Some examples of where co-operation has developed lie in the inner depth of data within, for example, micro-blogging sites like Twitter.
As a customer of any business that I admire and want to support and co-operate with, it is possible for me to highlight areas where their performance has exceeded expectations for others by working with the business to identify those people and those incidents using search tools such as Twitter Search and the appropriate hashtags.
Now, why would I want to do that? Well, by working, co-operating, with the businesses I want to support, I am able to reinforce the behaviours that I want to see. Of course, I can do the reverse too. I can highlight where their service fails in the eyes of some customers, and that may be appropriate on some occasions.
There is a tendency for those who are simply in conversation to use that aspect of the societal web and to focus on the areas where businesses are failing, rather than looking at building up from the areas where they are succeeding. Co-operation is about doing both in balance. As a supplier, I can co-operate with my customers by considering their goals and ambitions beyond the areas in which I can help them: co-operative suppliers look for opportunities for those that they supply. They look for referrals and further customers because; a successful customer will continue to seek to buy your product and service, whereas an unsuccessful one may choose to trim their costs in the area in which you work.
So, finding the means of co-operating means finding the means of gaining more understanding, of having more detailed conversations with a purpose so that you move from conversations whose primary purpose is to understand (and get to know each other) to ones where the conversation’s primary purpose is to support and help each other. Those co-operations lead to more and stronger business and we continue to use the Societal Web to develop great links and great ways to support and help those around us.
