Community Online

I am sure you would all agree with me that both TED Talk and TEDx videos are just terrific means of being wowed over and over again on multiple different topics. One could eventually spend the whole day long watching them one after the other and never get tired of them! The thing is that, every so often, one gets to bump into one of those special TED(x) videos that leaves a really good taste behind; that inspires you tremendously and that surely marks a before and an after you watch it. Well, I have just had one of those moments: Reinventing Social Media by David Armano.

Yes, that’s right! David Armano, Senior Vice President for Edelman Digital and whose birthday was just a few hours back (Happy birthday again, David!), spent a little bit over 16 minutes sharing a good number of rather compelling and very touching stories that highlight quite nicely the huge impact of social media beyond the technology focus and the marketing hype, trying to establish the main basic guidelines of what he feels is going to define social media in the not so distant future.

To get things started, he makes a great point that media is *not* social; people are. And, as such, we should stop that infatuation we keep having with everything 2.0 related and move on. Move on to where we should be focusing in the first place. And I bet you know, by now, where I am heading… Yes, indeed, it’s quite refreshing, as you can imagine, to see how other folks validate your ideas, and long term beliefs, and in this case it’s rather rewarding to see how David proclaims that the next challenge for social media is to move on and give the focus of the change … to the people. Not the social tools, nor the processes, but the people themselves who have been there all along as part of the equation, but which we kept neglecting, and ignoring!, time and time again over the course of the years… Specially in the field of Knowledge Management.

I couldn’t have agreed more with him on that point, plus a whole bunch of the nice slideware and visuals he used to deliver plenty of those key and powerful messages. Pay special attention to the one on the Social Media Conversion Scale, which you can read more about over here, and try to figure out for yourself where you think you would be on that scale. I think I know where I am and where I want to be and would love to know from you, on the comments, where you think you are and where you believe you would want to be in the next couple of years… I bet that would sparkle a rather interesting conversation for everyone…

Finally, not going to spend much more time on this blog post, since I think you would probably want to watch David’s video right away, but I would want to finish this short blog post with one other key major ah-ha moment I got after going through it. And that is his wonderful use of rather touching personal stories that tried to represent, and very successfully, in my opinion, the opportunity to benefit from social media: first, you, as an individual, to then benefit the rest of your social network(s). Forget altogether about the business! That is where it all begins and, to me, it is also a key message, not just from social media, but also for Enterprise 2.0: that unless knowledge workers take a much more personal involvement and commitment to augment their own individual productivity with all of these social tools, before they start thinking about sharing and collaborating effectively with other teams, networks and communities, our overall efforts of adoption won’t probably go much further beyond and eventually die off in the short term.

And we wouldn’t want to do that, right? Like David shares on the video, we need to reinvent social media, each and everyone of us, as individuals, one step at a time, before we can move further on into our next challenge: address and fix our business problems! We first need to fix ourselves!

Tags: TED, TED Talk, TEDx, Videos, David Armano, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Productivity 2.0, Edelman Digital, Social Media Conversion Scale, Individual, Knowledge Workers, Reinvent Social Media, Hippie 2.0, Personal Productivity

In business (and life) we have to fight.

Fight for our clients. Fight for our beliefs. Fight for our ideas to be heard and understood why we’re presenting them.

Fight for our value and worth.

Choosing when to fight, though, isn’t easy. Even though there are times when we know we are so right, no matter what we say it’s going to be viewed as wrong.

It takes a lot to walk away at times like these.

You put in a lot of work. Man hours, development hours, project hours. But that’s the work stuff – you expect that. There’s also the personal hours away from those you love.

But you do it, because you’re doing it to make a better life for those you love. That’s why you fight.

Pride comes into it too. You can see why those that are fighting with you are having qualms, but you also have the solutions to those qualms. Or at least you would, if they would let you.

But they don’t.

So now you have to decide, do you fight or do you surrender?

Surrender isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It smooths the water and allows you and your combatant’s ships to sail more easily in the same waters again. And everyone loves plain sailing.

But every sailor knows the next big storm is only one grey cloud away.

So now you’re back to fighting. But how long do you allow a fight to go on before realizing it’s only creating lasting damage? How long before you’re punch-drunk and unable to fight any more? And not just with this opponent, but every single one from now on?

