When Did Listening Become Hard?

Mashable is great. No argument. Pure wealth of knowledge, but with the new wave of 'listening to the consumer' still washing over us, I am always taken aback when I feel like we talk about it as if it's a burden or some new practice. In a recent post they gave us 9 apps for gathering customer feedback. All well and great, but the language around it always surprises me:

their input and suggestions can help you make more sound business decisions. Further, encouraging customer feedback can also lead to better business relationships and stronger customer retention.

It's no slight on Mashable, it's simply sad that we've devolved to the point where we can say, with a straight face that 'feedback can also lead to better business relationships.' Simple fact - feedback, open discourse on all levels internally and externally, the most critical cog in the machine of innovation and fundamental to success.

Rather than thinking of apps and consumer-monitoring dashboards, we should be looking at models like Ideo and their Open Ideo crowd-sourcing-solution-finding network. Simply put - less tools, more organic listening and more collaboration. Maybe we're just thinking too hard?