When I think of the people who exemplify the best of the best of the interactive community of Austin, Texas; Michelle Greer always comes to mind. Michelle is easily one of the most recognizable people in the Austin creative and tech circles and has been justifiably recognized for her acheivements in bringing people together to use the tools of social media for the good of the community.
Recently, Michelle was selected from among her peers as the overall winner of the first Texas Social Media Awards given by the Austin American Statesman. Personally, I don’t think there could have been a better choice for the honor, which included nominations and input from across the interactive and social media communities throughout the nation.
The Statesman article on the TSMA winners, which described Michelle’s contributions to the Texas social media scene, gave a good glimpse into who she is. Michelle is a web strategist by profession, a geek’s geek by reputation, and one of the most sincere and caring people you could ever meet in real life.
She works to help refugees, to raise money for clean drinking water for poor people in underdeveloped countries, to increase donations to the blood and tissue center, to increase awareness for the hungry and the homeless, and, no doubt, for a number of other causes that even her closest friends can’t keep up with.
I consider Michelle to be the kind of person you want as a friend, an ally and as a member of Austin’s burgeoning interactive community. She’s fiercely loyal, she’s smart, she’ll tell you what she thinks and then listen to your ideas and opinions too. When she talks about “community” in the context of the online world, she absolutely does so with the belief that we’re here to look out for each other and not just to locate new markets and customers for our products and services.
From Michelle’s point of view, a view I share, those companies, organizations and individuals who present themselves in an honest and open manner - in other words, they’re authentic and appropriately transparent - will succeed well beyond those who try to simply sell to the online communities.
As we work to establish Austin as an important hub for economic activity on the socially engaged web, we will do very well to use Michelle Greer’s approach to life and business as a model for our overall efforts for Aii and beyond.
Thanks, Mike. I’ve always seen you as a leader, so that means a lot to me.
It seems as if we are coming at a crossroads. We are fighting against people who see work merely as a matter of dollars and cents. That’s a sad life. We get those dollars and cents from people, and if we are fighting to suck those people dry, they eventually won’t want to do business with us again. There is nothing wrong with profit, but not if it comes with the exploitation of either our workers or our customers.
Customers are our partners. We are giving them a service and they are giving us money in return. It’s an exchange. So often it is viewed as an adversarial relationship which strikes me as very unnecessary.
It’s tiring, but I’m hoping that we can create more sustainable business models together.
Michelle, I really dig what you say:
“Customers are our partners. We are giving them a service and they are giving us money in return. It’s an exchange. So often it is viewed as an adversarial relationship which strikes me as very unnecessary.”
It reminds me of something that I wrote a couple years back:
http://www.baileyworkplay.com/2006/12/sit-on-the-same-side-of-the-table/
Our relationships with customers can be much greater than the sum of the transaction…but only if we take that next step. Good stuff, Michelle! And keep up all the great, soulful work you do…our world is a better place for it.
Congrats Michelle! This post hits the nail on the head.
Michelle,
I really appreciate where you are coming from. I think your approach to forging real partnerships is excellent. The funny thing is that I tend to put customer relationships ahead of partner relationships, ie if I am a customer of yours I have an even higher expectation from our relationship and the experience you are creating.
Steve