Social Business Design

Attributes of a Socially Optimized Business

Once again, I had the great pleasure to work with my colleagues on an XPLANATiON with our Social Business Council members. We interviewed a core group of our members to identify the attributes that comprise the whole of the socially optimized business. I think you will agree, the results are fabulous.

Where are you on the course from Start to Social?

Attributes of a Socially Optimized Business

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Special thanks go out to members @briantullis, @jimworth, @kendomen, @kimberlymahan, @kristenritter, @seanwinter, @dpontefract, @bricejewell, @robcaldera, and Joachim Stroh.

SMC Austin Chapter hosts a conversation on Social Business

Be there: Register today.

Just when you think you have all the answers, something crops up that challenges your beliefs on how Social Business works and will work in the future. Whether it’s new platforms/tools, new regulation, organizational changes, even world events — the Social Business world does not stand still and learning in this space is highly iterative. At Dachis Group and for our Social Business Council members, we face this reality day in and day out. The good news on Social Business is there are ample opportunities to increase and share your learning. To that end, I’m going to be moderating a panel discussion on Social Business at the upcoming Social Media Club Austin meeting next week. (Tuesday, 8/16 from 6pm – 8pm CT). I hope you can join us if you’re local, and if you’re not, I’m sure the tweet stream will be buzzing. The twitter hashtag for Social Media Austin events is #SMCA.

We’ll have a great panel of vendors (who just happen to have great “user” experience as well) relating their own journeys on transforming their clients, as well as their own companies, to become fully-functioning Social Businesses. There is a lot of collective wisdom represented on this panel of experts, so I hope you’ll join us in the conversation. This will be my speaking debut to our awesome local Social Media Club chapter (most active club in the world, outside of San Francisco I hear). I’m looking forward to mashing up my knowledge of the internal enterprise social space with the external expertise resident in this town, as well as meeting lots of new social enthusiasts.

On the panel we will have Jive’s Deirdre Walsh, who is somewhat of a hometown hero of mine as she led National Instruments‘ social strategy prior to joining Jive as Social Media Manager. Then, we have the amazing Kat Mandelstein who has been a terrific champion for Social Business at IBM and one smart cookie on all things social. Kat is also on the international board for the SMC and has done a great job supporting the Austin SMC chapter as Vice President. The other two panelists are Will Staney of VMware (which recently acquired Socialcast) and Jean-Claude Monney of Microsoft. I have not yet met Will or Jean-Claude, but have heard great things about them, so I look forward to hearing their insights. Will has an impressive background in introducing social media and adoption of social technology at VMWare with a solid foundation in community management and new media strategy. Jean-Claude leads Microsoft’s technical strategy in the Discrete Manufacturing industry, chairs the Microsoft High Tech Customer Advisory Board and represents Microsoft as the chair of the OAGi High Tech Council, a global B2B standards organization.

In preparation for the panel, we’re soliciting your questions ahead of time so we can get them into the session. Don’t be shy. Let us fashion the panel to suit your interests.

Send us questions you’d like to hear answered.

See you there!

Social Means Business

I just read Kate’s post on today’s announcement about Dachis Group acquiring Powered. I had to chuckle, because those of us in that “alternate universe, E20” used to think the same about the social media space. In fact, I joked to Peter Kim this year at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, “How does it feel not to be a celebrity?” I feel the same way at SXSWi. (Truth is, I didn’t even go last year.)

But, Kate is correct, the world is changing and fast. Every day one of our Council members, who’ve historically come from an E20 orientation – what we at Dachis Group refer to as “Workforce Collaboration” – is being asked to help out with the enterprise social strategy whether that means social media initiatives, connecting to suppliers, or partners. Some of our members have relocated entirely out of IT and into Marketing (who wouldda thunk?). And it’s not just IT and Marketing driving these initiatives, either. Social is touching every business unit in the organization.

I caution all our members to keep their eye on the bigger picture. The Council is expanding to embrace all facets of social business. Going forward, it will not be possible to separate where social media initiatives begin and e20 ends. And, every customer will tell you they rarely use any jargon when they’re presenting business cases to their executives. The language they use is rooted in the benefits of social collaboration, not the features. This is typically different for every company too, and becoming more and more strategic.

This next phase of the evolution of the social business market is about integration. Social Integration of people, process, and technology. Integration of Work, Society, and Technology. Integration of the past with the future. It’s all good, and it’s why I’m particularly thrilled to be a part of a company executing with precision on that vision.

Adoption is Dead. Long live Adoption!

Rumors surrounding the death of adoption have been greatly exaggerated.

The 2.0 Enterprisey crowd is gearing up to head to Boston for our annual pilgrimage. This will be my fourth conference as a participant and board member. Having watched and often interpreted the trends in this sector, I find it interesting to report that things have not changed much in general since our first get-together in 2007. While it’s true that we have many, many more organizations large and small experimenting with and committing to 2.0 strategies– internally and externally– and the business itself is morphing into something much more grand and all-encompassing, the truth of the matter is: we are still early adopters of this new way of working.

