From the desk of the Privacy Officer�
I previously noted David Coursey's article titled "Beware of 'Free' Service" where he touches on a number of his concerns regarding Plaxo and other services. Not less than two weeks later, David Coursey wrote a follow up commentary on Plaxo titled "Plaxo Reconsidered".
I mention it, not because David Coursey comes 180 degrees with Plaxo where he now recommends us. It's worth noting because I believe it illustrates the importance of companies like Plaxo to have an open communication and feedback loop with their user community and to fully embrace the user communication channels of today, including e-mail, user forums, and especially blogs.
Our business is based on trust. We realize that trust is not an entitlement, but rather must be continually earned. To build that trust, we are happy to answer any questions people might have regarding our service so we can quickly address any issues and continually improve our service.
I give David all the credit for taking us up on this offer. In his article, David talks about the recent meeting he had with folks from our Executive and Engineering teams. The meeting gave David a chance to ask his questions and Plaxo a chance to listen to his comments. In the end, we didn't agree on everything but it gave us a better user perspective and things to think about in order to better improve our service. I give David even greater credit for publicly changing his position on Plaxo after learning more about our business plan and our promising future.
While I can not promise everyone a face to face meeting, I can promise we will continue to strive to operate in an open and public fashion. But I also feel that open communications can not be solely based on the historical model of waiting for customers to contact Support. Mediums such as blogs, forums, and newsgroups have tremendously empowered users to express their comments and questions in their own specific ways. In order for a company to be successful today, I feel they must reach out to their users as much as possible.
At Plaxo, we've tried to be as proactive as we can in reaching out to users, whether they are Plaxo members or non-members. Of course we provide the ability for anyone to contact us at Support (support_@t_plaxo.com) or Privacy (privacy_@t_plaxo.com). But we also provide other venues to create a greater sense of community and responsiveness. We have our own fairly active User Forums as well as forum groups on both Yahoo! and Google.
But of course my favorite venues are blogs. Blogs, as a result of their ability to quickly publish and syndicate a person's thoughts and comments have shown to be extremely powerful. I've seen the downsides to blogs. For as much as blogs can inform, they can also misinform turning rumor into truth, and speculation into fact.
But I also see the upside. Blogs provide the ability for companies to feel the pulse of their userbase. They tell us what people think and how they feel. And most importantly, they allow for an open and public communications on issues that matter most to people. I can't think of a better way for a company to build trust than by reaching out and embracing this type of user community. My hope is that one day, company officials responding blog postings will be the norm and not the exception.
But as the example with David Coursey has shown, there's still much work to be done. We'll continue to strive to operate in an open and public fashion and allow people to decide for themselves about Plaxo. Hopefully, as occurred with David Coursey, we'll also continue to grow.... one recommendation at a time.
Feel free to share your thoughts with us.
'til next time,
Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com