Anyone can fight. Some can fight better than others, and for longer.

The question is, are the victories sweet or bittersweet? Are they even victories at all?

photo credit: Profound Whatever

Yesterday, if you would remember, I put together a short blog post where I was mentioning how apart from having one of those days of meetings galore jumping from one to the next, I was also looking forward to the great opportunity of participating live on the Blog Talk Radio podcasting show, hosted by John Moore, and along with one of my favourite Enterprise 2.0 people, Mark Masterson, as co-guest. Well, I am happy to confirm that the recording of that podcast episode is now available for replay.

And, boy, did we have such a good fun with that interview or not? John asked us a few rather interesting, insightful and provocative questions on what we thought were some of the major key points behind figuring out the business value of social networking. That was just a blast! What an adrenaline rush of back and forth between Mark, John and yours truly! I had such a great time!

John himself has actually put together a rather nice short blog post on that podcast under the title Social Media ROI and Hippy 2.0… It all made sense... In it he mentions how the recording lasts for about 56 minutes and it starts off at around minute 5, after he spent a little while sharing some further thoughts on the news and trends of the day / week related to social media.

I bet you may be wondering, right now, what we actually talked about during the course of nearly one hour, right? Yes, I agree with you, that’s a long time to spend on a podcast, but it certainly was such a good fun that I don’t think none of us minded at all! Thus here you have got some of the headlines and an annotation of two on the topics that we covered during that live podcast show:

• Business Value of Social Networking: Where we talked about how sometimes it’s much more effective, and productive, to focus on figuring out how to get the most of all of these social networking tools as our next generation of business tools to help us collaborate and share our knowledge more efficiently than trying to figure out the Return On Investment (ROI) of those social interactions without having even gotten things started in the first place!

  How it may prove to be much more convenient to demonstrate how social software can change the way we interact with customers, as well as with the rest of our peers, by humanising those very same business interactions helping nurture, even better, our own personal business relationships. We eventually shared plenty of thoughts and ideas of how this could pave out for almost any business out there!

• Living "A World Without Email": Yes, of course, we couldn’t miss out on this one, could we? Most of you folks, regular readers of this blog, already know quite a bit what this topic would be about, but what you may be interested in is the part of the conversation where I shared some further insights on demonstrating the ROI of giving up on corporate email and what it’s meant not only for me as a knowledge worker, but also for the organisation I work for and for those other peers I get to interact on a regular basis.

  Reducing your corporate email conversations by over 95% and instead move those into open social software spaces is one heck of a success story, don’t you think? Specially when over 3.5 years ago, most people felt I was crazy for doing such thing in such an email driven corporation like IBM (And probably like most of them out there as well!) and today, more and more teams and groups are also seeing such substantial reduction with their incoming emails by utilising more various different social tools. I may not be that crazy after all …

• Or, maybe, I still am! Because the other topic we talked about, during that one hour conversation and which we covered quite extensively, was a new crazy? idea that I came up with a few days back and which is picking a rather nice momentum and plenty of traction. Of course, I am talking about Hippie 2.0.

  Who would have thought about that? An initial blog post that I put together and shared across a little bit weary about it (I wasn’t sure whether it was going to strike a chord or not!), eventually has been raising a huge amount of rather interesting and very refreshing conversations on the true nature of embracing social networking beyond the business context, that is, how it is affecting us all as a society.

  That blog entry so far is one of the most popular threads on this blog and has sparked a good number of developments that will certainly keep a bunch of us buzzing for a little while longer! Who knows, perhaps for a long while…

  The thing is that we already have got a Web site up and running under Hippie 2.0 (Using Posterous at the moment and with a unique opportunity to have an open space where everyone can contribute with whatever the relevant content); we talked extensively about it on yesterday’s live podcast; a few people have already contributed some top notch content (Including some fun stuff!); and a few folks have been leaving comments already throughout the various entries and we have got a bunch of other really cool things coming up!

  I say we because my good friend Jay Deragon has been doing an outstanding job in pushing forward some of the content you will see on the Web site when you head over there. And for that, I am incredibly grateful! Thanks ever so much, Jay!! Really appreciate all of your efforts and glad you, too, feel the same way about this crazy idea!

