If you have followed us at all you will know that we are trying to get beyond the traditional social media speak of “The keys to social media, listen and be transparent….blah, blah, blah”.  So when talking to the fine folks at Radian6 you can imagine the excitement when we actually got energized talking about LISTENING.  Listening is important, yet even the most seasoned gurus don’t have a good grasp on how to help companies modify their beings to incorporate an interactive culture beyond the one twenty-something who’s willing to give it a shot.  So let’s set a baseline for discussion:

Companies have spent the last few decades building a corporate veil over their brands and relying on having the few “experts” create the features and develop a voice for the Brand.  That focus on experts lead to knowledge and skills being huddled into only a couple, select employees.  That egalitarian style that was developed throughout the 80s and 90s is now counter-intuitive to the social movement.  This is why companies are having so many cultural problems in allowing more access to people throughout companies with insight that is traditionally suppressed.

On Tuesday, we’ll focus the discussion around developing a fundamental plan for companies to create and instill a Listening Grid of sorts.  A way for executives to plan their way through opening tracks of interactive dialogue with customers, partners, channels, or even other employees.  The three questions will be:

• 1. What is the cultural shift that needs to happen today in business to accommodate social media?
• 2. We get listening for the detractors. What are other ways that companies need to listen?
• 3. Let’s develop a list or chronology of how to create a listening grid within a company.

We are very excited to welcome David Alston as our moderator this week.  David is the head of marketing at Radian 6 and will be sure to add a ton of value as his expertise is an inch wide and a mile deep in this particular topic.  Please join us this Tuesday at Noon EST and be sure to include #socialmedia in your tweets to have your input captured here at www.hashtagsocialmedia.com/live.