Lots of soul searching in the social business space last week. Major themes from articles around the web focused on defining social business and looking inward, to focus on refining process, corporate intranet the tools and organizational learning as key for social business development. Even the discussion of social business out of SXSW seemed to focus on understanding the current state of social business and how organizations can adapt.
Social Media Have Changed the Way We Organize. What Does This Mean for Business?
Movements, Mashups, and Metamorphosis: The Rewiring of Institutions
Brian Vellmure explores how the “digitization of everything” and increased connectedness are reshaping our world, how we organize. What we consider the workplace, how we define employee, the crafting of communication strategies are all impacted as well. He suggests that organizations closely examine and re-evaluate the way they answer a number of key questions about understanding their stakeholders, the value proposition and how to use social to do business.
The Evolution of Social Business
Ryan Rutin points out not only the strange Wikipedia definition of social business, but the lack of clear definitions in industry. He posits the following stages of Social Business:
10 Stages of Social Business Evolution
- Self Enablement – Productivity driven by “the one”
- Team Enablement – Productivity driven by “the few”
- Social Intranet – Productivity available to “the many”
- Ubiquitous Access – Productivity “anywhere” and “any time”
- Customer Engagement – Integrated productivity and coordination with Customers
- Partner Enablement – Integrated productivity and coordination with Partners
- Hybrid Enablement – Integrated team productivity across Employees, Customers, and Partners
- Enterprise Enablement – Integrated productivity and coordination with foundational Enterprise Systems
- Social Awareness – Monitoring en masse, reacting in time, and engaging relevantly at scale
- Social Process Management – Established social indicators driving foundational business processes
Is Social Business Just Knowledge Management 2.0?
Alan Hamilton ponders the evolution of Knowledge Management, the overlaps with current discussions around Social Business and the ways in which the two concepts diverge. He primarily focuses on the notion that Social Business is more organic, less about structure and more about “encouraging people to share what they know, to feel good about doing so, establish relationships with others in the organization which span the organization tree and genuinely do something extraordinary.”
Why Social Marketing is So Hard
She frames her discussion to address social marketing challenges, but Nilofer Merchant asks compelling questions about organizations transforming from “800-pound gorilla[s]” into fleets of “800 nimble gazelles — to go from being a centralized institution that competes through overpowering strength and scale to a diffuse tribe that competes by being fast, fluid, and flexible.” Much of her analysis has implications for the notion of social business as well.
Intra-Organizational Collaboration, Learning and the Intranet
How to Make Collaborative Work Work
Harold Jarche breaks down three key principles for making workplace collaboration successful in organization: The narration of work (the notion that talking about work deepens understanding of it), using social media to shape a culture of transparency and shared power (and how a shift in power structure is “essential for social businesses that derive their value from complex and creative work”).
Is There Such a Thing as Social Intranet?
Tim Zonca, Director of Product Marketing at Jive talks about the concept and execution of the Social Intranet. He notes that the social intranet must facilitate collaboration for three key areas: Corporate communications, cross-departmental/organizational collaboration and team/departmental collaboration.
Siobhan Fagan recaps a series of articles this week focusing on the organizational tools that facilitate social business through collaboration, knowledge management and learning…and some challenges around those tools, including the following key pieces and more:
Social Business in 2012: Like Having a Party and No One Shows Up
Once the social tools are in place, how do organizations get their people on board and get value out of their investment? Virginia Bakaitis suggests that they need to think about getting employees using social in ways that are more like how they use social media personally. A focus on user experience is key.
If Social Business is the Answer, What is the Question?
Deb Lavoy identifies and explores the first three of seven themes that are critical to understanding what we mean (and should be discussing) around the nebulous concept of “the social business.” She outlines the three driving forces behind social: a) Humans, Institutions and Revolutions; b) The Opposite of Social Business is Fear and c) Collaboration is the Only Way Forward.
Lavoy extends the discussion to focus on how social business means rethinking the way you sell. Her key points here are a) the “big whys” for business in social, primarily the democratization of communication and shifting of power, and b) a shift in focus to finding patterns in behavior and communication, rather than a traditional metrics-centered approach to understanding value and ROI, c) why the sales funnel is over and d) the ways in which social business exposes dust bunnies and need for spring cleaning in organizations – it’s about understanding you, not social.
Working Smarter in Social Business
Jay Cross discusses the need for organizational learning to keep up with the new, quicker pace of business as it becomes more social. He notes changes in approaches to training and evaluation, including the need to tap into social tools that facilitate collaborative, learner-driven (tool-equipped) and essentially “as you work” learning for employees.
How to Break Down Corporate Borders
Jason Swenk considers what being a social business means for traditional organizational barriers. A focus on breaking down those traditional, siloed structures allows organizations to grow creative leaders, adapt to the environment and capitalize on shared intelligence through social business strategies.
The State of Social Business – From SXSW
What Do the Extinction of Dinosaurs and Social Business Have in Common?
Forbes recaps the speakers from SXSW’s Social Business Summit. It’s about solving business problems.
Visual Notes from SXSW
Armano does a brain dump and shares visual outputs from the SXSW Social Business discussions.
And a look at the backchannel conversation on Twitter during the Social Business Summit at SXSW.