Right, there were plenty of things related to social networking and proving its business value altogether that we talked about during that live podcasting episode over at Blog Talk Radio, but I think I am going to stop commenting further on it for now. Instead, I would encourage you all to go and listen to it, by perhaps quoting one of the best live tweets that people shared across during the show and which clearly represents the true spirit behind such a movement as Hippie 2.0:

"If you focus on fear, you’ll get fear. If you focus on humor, you’ll get laughs" (Superb quote from Mark captured by Susan Scrupski)

I hope you have enjoyed listening to the episode, just as much as we did during the live recording of the podcast. Like I said above, I had a great time participating in it and from here I just would want to take this opportunity to thank John Moore for inviting both Mark and myself into the show, to Mark for being such great fun, smart, insightful, witty, and another Hippie 2.0, like yours truly, and, finally, to Eric Andersen for helping facilitate the connection over … Twitter!

Thanks ever so much, guys! It’s been a great pleasure and hope to see you all soon over at Hippies20.com!

Tags: Blog Talk Radio, Podcasts, Podcasting, Radio Shows, Mark Masterson, John Moore, Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Hippies 2.0, Hippie2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Productivity 2.0, email, Re-purposing Email, No-Email, Challenge Your Inbox, Progress Reports, Thinking Outside the Inbox, Information Overload, A World Without Email, Eric Andersen, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Jay Deragon, Posterous, Twitter

2.0 Hippies don’t think like the “crowd” rather they think about the “crowd”.  The “crowd” represents the masses being lead down the wrong path only to be captured and used for “the media’s and the man’s” benefit. The media represents “the man” which reflects the philosophy of the past.

Many who stay stuck in the old business philosophy think they understand the power of social technology and try to apply it to old corporate practices in marketing, PR, advertising, customer and employee relations etc. only to learn that their strategies fail because they are driven by the wrong philosophy.

Hippies 2.0 challenge the assumptions and beliefs of organizational and personal thinking stuck in 1.0 philosophies. You can spot thinkers of Hippie 2.0 by their media which reflects profound changes in knowledge, values and reason about the human interaction with markets of conversations. Hippies 2.0 are early adopter ideologies which show the counter cultural values created by the intersection of technology with the human network.

What Do 2.0 Hippies Think About?

Thinking about things is a philosophical practice for examining what could and should be done vs. what is and has been done. 2.0 Hippies look at the emerging landscape of technological advances and not only think and talk about what will change but lead their followers to rally for and create the change. So what do they think about? Try these top ten then decide if you are a 2.0 Hippie:

1. They are more interested in “thinkers” than followers.
2. They appreciate “followers” who can add to the thinking with related dialog.
3. They see obvious change that would benefit “people” and not “the man”.
4. They don’t chase economic rewards rather they attempt to create rewards for everyone by influencing how people and institutions think.
5. They think about “holistic benefits of change” and not “selfish gains” from creating change.
6. They think with abundance and not scarcity.
7. They are not concerned with what is popular rather what is good for the populous.
8. They think about common sense change that is uncommon to the “establishment”.
9. They think about creating new knowledge and not applying old knowledge.
10. Last but not least they think about people’s relationship with markets and not the markets relationship with people.

What 2.0 Hippies say and do reflects a counter-culture shift from the way things are to the way things ought to be. The 2.o Hippie thinking isn’t stimulated by drugs like it was during Hippies 1.0 rather “the thoughts”are stimulated by a philosophy that challenges old assumptions and beliefs that are common and then creates uncommon thinking that takes root and becomes the new common.

Using the web to change how and what we think is much more valuable than using the web to propagate old messages and “established” practices. If you assume the web can best be used to propagate the wrong message using the wrong practice then don’t be surprised when 2.0 Hippies create changes that not only challenge your thinking but totally disrupt your “established” way of doing what you’ve always done. Continue to do so at your own demise!

2.0 Hippies need to gather together and leverage the power of a “social community” that propagates the philosophy which will truly create change we can believe in.

