Farewell 90:10 hello The Social Partners

I've never learned so much as I have learned in the last four years of my life. When Jamie Burke and I founded 90:10 Group we made it our business to drive transformation in organisations with the power of the new connectedness the social web had revealed.

We had to develop the market, create new terms of reference and rules of engagement, new job roles, new products and services, new ways of pitching for business, new ways of delivering the results.

And not just once. Constant reinvention and adaptation was the only response to a fast shifting landscape.

We grew fast. From 2 to 50+ employees in three years. Offices in the UK (we had to move three times in less than three years as the business expanded), France, Germany, Spain, Holland - and eventually into the Middle East in three cities. We were able to do so because we attracted £3.5m of revenue in consulting fees with clients from Tesco to Bupa, First Capital Connect to Citrix, Honda to Mastercard.

For more about the story of the business and Jamie's learnings from it, see Jamie's post here.

After a spectacular journey - more of the mission to the moon, than the roller coaster variety - I decided in September last year it was time for me to consider new roles. My tenure as Co-Founder and MD had lasted longer than any single role I have held as far as I can recall - a testament to the regular but inspiring challenges we faced and the continued stimulation that delivered.

I took a series of consulting gigs, developing social media strategy for two start-ups and one blue chip (I'm still working with the blue chip) between then and mid January this year. This gave me the space to think about what I value and the kind of people I want to work with.

That process ended when I reconnected with Ivan Palmer (who I have known for some many years), at The Social Partners. I'm settling in there now as Strategy Partner in Hatton Garden, London and the more I learn about the team and the scale of their ambition the more I am sure I have made the right decision.

Of course, we face daily challenges - but we do so armed with a collective wealth of experience and range of skills to which I can now add. If you'd like to add yours we do currently have vacancies.

The spirit of 90:10 continues through Open Business. 

Jamie and I (with contributions from many other 90:10 colleagues) developed The 10 Principles of Open Business through working at the chalk face of the social business and marketing space. We have codified and made this available to share. Read Jamie's blog for more on how we are making the IP available for all. Palgrave-Macmillan will be publishing our co-authored book on the subject in early 2014 (I have a July 2013 deadline for delivery). If your company has been an exemplar of any of the principles, I'd like to interview you for the book. Perhaps you can suggest someone I should speak to?

Finally, Jamie is continuing with 90:10 but taking it in a new direction. Rather than consulting to other businesses, his focus is shifting to creating start-ups based on The 10 Principles. Of course I wish him and the board every success with that. We remain very good friends.

I still believe there is much good and valuable work to be done with existing organisations, helping them learn from the world as it it to make them a better fit with it and a greater success in it. That's what's led me to The Social Partners.

And if you'd like to contact me there the easiest way is by email: david.cushman@thesocialpartners.com

The fifth Principle of Open Business: Connectedness

Today - over at 90:10 Group - we've published the sixth post in our series on The 10 Principles of Open Business.

Principle Five is Connectedness.

Again, this is not a tactic - it's a design principle:

Connecting all employees internally to one another and externally through open social media

We've learned through experience that simply buying tools is not enough. Ever heard the expression: All The Gear But No Idea? That's where so many organisations find themselves having been sold on the tech - convinced by slick sales folk that there really is a button you can click to make you 'social'.

Sure, you need the gear. But first, get the idea. I guarantee you'll make better selections of the gear as a result.

Here's an excerpt. For the full post visit 9010Group.com.

"Rather than working against connectedness (usually out of fear), work with it. You’ll be working in the same direction as your teams.
Without our daily connectedness to others our ideas remain un-nurtured and un-tested, our understanding of the realities of the eco-system within which we all live, severely limited.

This eco-system, this market, is not something you can take a snapshot of once a year, it is ever changing, something you are part of and which must be listened and responded to in as close to real time as possible if you are to maintain a best possible fit with its needs.
Connectedness is an essential part of this. Connectedness scales the organisation’s ability to listen, respond and adapt to the market.

