders – most of whom are not on the Internet. While it’s obvious the blogging is not the medium, it might just be the philosophy.

I don’t really have an answer to how Maria chats with her staff – well – now yet – but I am convinced that if leaders embrace the philosophy of listening and conversing then the right medium will present itself.