It can’t be done individually but it can be done when we speak in a collective voice. It can’t be done with politics as usual but it can be done by leveraging unusual politics. If you “think” about the same things as described by the thoughts of 2.0 Hippies then join the conversations and bring a bunch of other hippies with you. Together we can begin to change the “thinking” which in the end will change the markets, the man and the world.

Don’t think so? Then  take the same “hits” you’ve been taking and get “high” on frustration.  Continue to watch your eyes, and everyone else,  glaze over in disbelief of what is happening  to our world. Join the revolution and believe in something!

• Social Capital is not the same as Whuffie « emergent by design
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/872994562/if-social-capital-is-akin-to-the-fabric-of
• Why do you share? « emergent by design
• What Could the Future of Money Look Like? « emergent by design
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/872931536/tom-graves-on-moving-from-a-possession-to-a
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/872892111/social-capital-is-a-property-of-the-network

So today saw the launch of the Bonsai Interactive website, something that had become a labour of love over the last week or so.

Bonsai Interactive itself launched back in June, though it was more a soft launch with our social profiles. The website would have launched sooner, but we had some server hiccups so we transferred over to BlogOnCloud9, who also power this blog and who I have nothing but good words for.

So, Bonsai Interactive. What is it, and why are we kind of a big deal?

Bonsai – The Art of Growing

Bonsai Interactive grew from three people – myself, Troy Claus and Selina Jane Eckersall. Troy and I had founded the SRM Group, and Selina owned Sublime marketing agency. Troy knew Selina from way back, and we all became good friends.

It soon became clear that we had the same values, business ethics and determination to have fun along the way, both ourselves and with our clients. It also became clear that a merger was the natural way forward – and so Bonsai Interactive was born.

Why Bonsai? Simple – bonsai means “the art of growing”, and everything we do to help your business grow we’ll treat like a work of art – with care, delicacy, respect and most of all love.

After all, if you don’t love what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with, may as well stop now. So, that’s where Bonsai came from.

SRM Group and Sublime

Obviously, whenever there’s a merger or coming together, one of the main questions that needs answering is what happens to any existing companies? Well, the good news here is that pretty much nothing changes.

While Bonsai Interactive will be the core business and look after marketing, strategy, branding and a host of other solutions, SRM Group and Sublime will remain as two separate entities under the Bonsai umbrella.

The SRM Group will offer social responsibility and education; organizational development; and strategies and workshops on social media for business and non-profits.

Sublime will continue to develop agency relationships and enhance the reputation and respect that Selina has built around the Sublime brand.

With Sublime, we’ll help other agencies get acquainted with the social web, both from their perspective and from that of their clients. Again, this will include workshops, outsourced projects and offering both an introduction and ongoing education for agencies not currently active in social media and digital marketing.

And then there’s Appficient. Still under wraps at the minute, Appficient will be our mobile application arm. We’re currently finalizing a very strong partnership and core team, with offices in Canada, the U.S. and Argentina.

Primarily developing for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry, Appficient will offer a different way of looking at mobile apps, and we’re looking forward to releasing more information very soon.

What Next?

While these arms will continue to operate individually, it may be that eventually everything falls under the Bonsai Interactive roof, if it makes sense to do this operationally.

In the meantime, Bonsai Interactive is live, and we’re looking to keep having fun, and adding a little bit of zen to the marketing space.

We have some very cool client projects we’ll be unleashing soon (including some funky branding exercises in Toronto). We also have some fun live events coming up, the first one being this fall to celebrate the release of The Social Network movie.

We’d love for you to join us online, and you can find us over at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or our blog. And let us know all about you while you’re there – after all, that’s what we’re all here for, right?

Oh, and the “kind of a big deal” tagline? We just kinda liked it.

Hope to see you over at Bonsai Interactive sometime – cheers!

With meetings and activities galore happening at work right as we speak, and with the usual catchup of the daily routines in multiple social spaces, I think that today is going to be one of those days where blogging will be rather light, as opposed to keep sharing some additional insights on that topic that keeps coming up over and over again on Social Computing and business processes. So, you will have to excuse me for a minute till I get back into my usual swing of things. Or, alternatively, you could go ahead and join my good friend Mark Masterson and yours truly, later on today, at 3pm EDT – 8pm UK – 9pm CEDT, at the Blog Talk Radio show, with John Moore as our host, talking about the "Business Value of Social Media".

