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There are three business models that are involved in the current commercial system: types solution shops, value chains, facilitated user networks. The value-chain businesses include retailing, manufacturing, and food service companies. These kind of companies bring inputs of materials into one end of their premises, transform them by adding value and deliver higher-value products to their customers at the other end. The ability to deliver value in such businesses is embedded in strong and standardized process (Christensen 130). The example of value-chain business is the production and distribution of textbooks. It is also known that the public education’s commercial system is largely a value-chain business now also. Students are herded into a classroom at the beginning of the school year, then value is added to them.

The technological platform is a platform that enables non-programmers to build remarkably sophisticated software for specific purposes; it allows any student to develop his individual, own system to manage a small business’s resources. Such platforms help nonprofessionals to create software that helps different types of learner’s master topics that they would otherwise have struggled to learn. This innovation is very attractive and can be very useful for students. It sounds like a tutor. It would be great for every student to be able to afford personal tutors who have the skill to tailor the way they teach each subject to their students in a manner that matches the way the students learn. Such software platforms will enable students to teach other students by developing tools and putting them into the user network. It is known that we often learn better when we teach than when we listen to a teacher.

Considering the disruptive regulated markets, we need to remember that once the new commercial system had proven itself to be viable and better and the bulk of the customers had migrated to the unregulated system, its regulators responded to the fait accompli. For example, Southwest Airlines didn’t disrupt the airline industry by seeking approval in the early 1970s from the federal Civil Aeronautics Board for discount prices on long, interstate routs. It began flying short routs and the rates and route structures of interstate trucking collapsed under their weight in the late 70s after corporation began operating their own truck fleets, which fell outside the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The regulation of bank interest rates was toppled when Merrill Lynch introduced its interest-bearing cash management account.

In public education, the influence that teachers unions can wield over textbook and instructional software adoption looms so large that many would-be school reformers have abandoned hope of significant change. It is suspected that when disruptive innovators begin forming user networks through which professionals and amateurs (parents, students and teachers) circumvent the existing value chain and instead market their products directly to each other, the balance of power in education will shift. Administrators, teachers unions and school boards will capitulate to the fait accompli of larger numbers of students acquiring and using superior, customized tools on their own.

In traditional marketing theory, consumers are driven into the big end through awareness activities like advertising. They proceed through stages – including consideration, preference, and action – to become buyers. Marketers have little control over what happens in the middle stages, but the influence of the groundswell heaviest here.

Now the marketing funnel is a venerable metaphor that describes how consumers march down the path from awareness to purchase and loyalty. Shouting –advertising – herds them in the big end. Activities in the middle try to pull them down to that purchase, and it everything goes well, they come out the other end as customers.

There are a lot of ways to talk with the groundswell. The main effective are: post a viral video, engage in social networks and user-generated content sites, join the blogosphere and create a community.

Put a video online and let people share it is the most effective way to talk with groundswell. Solving awareness problems with viral videos doesn’t just work for consumer products, but it works in business-to-business setting also. Viral videos can be shared and spread in social networks that are very popular now. One of the best way to spread the video is to put it to YouTube. In order to be most effective, the video must allow people to interact. It should direct people to a social network, a blog, or a community where they can form further relationships with each other or with the company. The viral videos are more effective than blogs, because they are more common and easily spread.

Apparently 85% of college students have a Facebook page (wow!). What does the author say is “groundswell thinking” that sets E&Y apart from others in this space?Give a couple examples of universities also engaged in this type of “groundswell thinking”.

Dan Black, director of campus recruiting for the Americas told that “Facebook stood out to us – at the time, they told us that 85% of all college students have a profile” ( Li 105). A lot of companies understand that social networks became very popular and it is a good field to find new clients.

The company Ernst and Young in 2007 cared a group on Facebook and had 8,469 members. Through advertising on campus and on Facebook, Ernst&Young makes its target audience – college students – aware of the company. Such network as MySpace is also very popular. A lot of famous brands, for example Victoria`s Secret, Adidas, Jeep, Target, Apple are also engaged in the same type of “groundswell thinking”.

1.) Compare and contrast eBags and Constant Contact’s groundswell strategies. Explain why the two different strategies would have worked/failed if they were implemented by the other company (ie. If eBags tried Constant Contact’s strategy and vice versa).

The company eBag prefers to use the strategy that is called “word of mouth”. It is a powerful amplifier of brand marketing, achieving results no media campaign can achieve. Word of mouth succeeds because it is believable, self-reinforcing and self-spreading.

According to World of Mouth Marketing Association, word of mouth “is the most honest form of marketing, building upon people’s natural desire to share their experiences with family, friends and colleagues” (Li 131).

Constant Contact is an email marketing company that is focused on helping small businesses stay in touch with their own customers. If those customers have given their email address, the small-business owner can send newsletters and notes about what’s on sale this month. Constant Contact also uses word of mouth. But the company in addition encourages this with a referral program – get a friend to sign up, and you get a 30$ credit and he gets the same credit.

2.) Explain how you would energize the education community. What is the “problem” you would help solve? Who would be best fit to oversee the “energize” campaign? Refer to the five steps for applying energizing techniques.

Energizing the community is very important. The main thing is to find the person who will spread the information the same as Lego’s ambassador: he gets information from the company on products coming out and then spreads that information to his own personal network, both in person and online.

The steps for applying the techniques of energizing to organization include:

-Figure out if you want to energize the groundswell;
-Check the social technographics profile of your customers;
-Ask yourself, “what is my customer’s problem?”;
-Pick a strategy that fits your customer’s social technographics profile and problems;
-Don’t start unless you can stick around for a long haul.

3.)What are some examples of the negative side of trying to energize the groundswell and how did the companies respond?

Most of the cases of energizing companies are successful. In order to make energizing in the right way, the company should follow the rules mentioned above. Every company should remember that in energizing groundswell, they will find out that not all the customers are equal. The author mentions that whether you are anointing brand ambassadors like Lego, inviting customers into a community like Constant Contact, or empowering people with reviews like eBags, you are going to unleash some powerful voices. So, following all rules will keep the company away from negative side of energizing the groundswell (Warschauer 19).

4.) Why does the author say that a community is like a marriage? How are they different?

The author of the book says that a community is like a marriage, because it requires constant adjustment to grow and become more rewarding. And if you are not in it for a long haul, may be you should think about the ugly endings you have seen to marriages that lacked that long-term effort.

Work cited:


Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston: Harvard.

Warschauer, M. (2004). Technology and social inclusion: rethinking the digital divide. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.



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