The notion of “adoption” in general occasionally gets called into criticism by bloggers who are looking at the phenomenon purely through the lens of new technology adoption. The adoption phenomenon is much more far-reaching and encompasses a wholesale reinvention of the way we will work in the future. Social data and social layers that will filter transactions in the enterprise are the Next Big Thing in enterprise. Period. But before we can get there, we need to on-ramp legions of employees to change their attitudes and behaviors to maximize the benefits of what the socially connected universe offers.

It’s easy for us who spend a lot of time on the social web to re-imagine where we are in real terms relative to widespread embrace of social strategy and tactical best practices. This is a mistake, and we need to scale back our expectations and see the immediate opportunity for what it is: an early adopter market. This reality has been difficult to swallow, perhaps especially for me. We’ve kicked off our case study series and early indicators are reinforcing the relative immaturity of the market. We’ll have more details on those in upcoming months. The good news is: we are all really early on a phenomenon that is changing the world as we know it. This social transformation will be larger and more comprehensive than any technology transformation (including the Internet and mobile) we’ve seen thus far. Those of us who are in this for the long haul know this instinctively and welcome the opportunity to shape the future.

That said, the Council members (who are squarely on the front lines of galvanizing change) have been working hard to put together some thinking on what’s working and what’s not on the Adoption Trail. In addition to our full-day workshop, we have an entire track devoted to adoption issues at the conference this year. I invite you to hear directly from these customers– at their sessions, at lunch, at the bar, in the halls… wherever they are. You’ll know them because they’ll be wearing our pins, as well as a star on their badges. We have over 30 Council members attending from a variety of industry sectors including: IT/High Tech, Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals, Public Utilities, Government, Construction, Publishing, Retail, Non-Profit, Health Care, Financial Services, and Manufacturing.

On the last day of the conference, in the last session time slot, I’ve reserved time to discuss “what we missed” in our agenda planning. As board members, we try hard to include everything topical that’s fit to present, but invariably, we could fall short and miss or underplay something important. This session is an attempt to capture that lost content and discuss it with a panel of customers and industry thought leaders (including Dennis Howlett and Lee Bryant, as well as a team of sharp shooter Council members). So, while you’re attending sessions, please keep a mental note of anything you feel has been missing from the dialog all week and bring it to the session. We’re going to try and keep the session as interactive as possible.

Look forward to seeing you all in Boston.

The 2.0 Adoption Council is now part of The Dachis Group

What? Wow! How come?

History

Let’s begin at the beginning. The beginning of the social business (r)evolution didn’t begin in with web 2.0, it began with web 1.0 in the mid-90s. From research I published in 2000, we wrote this about the company Jeff founded in 1995, Razorfish:

Razorfish’s vision states, “Everything that can be digital, WILL be” The company claims that organizations that identify and embrace digital technology will succeed because they can react more quickly to market needs, are more efficient and customers actually enjoy doing business with them. In addition, Razorfish claims its digital communications solutions can make implementating this technology a reality for its clients. Razorfish believes companies must reevaluate their traditional business models in order to remain competitive in the digital economy. The company helps clients incorporate digital technologies… to better communicate and transact with their customers, suppliers, employees and other business partners.

A whole pack of Razorfish wannabes were singing the same tune in that sector at the time. I found them fascinating. But, in truth, it was really Jeff who wrote the original lyrics to that song. He set the tone for revitalization and disruption. When I came back into the business in 2006, it was that same energy with a new set of tools that attracted me to this sector. We’ve been calling it Enterprise 2.0, but over the past few weeks, I’ve come to agree that the Social Business Design strategy the Dachis Group is promoting is synonymous with the vision I see for what’s coming, for what’s possible. In essence, it’s the same vision Jeff had in the 90s– an extension of what has already been in motion.

Today

In the Council, our members are truly on the front lines of massive transformation at their large enterprises. But they know it’s only the beginning of something profound. One of our members said recently, “I’ve never, in my 25-yr career, worked on something so valued and so feared by executives in the same company. This must be big.”

For the past few hundred years, we’ve been working the old way. I look at this stage of market maturity as analogous to the age of enlightenment. It’s an interesting blend of art, science, and intellectual thinking that is dominating the conversation on how we will work in the future. One of our members referred to it as the “social spring” after the dark, aftermath of the Internet dotcom winter. Once this digital-social idealism propagates around the globe and is embraced by leading institutions, that’s when the real work will begin, and all customers are going to need help getting to the next level of productivity and business performance. When it does, we will be there. Ready for what’s next.

What’s next for us?

I founded the Council last summer. Here was my introductory post to the members on why I did:

In concert with the Dachis Group, which now includes Lee Bryant and the whole Headshift team, Dion Hinchcliffe, Peter Kim, Jevon MacDonald, Bryan Menell, and Kate Niederhoffer, as well as scores of talented others, we can bring incomparable resources to our members– in programs and actionable discussion that will help them achieve their goals. I’m truly thrilled to be joining the Dachis team and am looking forward to seeing all our hard work come to fruition.