Yes, that’s right, later on today, in just a bit over an hour, both Mark and myself will be spending a few minutes with John talking about the business value of Social Software. I know, indeed, one of my favourite topics from all along: the good old ROI of Social Networking. Now, if you have been reading this blog for a while … you will know more or less what we will be talking about, but, in case you may not have, here is the link to the details of the show itself.

As you may have noticed already, Blog Talk Radio is one of those shows where folks can participate live and as such you would be able to join us as well by dialling in using this call-in number: (347) 324-3248. We would very much like to have you on today’s show and participate with us in, I am sure, what promises to be some pretty interesting and exciting conversations around business value of social computing, and, perhaps, even a bit of the little movement a bunch of us got started with a few days back: Hippies 2.0.

Who knows what else we would end up talking about… Either way, knowing the subjects both Mark and myself have been talking about for a little while now, you would realise that if you are into Social Computing in the Enterprise, you are in the right spot! So, come and join us later on today! And be ready to share your thoughts on what you think the business value of social networking is all about! Happy to engage in a, for certain, enlightening and insightful conversation where we will all learn a thing or two. For sure!

Can’t wait to be on the show already! And you? Will you join us as well? … We hope so!

See you there!

Tags: Blog Talk Radio, Podcasts, Podcasting, Radio Shows, Mark Masterson, John Moore, Business Value, ROI, Return On Investment, Hippies 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Productivity 2.0

Are you old enough to remember the 60's and 70's? It was a time of social change where "cultures clashed" over ideology, freedom and policy. The younger generation was against the Vietnam War, Corporations, Politics, "The Man" and everything "The Man" stood for.

It was an era where drugs, sex and rock & roll reflected the "Hippie" philosophy. The word "hippie" was initially used to describe early adopter ideologies included the counter cultural values of the Beat Generation.

Some created their own social groups and communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs to explore alternative states of consciousness. Since the widespread movement in the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture and philosophy have been assimilated by mainstream society.

The hippie legacy can be observed in contemporary culture in myriad forms — from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and even to the cyberspace revolution. Hippies stood firm on freedom of expression even if the expression was opposite of cultural norms and the law of the day. The Hippie generation has grown up and today they are industry leaders, politicians, Presidents, musicians and employees with grand children, pets and jobs.

The "Hippies" are Back in 2.0 Form!

Notice that the "Hippie" movement of the 60's & 70's represented a "counter-culture" formed into "social groups and communities". Sound familiar? It should because today there is a "counter-culture" forming into social groups and communities online that reject established corporate cultures, media and age-old philosophies that accept things as they've been done instead of changing things that can be done better.

Today hippies 2.0 are using a different kind of psychedelic drug called social technology. Instead of THC and LSD the drug of choice is PHP, Linux, SQL and others which enables the freedom of expression in the "clouds". The new drugs are as addictive as the old drugs and those that become enlightened from using it understand that it does change one's state of consciousness. The new state of consciousness is the enlightenment of power created by "social groups and communities" igniting changes in philosophy about business as usual and demanding business as unusual.

The freedom of speech empowered by massive collaboration and real-time reactions to business as usual is and will continue to create a wave of change for business as unusual. Many from the old business philosophy think they understand the power of social technology and try to apply it to old corporate practices in marketing, PR, advertising, customer and employee relations etc. only to learn that their strategies fail because they are driven by the wrong philosophy.

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems about matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom". It is the critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.

Hippies 2.0 challenge the assumptions and beliefs of organizational and personal thinking stuck in 1.0 philosophies. You can spot thinkers of Hippie 2.0 by their media which reflects profound changes in knowledge, values and reason about the human interaction with markets of conversations. Hippies 2.0 are early adopter ideologies which show the counter cultural values created by the intersection of technology with the human network.

People like Seth Godin and Doc Searls and others create massive attention and followers because their media reflects profound changes in knowledge, values and reason as it relates to the shift in market philosophy, the market of people. In other words to get the attention of markets you have to understand the philosophy of the market, Hippies 2.0.

