And by FUTURE, you mean today right?

Although the third part of the Groundswell: “The Groundswell Transforms” is the shortest part of the book, I believe it is the most critical section for the success of a business. While the previous two parts of the book focused more on the concepts behind the Groundswell—blogs, RSS, social media marketing etc.—the last part talked about how the company itself can change by embracing the power of Groundswell in its internal interactions. 

The Best Buy case study does a great job showing how the internal groundswell successfully touches upon all five objectives which includes: listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing. The employees are imperative to a company’s success, as shown through the company’s Blue Shirt Nation platform, which makes employees feel more empowered, connected, and more committed on a daily basis. By tapping the groundswells of ideas among employees (at the ground level of how your business operates) though connections on social networks, collaborations on wikis, and contributions to idea exchanges, this drastically helps organizations run more smoothly and efficiently.

Essentially, the Blue Shirt Nation internal social media platform was created to listen to what Best Buy employees have to say and rapidly fix any rising problems before they escalate. “The online forum on Blue Shirt Nation is a natural extension of that mentoring culture, where employees can find the support they need from around the company, not just from within their store or district” (p. 238). This platform gives employees and upper level management the ability to generate and carry out ideas.

It is also in this last chapter of the Groundswell where the authors also gives a snapshot of how the groundswell may look in “the future”: 

"Your phone is also telling you that the Federal Trade Commission is thinking of blocking your top two competitors from merging with each other, and that the two hot colors for next spring look like mauve and canary yellow--because you’ve set the device up to bring you information from the Wall Street Journal, Footwear News, and Women’s Daily. The feeds are smart, they watch what you’ve been reading and bring you more of the stuff they know you, and others similar to you, would like to know...Downing the last of your morning coffee, you receive an alert that warns the interstate is backed up again--better take the alternate route.You make sure your phone’s GPS tracking system is on so that you can add your own commute progress to the traffic database..you check your monitoring dashboard. Mauve is on fire" (p. 276).

It's all going MOBILE!

Well, I think it’s safe to say that the authors were pretty spot on! Literally everything the authors described is happening today from the “smart” news feeds to GPS phone alerts to harnessing the power of the collective to gather the data on anything and everything from traffic to the presidential race. Li and Bernoff note that “the technology moves fast” and from the looks of it, the Groundswell is moving at lightning speeds, most notably making the move to everything being increasingly more mobile. Having the world in “the palm of your hand” is quite literal these days. The groundswell is extraordinarily effective since it is cheap, easy to create, simple to improve upon, and gives people the chance to connect to one another. With strengths such as listening, patience, opportunity, flexibility, collaboration with others, and being humble, the authors assure that with the Groundswell, “you’ll be able to build on your successes, both with customers and within your company” (p. 259).