eTribal Business Seminar

I went to a very interesting seminar by Associate Professor Robert Kozinets of University of York in Toronto.  He spoke on the online community revolution and its implications for management and marketing scholars or as he calls it, eTribalism.  Even though I am not a marketing researcher, I was intrigued by the changes that organisations face when communicating with their customers.  I think there is probably a logical extension to how firms interact with their employees as well.  Employees, like customers, will be part of many eTribes (social, hobby, and professional).  Organisations will probably need to rethink the employer-employee relationship, just as they are changing their marketing models and strategies to adapt to changing customer experiences and behaviours.

Some of the concepts Rob discussed, included the notion of online communities being gift economies instead of value extraction economies.  This must drive the behaviours and motivations of those who participate in these communities – something worth researching further.  He also gave a definition for an online community – one in which participants register and return with some level of frequency – which I have been struggling with for some time.  Rob mentioned a several resources, which I’ll look into over the next couple of weeks.  Here are the few that I have added to my bibliography.

Cova, B., Kozinets, R., & Shankar, A. (2007). Consumer tribes. Amsterdam; London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Marketing and consumer research has traditionally conceptualized consumers as individuals- who exercise choice in the marketplace as individuals not as a class or a group. However an important new perspective is now emerging that rejects the individualistic view and focuses on the reality that human life is essentially social, and that who we are is an inherently social phenomenon. It is the tribes, the many little groups we belong to, that are fundamental to our experience of life. Tribal Marketing shows that it is not individual consumption of products that defines our lives but rather that this activity actually facilitates meaningful social relationships. The social links (social relationships) are more important than the things (brands etc.) The aim of this book is therefore to offer a systematic overview of the area that has been defined as cultures of consumption- consumption microcultures, brand cultures, brand tribes, and brand communities. It is though these that students of marketing and marketing practitioners can begin to genuinely understand the real drivers of consumer behaviour. It will be essential to everyone who needs to understand the new paradigm in consumer research, brand management and communications management.

Lévy, P. (1997). Collective intelligence: mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. New York: Plenum Trade.

The number of travelers along the information superhighway is increasing at a rate of ten percent a month. How will this communications revolution affect our culture and society? Though awed by their potential, we’ve feared computers as agents of the further alienation of modern man: they take away our jobs, minimize direct human contact, even shake our faith in the unique power of the human brain. Pierre Levy believes, however, that rather than creating a society where machines rule man, the technology of cyberspace will have a humanizing influence on us, and foster the emergence of a “collective intelligence” – a meeting of minds on the Internet – that will validate the contributions of the individual.

Brooks, D. (2001). Bobos in paradise: the new upper class and how they got there. London: Simon & Schuster.

Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo. In his bestselling work of “comic sociology,” David Brooks coins a new word,Bobo,to describe today’s upper class — those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation.

Maffesoli, M. (1996). The time of the tribes : the decline of individualism in mass society. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Do individuals construct their own identities in contemporary consumer culture? In this volume, one of the world’s leading sociologists questions the idea that individualism is a defining feature of modernity. The Time of Tribes presents a new, truly sociological theory of modern identity. Author Michel Maffesoli contends that the insistence on the end of collective ideals conceals a complex state of affairs. He brilliantly demonstrates that while the old determinants of identity such as class have indeed faded, there are new tribal determinants. He shows how contemporary identities are now composed of a multiplicity of experiences, representations, and everyday emotions. Sexual, political, or professional identities are being replaced by processes of identification with groups, with sentiments, and with fashions. He shows how tribal groupings–musical, sporting, or touristic–emerge in the midst of mass society and goes on to explore the possible reasons for this new social dynamic from the rise of new communication technologies to the resurgence of older values such as religious identification. This unique book is essential reading for advanced students in social theory, culture studies, and sociology.