To pursue a strategy that isn't grounded in the right philosophy is a waste of time, energy and attention. Hippies 2.0 reject useless media that steals their time, energy and attention. The reason is that it is philosophically out of touch with the soul of the human network.

Join the Hippie 2.0 community here and email your philosophy to  post@hippie20.posterous.com   or Write a new post here!

• Clocks and Clouds : The Frontal Cortex
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868218759/clocks-and-clouds
• Break down Internal Barriers
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868241765/poor-communication-reward-co-operation
• Leadership Development - Results focused Leadership thinking and practice from around the Globe
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868261054/jazz-and-adapting-to-uncertainty
• The Connected Economy: Beyond the Information Age
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868291256/diminshing-returns-and-scale
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868284391/prior-to-the-connected-age
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868272237/prediction-and-emergence
• Emergence, Readiness, and Adaptability
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868419038/ability-to-respond-to-emergent-outcomes
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868409199/supressing-information-flow
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868390664/strategic-plans-nor-change-initiatives-work-out-as
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868312064/strategy-and-the-unpredictable
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868305092/hello-km
• Origins of Cynefin (part 7)
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868442551/3-logicals
• Embracing the Chaotic: Cynefin and Humanitarian Response « WanderLust
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868485641/wanderlust
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868471243/complicated-management-not
• Origins of Cynefin (part 6)
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868600832/the-way-in-which-learning-and-knowledge-creation
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868611597/boundaries-and-context
• On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors - Rosabeth Moss Kanter - Harvard Business Review
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/678883656/america-in-the-20th-century-was-called-a-society
  http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/868831015/in-the-world-according-to-twitter-giving-away
• A futurist’s view of the “next big thing” in social media « emergent by design
• Will the role and influence of the employee be different in the new world of work?
• What is Design Thinking, Really? « emergent by design
• Tapping the Network to Facilitate Innovation « emergent by design
• What is an expert? « emergent by design
• System Thinking -- Emergence to Essence - A Case - dibyendu's posterous

Marketers are savvy.

Marketers make you want what you don’t need. Marketers embed a desire whether you’re hot to trot or not.

Marketers are the Ambassadors of Quan for sales targets and brand focus.

Or are they?

Does your decision rest on your head or your heart? Is there an emotional reason for buying something or a logical one?

Does it matter? As long as you buy, the marketer’s job is done, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

Take a look at some of the key tools in marketing’s make-up:

• Target markets
• Products
• Promotion
• Distribution
• Pricing
• Support services

These aren’t all that marketing does, but they’re the ones that need to be done well to succeed and measure the success. Savvy marketers would use a combination of these and instill a want for a product or service, collect the check and move on. Game over, new challengers please.

That was then; this is now

Today, marketing is different. Today, consumer marketing is the new tool-set. Communication channels have changed and the message distribution model has changed with it.

Today, it’s not word of mouth but world of mouth that’s leading the charge of marketing. Services like Twitter, blogs, Youtube, citizen journalism and more mean a single marketing message isn’t enough anymore.

Consumers no longer like to be told what they want; they like to be asked what they need. Want is the old; need is the present and the future.

But not everyone’s on board with this idea.

Companies are still spending thousands, and often millions, on a message that isn’t being heard. Or if it’s being heard, it isn’t being listened to. Marketing agencies are just as at fault – many still cling to the power base they used to have and feel they can ride out the storm that is social media.

After all, what do us consumers know, right? Wrong.

Today, we’re connected in ways that marketers can only dream off. We have instant access to the best information on anything we need. We’re now the tool-set that used to be the sole domain of the marketer.

And still many don’t get this. And they wonder why results are crap.

To paraphrase The Cluetrain Manifesto:

“When we’re not busy being your ‘target market’, many of us are your people. We’d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar website. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing’s job.”

It is marketing’s job; but today the target audience is the marketer.

We’re your people too, marketers – isn’t it about time you opened up to our tool-set?

photo credit: Kippras

So, what happens when two of my favourite people, the always fun, insightful and thought-provoking Ulrike Reinhard and the wicked-smart Lee Bryant (Along with both Dominik and Simon Wind), get together in front of a camera in a lovely place and start talking for a bit over 30 minutes around the topic of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Computing? Yes, I know! Only good things would come up from that conversation, right? Well, indeed, in this case, a rather nicely balanced one! Have you watched through Enterprise 2.0: Practical and Traditional? If you haven’t, you should! Today!