Connectedness provides an early warning system for changing need, for rising dissatisfaction, for new competitors.

But beyond all of this, connectedness humanises a businesses. It allows your customers and other stakeholders to interact with the living, breathing, passionate, caring people on whom your business depends. It takes down the walls."

Related articles

• Connectedness Is Zappos
• Connectedness Means Mastering Audiences, Not Channels
• Judgment Call: Can You Be A Global Business and Idealistic?
• 10 Principles of Open Business - 9010 group
• Introducing the Open Business Program
• Connectedness Is Philz Coffee
• Connectedness spotlight: Gary Vaynerchuk
• Open Business Principle 2: Open Capital
• Open Business Principle 4: Sharability
• Open Business - Principle 3: The Networked Organisation

Open Business - Principle 3: The Networked Organisation

 I've just published the third of our 10 Principles of Open Business over at 90:10 Group.

The third Principle is the one that defines the structure of an Open Business. It is that it should be a Networked Organisation.
Networked Organisation (or as McKinsey is labelling them, Networked Enterprises) will be familiar territory to anyone who has read this blog for a number of years. They go by the alternative name of Platform Organisations. An excerpt:

“The organisation functions as a platform connecting internal networks to external ones for a common Purpose.” (see Principle 1: Purpose).
This speaks to and supports our primary definition of an Open Business: One which uses its resources to bring people together to achieve a shared Purpose – designed from the outset to scale through participation making partners of customers.

You can read the full blogpost here.

I've been thinking and writing about the shift from traditional to networked (or platform) organisations since I began this blog. As more tech gets deployed, the clearer the requirement to connect inside and out reveals itself.
And, as I previously discussed, with the arrival of 3D printing the veil lifts on the true role of the organisation - suggesting a platform (or networked) approach has been the natural state to which organisations were always going to return when our view became clear:

When we talk about means of production, we often think about the machinery to produce. But that does not mean the device.
In a mass production world the connection between the machinery and the process is clearer. Traditionally a newspaper owner needed to own a printing press. They also needed to employ a team or writers, photographers, editors etc to produce the content. Which was the means of production? The printing press or the producers of the content? The two were so tightly connected it didn't matter.

On the web the owner of the means of production of content is the person who creates the content. In reality this was always so. In the past the owner of the means or production of content had no access to the printing press. Now they have (or at least to its equivalent in the form of the web - where of course everyone is a publisher).

The same is true of factories; where the production line is the equivalent of the printing press. In a world in which everyone has access to their own production line ( a home 3D printer) the real means of production is revealed as those coming up with the ideas, process and required designs.

What is clear is that 3D printing throws into sharp relief the need for organisations to think of themselves far less as the makers of, and far more the supporters of the makers of, 'their' products.

From 'The Challenge of 3D Printing to the role of the organisation'

Related articles

• The Principles of Open Business - Principle Three: The Networked Organisation
• The 10 Principles of Open Business
• Open Business Principle 2: Open Capital
• The 10 Principles of Open Business and why they are demanded by the networked world
• The Principles of Open Business: Principle 2 - Open Capital
• The Principles of Open Business: Principle 1 - Purpose
• Open Business: Principle 1 - Purpose
• Introducing the Open Business Program
• 10 Principles of Open Business - 9010 group

Worlds apart

Imagine only being able to see in two dimensions, to move in two dimensions, to measure your world in two dimensions?

Imagine I told you there was a third? That not only was it possible to move left and right, but also up and down.

Imagine you are a hunter in two-dimension world, that what you do depends on movement. You had no idea that up and down stuff existed, let alone was possible for you. And then I tell you there are loads of hunters just like you out there right now moving up and down as well as left and right.

And they are doing better than you.

They don't just fish where the fish are in two dimensions, but in three.

The scale of their world is infinitely more vast. The opportunities infinitely richer.

All you have to do to join in is look up. Or wait to get swallowed whole by something you couldn't even conceive of.

