After six months of touring and connecting with clients about Groundswell I continue to be amazed at how creative marketers can be. So I wrote about it

This is my column this month from the American Marketing Association's Marketing News. Some of this and some other insights were also published in a recent Forrester document called Lessons from the Groundswell. (full content accessible to clients only).

I just completed a tour of North America, giving speeches and running workshops for companies thatwant to build strategies for social technologies like blogs, communities,social networks, and wikis.

People became inspired and began to plan innovative social applications.

The conventional wisdom says that thinking about thesesocial platforms is counterintuitive. We've all been told that giving upcontrol is hard - that entering an environment in which the customers have thepower is challenging. This is all true. Corporations that embark on this pathhave a lot of learning to do.

But what I saw in the last few months is that given theright frameworks, nearly anyone can begin to think this way. Most marketersknow their customers pretty well: what they want, how they think, what theirproblems are. What I've seen is that if you give them the tools to thinkdifferently about how they can connect with those customers, the results can beamazing. I expected the TV network and the software company to be creative intheir embrace of customers in the social world. What I didn't expect was thepowerful innovation that came from people that sell prosaic products likecredit cards and medical devices.

It was as if I had given them permission to break out of themarketing prisons in which they had been locked up forever. Stepping into thesunlight, they were dazzled momentarily. Once they got over the shock, theyrealized they could understand and relate to their customers in a new way, andthey began to generate ideas.

From watching these people, I've learned a few things. Letme share them with you.

First, we've been telling you to start by thinking aboutpeople (the social capabilities of your customers) and objectives (a firm ideaof what you want to get done). These are the P and O in the POST process(people, objectives, strategy, technology) that is at the heart of Groundswell. I've learned more about why this works. It's because when youthink about a blog or a community, you bring preconceptions with you about howthey work. When you start by empathizing with your customers, your thinkinggoes down a whole lot of different paths, many of which can connect effectivelywith those customers. By expanding your ideas of what is conceivable, you mayhit on a very different strategy than you would by focusing on whatever tool ortechnology that's hot right now.

Second, I've seen how naysayers can turn into allies. At theinvestment company, the legal department worked with the people running their community to come up with astreamlined process that didn't require legal to check every post. At themedical company, everyone told me the regulatory affairs guy would say no toanything interesting. In fact, he was one of the most engaged members of theworkshop, and reached out to make sure others knew he could collaborate withthem on how to get ideas to pass regulatory muster. Conclusion: if you involvethe people who typically say "no" at the startof the process, you're more likely to be able to get started successfully.

Third, it's not about you.One of the most powerful lessons people took away came from my story aboutProcter & Gamble's feminine care products group, which created a highlyeffective community for adolescent girls. This community, beinggirl.com, worksbecause it is about girls and theirchallenges, not about tampons. Thismessage hit home everywhere I went. Marketers designed applications about pinchingpennies, trading stocks, or getting the most out of your HDTV set - rather thanabout their own products. I expect customers to embrace these applicationsbecause they solve problems, instead of just selling.

And fourth, and most importantly, I saw the power ofmanagement opening marketers' eyes. At one of the investment companies, the CMOkicked off the day by telling everyone they had to learn to embrace this newway of thinking - and sure enough they did. The head of branding at the cablecompany gave a similar message, and emphasized the importance of the day bybringing together folks, not just from all of his divisions, but from all ofhis advertising agencies - and they all worked together. At the credit cardcompany, the day started with the COO of their ad agency entreating these marketersto overcome their fear. This group started out timid and quiet, but by the end ofthe day they had overcome their fearand amazed me with their insights.

Social technology thinking - or as we call it, groundswell thinking, isn't just for the 25-year old whizzes in your marketinggroup. It's for everybody. You just need to open up your mind to it. Are youready?

More importantly, what are you doing to get ready?