I have finally had a chance to go through it myself earlier on this morning and was enjoying it so much that I couldn’t stop taking down, rather furiously, a good number of notes and annotations that I thought would be worth while sharing over here, specially at this point in time, when we seem to have been having lots of great conversations on the topic of Social Networking for Business. I don’t think I would be sharing them as bullets or something, but more perhaps along the lines of highlights, i.e. what really interesting things you are bound to find on that video interview, in case you may not have a chance to view it just yet. Thus here we go:

1. The Social Enterprise – Nothing New Invented Here!: Yes, indeed, that’s actually one of the main key points from Lee’s interview; essentially how, for centuries, we have been operating AND working through social (and informal) networks till IT departments kicked in a few decades ago and decided to control the masses using factory models, which obviously, as we can see today, haven’t worked out really that well, after all.

   Lee makes a really good point in here trying to re-surface how we used to conduct business in the past and detailing how in today’s 2.0 world we are not really inventing anything. We are just going back to basics once more; that is, work will be carried out around networks and communities, without no longer neglecting our natural way of conducting business, as opposed to the traditional hierarchies and organisational structures.

2. Over-Engineering of Processes Killed the Enterprise: Now, I realise how Lee didn’t say it in those very same terms, but I do! Indeed, he comes to conclude that if there is anything that Enterprise 2.0 would do to today’s working environment is that it will help force a tremendous "reduction in the reliance on process" and place back the emphasis on "supporting human endeavour, human intelligence and human initiative".

   Which eventually would make the workplace a much more interesting place to work for everyone; much more agile by doing something that we haven’t been very good at over the last few years: reducing significantly our very own internal transaction and coordination costs. Now, if you are still looking for a business case for Social Computing, that, my friends, would be it! As simple and effective as it sounds!

   We do need to stop that addiction for over-engineering our processes and, instead, strike for simplicity; we cannot probably tolerate much longer how former flexible and human-lead processes have given in to bureaucracy resulting in the split of the overall knowledge workforce; causing altogether a much worse problem: political and budget battles abound making us lose focus on the real work that we need to execute on.

   Thus eventually what we would need to do, and this is one of my favourite conclusions from Lee’s interview, is we would need to nurture, facilitate and inspire the creation of a lateral and vertical layer of connective tissue that would enable people to find other people, regardless of where they may well be in the organisation, geography or timezone, to help them collaborate and share their knowledge much more effectively. Well, spot on, don’t you think? That, on its own, is another good solid argument for a business case on why Enterprise 2.0 is worth the time and the effort.

3. Brands: No, not going to say much more on this one topic, but I would strongly encourage you all to have a look into what Lee has got to say about brands, and specially his point about the value they provide and how they may well be part of the conversation after all … (After we all come to terms with the fact that we have already lost the control of it and things are just fine)

   Interesting insight as well is the one where he comments how the large corporate environment would still have a place. Those large enterprises would still provide plenty of good value, specially with regards to their social mission. Brilliant example that one of Unilever, that got a mention, and their corporate social responsibility.

4. Social Dynamics: Another rather thought-provoking item that Lee brought up was the one that very few people seem to have noticed so far, but with which I totally agree with 100%: a better relationship between business and IT with plenty more flexibility on a social layer of platforms that would spark applications (And Innovation!!) to flourish, but *always* specific to the business, i.e. in the proper business context.

   Really enjoyed as well his trend of thought on how the corporate world needs to pay plenty more attention towards what’s happening out there on the Internet. That culture of the user experience provided by Web 2.0 surely needs to enter the Enterprise (2.0) world. In fact, I would go even one step further and indicate how we may no longer have a choice anymore, since most knowledge workers have not only gotten rather exposed to it, but they already live it day in day out. Couple of examples? Google, the iPhone, the iPad, etc. They have totally transformed our overall user experience expectations and when entering the workplace we want to have a similar experience altogether. If not, we would move on… to whoever may be listening… That level of empowerment is something we cannot longer neglect, nor ignore, but, if anything, fully embrace.

