What you made me think of are all the things that ARE persisted that then become ‘fact’ and need to be challenged (like the time I was denied a trademark for something that existed but was ‘dead’ — the company had been purchased and the new owners had no intent of using the product). Especially all the ‘lore’ that gets repeated in companies.

Reminded too (based on an event just this morning) that more meaningful than an internal Wikipedia (which many companies mistakenly focus on as a first venture) would be an internal Snopes!

However, when it comes to your overall point, I certainly agree that relationships can’t develop without a corporate memory, whether across employees or between companies and customers. I think Ross Mayfield hit the point on the head recently. Referring to companies involved in monitoring conversations about their brand, Ross noted that, “Before they collaborate with the community, they have to collaborate with themselves.”

For example, there is no general rule that dictates a customer support agent at a call center must follow a scripted conversation to solve problems. There are specific rules developed by call center companies that certain questions are asked in a certain order, often irrelevant to the reason a customer is calling — all in the name of meeting KPIs. When I relate to employees of a company that provides me with a product or service I want to talk to them like I do to people in general, not like a machine. I think this relates to the point Rachel is making about a dam existing that social media opened up. Building another dam of rules around the social media conversation in order to control it in the name of corporate memory won’t solve the issues that you highlight IMHO.

Indeed the community example you gave is an explicit example that I’d want to rail against — an isolated environment whereby the individual is not connected back to any other existing relationships they have with the company. It’s a function of identity.

Companies have issues already with giving their own employees persistent identities by which their own work can be tied across a company (e.g. whatever I comment on, whatever I create, can all be found in a single collection, as relevant, for sharing). It will be a bigger hurdle to do the same for customers.

If I’ve missed something obvious, please clarify for me.

The research on the 3Com Audrey and Apple Newton brand communities I wrote about in a recent post provide good examples of what persistence means, and how it works, apart from the ongoing corporate relationship.

http://skilfulminds.com/2009/10/20/customer-competencies-co-creation-and-brand-communities/