INTERVIEW: pownum : Karl Harvard

Interesting little company that came across my radar a while back is doing some good work with charideeeee – pownum (power in numbers… geddit?) – a kind of rate/shame… rashame (?!) kind of thing. Deliciously power to the people type deal. Founded and wholly owned by Marty Carroll and Karl Havard (interviewee) it went live in May and is seeing good numbers.  Now having a charity pot (with real money in it) ready to be donated to the charities, chosen by pownum users, at the end of August 2010 it’s getting some serious attention – check out the website itself for more info too : http://pownum.com / (charity info)

Why did you start it?

Marty and I wanted to achieve three simple things:

• Provide an authoritative platform for any member of the general public to air their views and opinions about any type of organization. Whether this is a commercial brand, a government department, local council…it can be any type at all.
• Bring some structure to the social web and provide a meaningful metric that organizations can use to effectively engage with those people who are providing ratings and reviews. Instead of chasing their tails on Twitter, Facebook etc.
• Facilitate a meaningful dialogue, the bi-product of which helps benefit charity

Give some numbers to impress people

Our aim is to have donated £10M to charity over the next five years. These charities are nominated and voted on by pownum users.

Having been tweeted about by Stephen Fry, for which we are eternally grateful, we saw an acceleration of ratings and membership which placed us ahead of our targets.

We do however, need to continue this in a sustained manner and are looking to have had 100,000 ratings by the end of the year.

What can brands do (if anything) to work with you/improve their scores?

Those that are genuine about transparency, and don’t just talk about it can do a great deal.

• Firstly, they can sign up for their Right of Reply and begin to engage with individual opinion on their dedicated page on pownum.
• They can also use the Right of Reply to provide further general information and post links to further detailed content
• We also have a “widget” tool set where they can promote their pownum:rating and invite people to rate them, demonstrating genuine transparency and encouraging feedback on an independent platform
• They can subscribe to their org page (and their competitors) to see the latest ratings as they appear, ensuring they are kept up to date in real time.
• Their org page also runs social web searches so they can see other activity on Twitter, blogs etc.

The act of listening is one thing, however, responding and engaging with people on pownum can only improve their rating. Some orgs already have very high pownum:ratings and these are the ones interested in sharing the “advocacy” with other customers.

Seeing ratings improve over time has to be a very good story to tell doesn’t it?

Are there algorithms to make sure people aren’t gaming the system etc?

Absolutely. We have some quite sophisticated tools in place, which monitor behaviour against frequency, and recency of ratings, all of which is linked to individual profiles.

We also provide a self policing system, and any review deemed to be insincere can be reported and we can then make a judgement.

Are you worried people will think this is a negative/shaming thing?

Interestingly, this was the concern of many, many people, other than Marty and myself. We were convinced that “fair play” would be the underlying human value that would come to the fore. So far, it looks like we’ve been proved right. People like to offer praise just a readily as having a bit of a whinge. The overall average rating across pownum is close to 7 out of 10.

What’s the ultimate goal for the product?

Our vision is for the pownum:rating to become the de-facto measure that organizations look to, to gauge the overall consumer opinion about their organization.

pownum enables people to provide a very simple rating which allows for easy comparison of public sentiment towards different organizations i.e. people give a score out of 10 and then offer a review to provide further detail. There is no need for complex interpretation or investment in collation and correlation buzz technology.

If we can achieve the volume of ratings we see no reason why this can’t be achieved.

Other interesting questions I am too hungover to think of…

Here’s one:

What do you think organizations currently think about pownum?

We’ve spoken to many and we see a pattern forming. Everyone says it is a great idea and they all like the fact that charities benefit too.

However, there are some who are saying “we’ll wait and see before we get involved”. There is an understandable reticence about engaging with the public on a level playing field, but this will soon become the norm. Thankfully there are others who want to adopt pownum into their communications mix now and we’re working with them to help them decide the best approach.

It is classic Crossing the Chasm stuff…so of course we are looking for early adopter organizations who by there actions will convince the early majority. However, we would add, if people are taking the time to offer opinion in detail and in numbers, why would an organization choose to ignore this? As this number increases there is a chance that organizations that continue to ignore opinion may tarnish their brand. The social web has evolved to such a degree that there is nowhere to hide anymore; we believe pownum can make  it much easier for organizations to manage this much more effectively.