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When lunching near Dulles Airport  years ago, we ran into some Teleglobe colleagues who had gone over to AOL.

Back then, I looked at those guys with a bit of envy. After all, we were just a voice backbone.

Those guys were in their honeymoon with Time Warner, both pipe and pipe dream.

Now, this merger has now been unraveled .

One thing has changed over this decade: customers can and will talk back, even from Dell hell.

We used to laugh at “voice mail jail”. Companies cannot afford a “taxi driver’s” attitude (Are you talking to me?).

Amazon rating, feedback loop, survey, independent research, mystery shopper, disgruntled employees etc…. The old untouched “suggestion box” is as outdated as the IBM Selectric typewriter.

Wiki everything. Google everything. Twitter everything. The many “faces” on Facebook. Many lives on Second Life.

Many files on Drop Box,  Amazon’ rent-a-server or Salesforce.com CRM. Modularity and virtuality are counter-trends of our disposable society.

At Teleglobe, that’s what we did: Rent-a-switch (telecom). International entrepreneurs only had to come with a willingness, a niche market and some upfront costs. The rest, from licensing to private billing, we handled.

It worked beautifully. And I know Cloud Computing will take IT investment to the next level, freeing up companies to soar, and expand side way or upward, without attending to the flickering lights in server farm.

The post-machine age (on-prem) has finally arrived. The unbundling of MS Office and many other packaged solutions. Pay per user. Companies can now launch seasonal campaign or handle a PR crisis with speed and less cost.

Bad news tends to travel faster than good.

You’ve got comment!.

First responder to those comments can reduce damage into dent, or turn negative into positive. Customers have always been Kings. It’s just that Kings don’t get to speak too often, until now.