Day 56: At This Point, the Silence Is a Decision

It's Day 56.

I've been following up on why Jacob Chavis hasn't sent the study I requested.

I've asked why Nirav Tolia, Investor Relations, and Communications haven't acknowledged the situation.

I've emailed.

I've followed up.

I've posted publicly.

I've documented the experience at NielFlamm.com/blog.

So today, I'm looking at this differently.

Maybe the lack of communication is the communication.

After 56 days, it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to view this as an overlooked email or something that fell through the cracks.

Maybe someone made a decision not to engage.

Maybe nobody wants ownership.

Maybe Nextdoor believes responding will encourage more questions.

Maybe the study can't—or won't—be provided.

I don't know.

But that's exactly the problem.

Silence creates its own narrative.

And here's where this gets bigger than my study.

Nextdoor's entire value proposition revolves around neighbors communicating with neighbors.

CEO Nirav Tolia frequently talks about community and connection.

Yet my experience as a shareholder has been the opposite:

56 days without a conversation.

Think about that from a customer-experience perspective.

If I were designing training around this scenario, I wouldn't focus primarily on whether the customer—or shareholder—was right.

I'd ask:

How did something this simple reach Day 56?

Where was the escalation?

Who owned the request?

When did someone recognize that the lack of a response had become a bigger problem than the original question?

And perhaps most importantly:

What does the organization learn from it?

That's what accountability should ultimately accomplish.

Not blame.

Not defensiveness.

Learning followed by change.

I've written before that we inspect what we expect.

So I'm inspecting.

I'm watching the moderation model.

I'm watching the increasing monetization of small-business interactions.

I'm watching the financial results.

I'm watching corporate communication.

And I'm watching how Nextdoor handles a shareholder who keeps asking a question it apparently doesn't want to answer.

Maybe someone inside Nextdoor believes I'll eventually get tired of asking.

After 56 days, that seems like an increasingly questionable strategy.

Because the longer this continues, the less interesting the original study becomes.

The case study is becoming Nextdoor itself.

Join the discussion at NielFlamm.com/blog.

What does 56 days without an answer tell you? Leave some feedback—I'd love to hear your perspective.