Comments on: Are you tired of “listening”? (file this under bitch-rant)

By: John Haydon

John Haydon — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:34:31 +0000

Staci – great summary of what I think a lot of people are saying here.

By: John Haydon

John Haydon — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:33:04 +0000

Marco – thanks for the additional resources. Indeed, how one approaches listening has everything to with the context. Thanks!

By: stacijshelton

stacijshelton — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:13:03 +0000

We forget that being “quiet” is not the same as listening. Listening implies intent to not just hear but understand. That would involve engagement, which means actively listening, clarifying and above all, suspending judgment.

Great post and awesome thoughts! We're learning as we go.

By: johnhaydon

johnhaydon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:34:31 +0000

Staci – great summary of what I think a lot of people are saying here.

By: johnhaydon

johnhaydon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:33:04 +0000

Marco – thanks for the additional resources. Indeed, how one approaches listening has everything to with the context. Thanks!

By: stacijshelton

stacijshelton — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:13:03 +0000

Great post and awesome thoughts! We're learning as we go.

By: marcopolis

marcopolis — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:17:43 +0000

While I think that active listening is mainly focused on engaging – i.e. taking action based on what you “hear” with the speaker, passive listening has its place and engaging with the “speaker” isn't necessarily the end result.

Listening isn't always about responding to the speaker, sometimes that's not why we're listening. But you're probably listening to take some sort of action, even if it's just internal or personal (i.e. learning). Otherwise, it's just noise.

Social media allows you to listen. Why you're listening is strategic, not based on the tool or fact that you're using social media to do it.

I think it's worth looking at online listening from 3 perspectives, each with a different strategic focus/reason, but each legitimate based on that strategy:

Online Reputation Management – “The process of following online references to a brand, company, person or service while having a plan in place to deal with any negative feedback.”http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/20/onlin...

Competitive Intelligence – “The action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about products, domain constituents, customers, and competitors for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization.”http://www.dynamicintegration.net/competitive_i...

Active Listening – “The Active Listener gives full attention to listening when another is talking and focuses on what is being said… The active listener becomes directly involved in the communication process.”http://www.leadershipletters.com/2003/09/12/lev...

By: Kae Kohl

Kae Kohl — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:09:13 +0000

I think listening is “hearing without an agenda” i.e. not try to fix it, not trying to data mine it, not trying to profit from it, not trying to establish the guilt of reciprocity from it…

That's just my take. Thanks for listening!

By: johnhaydon

johnhaydon — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:52:11 +0000

Tammie – thank *you* for stopping by and adding your piece! I love how you said that we need to “identify the people who would be interested in having a conversation”. Social media technology creates a powerful platform for that discovery!

By: johnhaydon

johnhaydon — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:48:23 +0000

Actions speak louder than words, they say, right? How companies respond when they screw up says more about them than how they respond when things are fine – wouldn't you say?