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.

Perspectives on Social Business... can we be open?

A few weeks back I got asked in to IBM to share my thinking on 'social business'. Of course I made it very clear that I thought the term somewhat unhelpful - and that I would prefer we talk about Open Business.

I also attended in not only my capacity as a thought leader (blogger) but also as a practitioner (MD Ninety10 Ltd UK and Co-Founder Ninety10 Group.com).

I'm hoping we'll get a bit more of both those things in the final edit we're still due to get from the day - on the Future of Social Business.

In the meantime, take a look at the videos below. Contributions from me on both.

Related articles

• Ditch the customer if you want to transform business (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)
• How to Become a Social Business (servantofchaos.com)
• Some new stuff on social business (simoncollister.com)
• The success of social business depends on standards (zdnet.com)

Plug collaboration into your business

Plug collaboration into your business

View more presentations from david cushman.

Bringing communities together, co-creating, collaboration, open source... open ended?

The whole notion of businesses without walls can be very difficult for those embedded in traditional organisations to imagine. Where to start? Where does it end?

So at (disclosure, I work there) 90:10 we have been working on a whole series of products to help those organisations benefit from the value created by co-creation in a rapid, outcome-oriented way. First, clear, effective action-oriented steps.

They each have deliverables and outcomes, fixed and short timescales (from 1 week to 3 months) and fixed prices to go with them.

The following slidedeck reveals our approach. If you're interested in the products themselves and how they can create value for your organisation - let me know.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Open Source in the Enterprise and in the Cloud (acquia.com)
• A case study of supply-driven product development (hangingtogether.org)
• Design Thinking 2.0: Enabling Innovation with Web 2.0 - Part 2 (vaughanmerlyn.com)

Wanted: Paid intern to work on a co-created movie

NinetyTen (my lot) has been helping Honda (a client) on a project to co-create a road trip movie.
There are lots of ways you can get involved. But the latest is rather splendid if you have some time to learn the magic of movies from April 19 to June 11, 2010.

Working with award winning director Claudio Von Planta (you may know him from his work on the Charley Boorman and Ewan Macgregor BBC bike trips Long Way Round and Long Way Down) and the agency producer, you'll be paid £1500 and be provided with accommodation in and travel to and from London.

You need to know your way around social media (if you found this while online, you are on the right lines) and be able to write a blog.

The job is based in central London, but you may be asked to attend the 35-day shoot around Europe throughout May.

You can come from anywhere in Europe, but you need to be able to speak English. Additional languages are beneficial (particularly French, German, Italian or Spanish) and you need to have the appropriate working
visa for employment in the UK.

If you, or anyone you know, should be taking part, send your CV to intern@liveeverylitre.com and describe why you'd be perfect for the project.

You don't need to contact me directly :-)

Here's Claudio talking about the project: