I just saw where Spencer Dean (@SpenceDean) of inContact (@inContact) posted “Do you collaborate with your customers?” on LinkedIn and referenced an article by Brandon Evans (@brandone) of CrowdTap (@Crowdtap). The article is entitled “Customers Don’t Want Ads, They Want A Conversation” and I think it’s great.

It talks about the shift from marketing “at” consumers to marketing “with” consumers and this is right in sync with some other trends I’m seeing (see  a recent piece I did on VoC initiatives), and about how “a penalty will be paid by those companies who simply view social as a mass communication channel…”

There’s great stuff in there about product development, openness in general,  using consumer-generated content, and more.  Great piece Brandon, and thanks to Spencer for the heads up. Although USAN and inContact are competitors, I wanted to note what he said because I think he’s right on the money.