I've just published the second in the series of blog posts on the Principles of Open Business over on 9010group.com.
Here's an excerpt:
Most organisations are good at ‘What’ they do and ‘How’ they do it.
But ask them Why? And things get trickier... Most when asked about Purpose will point to Mission Statements.
Unfortunately in the majority of cases a Mission Statement begs a
further question: Why? Many are written along the lines of “To be No1 in our chosen markets and sectors returning maximum value to shareholders”. Why? That Why is important. It is what brings people together, motivates
them, inspires them to support your cause. In a connected world in which
the organisation’s role is to act as a platform to help others achieve a
collective shared Purpose, it is essential. It is how you succeed.
My good friend Euan Semple is running a series of workshops in London in the next few months covering various aspects of the business use of social media. He has run similar events for many years inside orgs - now he's opening up to offer them outside. I commend them to you - I know from personal experience how good Euan's work is - it's one of the many reasons he was one of the first people I asked to join the 90:10 group of consultants. I'll leave the rest to Euan:
"There are three workshops offering you a comprehensive understanding of the impact the web on the workplace and the information you need to do something about it."
Great to see my good friend Stowe Boyd responding to the blooming and booming interest in the world-changing stuff of social business with a new kind of event.
Social Business Edge is a 'show' not a conference. And it's powered by a cast of great minds (see The Swarm here). I'm delighted to say Stowe has asked me to join that Swarm.
Stowe himself is directing, Jeff Pulver (140conf) is producing.
It's on in New York on April 19, 2010. As I keep saying, social business (and organisation) innovation is what the money has been waiting to follow; it's what our social tools are for.
To whet your appetite, here's Stowe himself talking about social business in October last year at the LA 140conf.
"The Social Business will be more like a village than an army... where reputation is more important than title... connections more important than rank and authority derived from connections not from control."
Social business innovation: Efficiency and tranformation through the use of social tools.
We have the best set of tools in history for people to find each other and act together to create and improve on the things that matter to them.
What are we doing with them?
Some businesses and organisations are grasping them to wikifix their products and services, to deliver best-fit R&D and NPD and join in waste-free people-powered communications and marketing. The wikifixing of the world has begun.
Those engaging in the process reach new levels of efficiency thanks to an ever-better fit with the needs of their partners - those formerly known as the customer. (By way of disclosure, that's what we at 90:10 Group help organisations with).
So each month this blog will host a Social Business Innovation of The Month award, nominated by you and voted on by you. The format is very much inspired by Neil Perkin's ThinkTank.
The awards are to recognise great work in open/social business/organisational design/innovation/tranformation/efficiency using social technologies.
The winners will enter a case-study Hall of Fame to be shared with all - and in which the winners can revel in the glory of their peers' admiration ;-). More importantly, we can all get inspiration and guidance.
We'll have some (digital) badges for nominees and winners too (logos etc in production, and if you want to contribute ideas/creative talent please drop my 90:10 colleague Ilkut a line. Make them better than my hastily assembled effort.)
I'm less concerned at this stage about the niceties of defining specific rules (they will emerge), more with encouraging your participation - and that of those you know will care.
So at this stage, let's just nominate what we think is great from anything that's been done right up until now.
I hope one of the side effects will be discovery for those of us working, or planning on working, in this space, too.
But, before we get a chance to vote, we need some nominations.
Just post yours as a comment with a link to anything relevant (slidedeck, blogpost, video etc) and at the end of January we'll open the voting.
As I commented on Dave Armano's blog (Dave is part of the Dachis revolution), I'm delighted to see social business design (and all other descriptions of making business more efficient through crowd-sourced solutions) being legitimised. (Image courtesy)
This is true for all forms of organisation - from businesses to institutions.
And I have a growing sense that this is what the money has been waiting to follow.
Because this adaptation of business to the networked world shows direct return on investment - it streamlines businesses, creates new orders of efficiency in everything from product development, to marketing, to recruitment, to you name it...
It delivers business models (and businesses) adapted to the networked world. It enables businesses to exist in a rapidly transforming world.
One small example: The people who can make the biggest difference to your company don't work for it. Adapting to the network means they can. If there is a part of your business that can't be disrupted by adhoc communities of purpose (forming online to improve on what you currently do) you are in an extremely enviable position.
The social business design thang (and I'm not sure that'll be how we end up describing efficiency through social technologies, but it's a neat short-form for now) is a cost-effective launch model, too.
To deliver you don't need millions of users on 'your' platform , a gazzillion servers and more bandwidth than Twitter when a celeb dies, before some fantasised micro-payment model starts paying back the millions sunk by scale-fixated VCs.
That's why I think investors will find this 'use' of (we really mean participation in) social technologies so much more exciting and potentially rewarding than throwing cash at the next Facebook or Twitter.
So that just leaves one question for me... who is going to pay for the tools and platforms which deliver the real-time, beyond-silo, connections on which social business design relies (the next Facebook or Twitter)?
The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
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