Video: Webciety CeBIT keynote: How the web changes the organisation of business

For those of you who weren't at Webciety at CeBIT, Hannover, Germany on Thursday March 8, or weren't able to catch the live webcast of my keynote when it was first broadcast, a recording is now available.



The video lasts almost an hour which includes introduction, my keynote and a panel discussion of the themes it outlines. In summary it explores how the future isn't digital, it is self-organised, how and why the web powers disruption based on this and explores the role of the organisation in a world in which we can organise for ourselves more cheaply and effectively than ever before. It also recognises the challenge of 3D printing in this context - how this reveals where the means of production have always resided and what this tells us about the key tasks that must be taken on by the org of the future.

I've expanded a few more thoughts, specifically in relation to 'Loose Ties and Sufficient Organisation', which are detailed in my blogpost of Saturday March 10, 2012.

I have also updated the slides on slideshare to those I finally presented. I hope you find them useful.

How the web changes the organisation of business and the business of organisation

View more presentations from david cushman.

Related articles

• Loose ties and sufficient organisation (or why start-ups work) (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)
• How the web changes the business of organisation (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)
• We're live from CeBIT 2012 in Hannover, Germany! (engadget.com)
• Twingly Live goes Webciety - again! (twingly.com)

There is no insight button

I really worry about the turn-key, one-size-fits-all tech and tool solutions for social media being churned out by software and SAAS vendors for baffled brands and companies right now.

For example, this from a press release I saw on Thursday January 19:

“[Brand X’s] enterprise marketing technology allows global brands and agencies to easily activate social audiences and impact consumer actions on all major social media ecosystems simultaneously.”

My  translation: With one button you can broadcast at anyone fool enough to have followed you so far. If they happen to have stayed around since you bought them, that is.

Job done then?

What worries me is that hassled execs will take the magic bullet being offered – we all like to make ‘life simplifying’ decisions. It’s very seductive to sign up for a one-stop solution because it’s easier than understanding what they really need to. It’s unlikely to be more cost-effective though.

As I wrote previously for a piece with Ninety10 Group CEOJamie Burke (note and disclosure, we co-founded that international business consultancy together.)

Business as usual wants a set of turn-key tools to make everything all right. But the future isn't about tools. It is about behaviours - understanding changes, learning from them and responding to meet those changed needs.

Business as usual wants ever-more efficient ways to exploit customers. But the most efficient way of meeting need is delivered by a shift in mind-set not in technologies; a shift that thinks of customers as your partner in producing what matters to both of you.

Business as usual wants to exploit channels to deliver messages. Click to deploy. But the future resides in better understanding why people would want to share 'your message' - getting to grips with the idea that marketing isn't done to people, it is done with people.

A tool or set of tools won't - of themselves - deliver the change you need to shift out of business as usual. And unless you take the holistic view, unless you go through the culture shift, the organisational change that is required, the tools will lead you back to square one.

As Ninety10group Head of Innovation Steffen Huck points out “There is no ‘insight’ button on any dashboard.

There is no ‘Cultural Change’ button, either.

Learning to love the truth (even if you don't 'like' it)

Nice deck here from my colleague Ninety10 Group CEO Jamie Burke, issued as a wake-up call to those who set out to harvest 'likes' - detailing the risk to reality that delivers.

Stop worrying about likes and learn to love the truth

View more presentations from 90:10 Group Ltd.

Two new jobs at 90:10 Group

London-based social business consultancy 90:10 Group (UK) is seeking to recruit both an Executive and an Associate to help us change the world - niche by niche. Both roles are based in London, UK.

EXECUTIVE
The Executive role is a first step on an exciting career path for someone with a passion for the tools and techniques of social media and the desire and ambition to join a vibrant, fast-growing organisation in a sector bursting with innovation and opportunity.
During your first year you'll receive exceptional training and guidance, preparing you for promotion within 12 short months. We recruit into this role with your long term development very much front of mind.
We expect the successful applicant to be capable of becoming a share-holding partner within three short years and a director of their own arm of the business within 5-6. On joining you will have a clear career development path mapped out with rewards and incentives marking the way.
Our career structure is designed to recognise and reward the work and experience our employees gain at 90:10 and give each member of the team more to inspire and aspire to.


