Engaging with people interested in procurement, risk and negotiation here at Brian Farrington is a challenging yet exciting activity we do – behind consultancy and training that is – and I’ve always enjoyed doing it. From social media (Twitter and Linkedin), website management, speaking at events and everything in between.
What made me think hard and more than twice was a question brought up by a colleague during one of our weekly, “how are we doing” meetings.
“What do you think of taking comments off BrianFarrington.com?”
“Not a chance,” I firmly replied (only because I’ve thought about this for quite a while on my own). I wasn’t being stubborn was I?
Course not. I value the conversations, debates and differing perspectives, and I don’t think I’m alone on that, no one (really) enjoys a lecture at the best of times.Open-minded people like two-way discussions, one-way systems lack energy. I like to see how people react to BrianFarrington.com articles and blog posts, good or bad, agree or disagree, or need more information. I enjoy receiving the comments and replies we get, especially from people responding to our regular ‘Think Procurement’ newsletter; a real sense of connection.
Approaches to procurement, risk and negotiation are always evolving, developing, adapting to new working environments, the actual changing of the physical environment and also new technologies. To be discussed, debated, and questioned is good. I’m a great believer in ‘none of us knows more than all of us’.
However, in the end, I completely made a U-turn with my original thought, after conversing and discussing with the whole team.
For those who follow a few blogs (or write your own) such as Spend Matters, Supply Management, Procurement Leaders, or Dr Gordon Murray, then you may have noticed that comments on them are becoming less and less frequent with Twitter and LinkedIn starting to reach its full potential.
Why did this make procurement blog comments less frequent? The answer is simple; because the conversation moved to a wider public platform.
This clearly, is great for everyone involved with procurement, risk and negotiation. The same insightful, thought provoking conversations, but now, we have a wider potential discussion group. These social platforms have created a much better opportunity for new people to connect with people interested in procurement, risk and negotiation. On these platforms, our followers, connections, clients can share, retweet, pin, favourite, forward our Brian Farrington blog posts, which in turn leads to more connections, debate and discussion.
One example is an article we posted on Linkedin a few weeks ago, ‘ Do you believe in the reliability, truth and ability of your suppliers? Do you trust them?‘ The subject engaged readers instantly, admittedly some people thought the article was thought-provoking and insightful – which was sure to agree and support many people’s answers and thoughts – yet (positively) provoke and disagree with many others.
This created a great discussion on the Linkedin page where it was posted, with people hotly debating the subject. I like how an article like that brought together some of the brightest people in our community engaging with each other. This idea of a worldwide community is why we are sharing articles and getting involved in the International Festival of Business IFB (PS look out for our events at IFB!).
We appreciate the comments submitted to Brian Farrington and I’ll be the first to admit that I have learnt many things from some of the responses we get and I’m sure others have as well.
The thing is, I’ve mentioned two-way discussions earlier, and I’ll refer to it again. If our readers are willing and passionate enough about a certain topic to stop their work, playing with their kids and concentrating on the road (please don’t do that) to read and respond to our articles, then shouldn’t they also have a wider audience to speak to?
I definitely think so. The more we all share with each other, the more the world of procurement, risk and negotiation can learn and grow together.
Thanks
P.S. Please comment on this article on Twitter, LinkedIn company page or Risk in procurement group on LinkedIn – or drop us a note at . Better still give us a call on 01744 20698
