Listening or not?

Marketing Guru Seth Godin wrote an excellent piece titled, “Are they ready to listen?”.

In day to day lives, we often come across people who are just interested to get their POVs, messages out. Are they really listening? Is it a right time to make those comments? Is it appropriate?

If my parents are unhappy with you, they’ll lash it out when they feel like it. I’m sure after over XX (insert your age) years of relations, they would know that messages won’t go through this way, but they do it nonetheless.

Not only businesses have to listen, people have to do so too.

On a more casual social media context, the concept of listening is showcased:

I’ve been on twitter for coming a year already. I haven’t had a strong conversation going. I read many posts about the person I’m following but it’s not as conducive a conduit to spur conversations. When you tweet, are there people listening to what you have to say? Are there responses to your comments? Do you then reply to them?

Plurk, on the other hand, takes it the true blue Singaporean way. They incentivise the conversation. “Karma” points are awarded to every plurk entry that spurs responses. So, if you are a “Karma” getter, you’ll make sure you sit up and communicate something that will get people to respond.