The role:
The Executive role functions as the one-year entry point into the 90:10 Group business.
The Location:
Our London office at 88 Kingsway, Holborn.
Function: You will provide vital day-to-day support to the London office and its team while gaining an understanding of how the office / business operates. You will gain hands-on experience in community culture - the 90:10 platform approach to delivering business efficiencies through social technologies and techniques of co-creation.
You will be trained in the best online community auditing/monitoring and data processing tools and techniques with expert leadership. You will also be supported in responding to day-to-day client management issues.
You will be required from time to time (with any necessary training) to update our own web resources, take notes in meetings and support the senior team in a variety of administrative roles.


Essential: Excellent written and communication skills in English. Computer and web literacy. Business and client focus. Excellent eye for detail and accuracy. Must have the right to work in the UK (you will be based at our office in Holborn, London, right next to the tube).
Advantageous: Knowledge of/experience in social media monitoring technologies. As a multinational, multilingual business, additional languages are also clear advantage as is evidence of effective personal participation in social media. A qualification in Research or Communications OR equivalent working experience will make you stand out, too.

ASSOCIATE 
THE ROLE:
The role of associate is a client-facing role which requires a year’s experience within 90:10 Group or equivalent skill sets. We expect the successful applicant to be capable of becoming a share-holding partner within two short years and a director of their own arm of the business within 4-5. On joining you will have a clear career development path mapped out with rewards and incentives marking the way.
It is a continuing development role in which you will perform the following functions and develop the following skills: 
Functions: Support the Group and the London office in the following ways:

• Create report documents, coordinate meetings and provide clients day-to-day service. 
• Manage the delivery of social media monitoring reports, audits and local accounts.
• Attend presentations to clients
• Interpret industry news for your local office.
• Develop hands on experience in community engagement (outreach etc)
• Perform Data processing/Social media monitoring
• Support executives in their training in data processing/social media monitoring
• Identify and share best practice both in London and throughout the group.
• Monitor development of social media activity in relevant markets 
• Monitor developments in the brands and orgs we work for with specific focus on accounts you are responsible for.
• Identify and share, and where directed, pursue new business opportunities

Demonstrate and develop an interest in and understanding of :

• Managing large local and / or multi-regional accounts.
• Leading all listening and audit presentations to clients and their agencies
• Using audit and listening outcomes in marcomms planning processes, idea creation and strategic support.
• Co-creation initiatives and workshops through all their phases.
• Creating and sharing slide-decks and demonstrating strategic capability.
• Costing of projects and invoicing of clients.

Further your interest in and understanding of :

• Ninety10's approach, products and services
• The businesses, brands and organisations we work with
• Your blogging and other areas of expertise to demonstrate thought leadership in social media.
• All aspects of our social media monitoring processes - from commissioning to delivery - including technical and client-relationship aspects.
• Business transformation through social technologies

Essential: Experience in and off social media monitoring and reporting is essential for this particular Associate role. Must have the right to work in the UK (you will be based at our office in Holborn, London, right next to the tube) and have excellent communication skills in English.


Advantageous: As a multinational, multilingual business, additional languages are a clear advantage as is evidence of effective personal participation in social media. A qualification in Research or Communications OR equivalent working experience will make you stand out, too.
 
We intend to appoint to these roles immediately - there is work waiting to be done! If you or anyone you know would like to discuss these rare opportunities please email me david@ninety10group.com with your CV, current salary details and availability today.





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Related articles

• Head of Research at 90:10 Group (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)
• Secrets of a social-media headhunter (smartblogs.com)
• People on the Move in the Social Business Industry: March 1, 2011 (web-strategist.com)
• The social media skills and credentials (successnetwork.wordpress.com)