5. Customers as a Major Driver for Adoption Inside Companies: WOW! Shocking, don’t you think? Well, actually, Lee refers to knowledge workers closer to the customer as one of the major driver groups for social software adoption. It is those knowledge workers making use of social media outside the company to learn about their customers the ones who will be the major driving force as they would be on a mission to improve both their products, processes and general customer satisfaction.

   You should have a go and listen to what other groups of knowledge workers would be out there, helping accelerate that adoption of social software behind the firewall; you will be surprised about how balanced it all is, specially when combining both a bottom-up (i.e. grassroots) & top-to-bottom approach altogether!

   That new generation of leaders will be leading because they are already helping others become better at what they do; it’s those networks and coalitions of the willing the ones with a new mission to lead the rest of the knowledge workforce; they will consistently provide plenty of signals of how they themselves can help break those traditional organisational structures and the interesting thing there is that it is not something new… Remember the good old days of walking the floor? Well, in this case, it’s a virtual floor, just like we have moved from the local water cooler into the global virtual water cooler!

6. Innovation, Innovation, Innovation!: At the end of the day that’s what Social Computing is all about, folks! Although innovation for the sake of innovation (i.e. Innovation out of touch with reality) just doesn’t cut it anymore; it’s all about identifying real problems and finding real solutions innovating along the way, which is why both incremental and disruptive innovations have got a place inside the corporate world.

   What was interesting from Lee’s interview in this regard was his commentary about that innovation is starting to leave the corporate space and go where your customers are; more than anything else to make them co-participate from that innovation process in helping develop better products. That’s something I have been mentioning over here as well with regards to the whole concept of co-creation and which, thanks to social software, is taking a new meaning by providing an opportunity for customers and their vendors to interact in the same platform, without intermediaries and hardly any processes in place. It’s just an opportunity to establish an open and direct feedback mechanism that will help set the stage on how we collaborate and share our knowledge across, in the near future, with our customer base. Something that before wasn’t happening and by far!

7. The Bottom Line of Enterprise 2.0: Coming closer towards the end of interview Ulrike asked Lee what was eventually such bottom line and, while watching and listening to the comments, I just couldn’t help thinking about something I blogged a couple of days ago over at the Hippie 2.0 blog post. Essentially how damaging thinking ahead in quarters (i.e. short term) could well be for the health and well-being of the overall business and its long term strategy by itself. We surely need to move beyond that limited thinking and, instead, think long term. Where would you want your business to be in say 20 to 30 years from now? What would the Future of the Workplace be like? Certainly, thinking in quarters is not going to take us very far with that forward thinking, isn’t it?

   Lee also talked about the real impact of Enterprise 2.0 in one other area that could surely make for a wonderful business case on its own and without much further help: its ability to lower costs on all fields that employ people and which would depend on knowledge work. According to him, and I couldn’t have agreed more with it, we, as businesses, need to continue avoiding commoditization by building deeper relationships with our customers and business partners to provide better products, leaving, time and time again, our very own comfort zone(s) behind.

   Indeed, it’s all about agility, a connected workforce building a strong sense of working better together; it’s all about innovation, about being part of an ecosystem where the co-creation process is the one that regulates how we interact, share our knowledge and collaborate with one another in an efficient and effective manner, not just internally, but also externally with our clients, which is where the conversation is (and should be!).

In short, it’s all about humanising the enterprise. Back again!! Remember, back in the day, how we used to conduct business? We are not re-inventing anything new over here at this point in time. "It’s all about being practical, with a business focus and re-balancing people over process removing bureaucracy out of the equation" [Paraphrasing]. WOW!! Those are, indeed, some very powerful and inspiring words and essentially the key message coming out of Lee’s interview with Ulrike, which is going to give me the perfect segway to introduce the topic for an upcoming blog post I have been working on for a while: How Can Social Networking Survive without Business Processes in the Enterprise.

Intriguing, eh? Well, I have strongly believed for many years that it is possible to do so, and in an upcoming blog post I will share with you all why and, most importantly, how it can be done! In fact, some of the major key points I have highlighted over here from that wonderful interview between Ulrike and Lee will also be part of that upcoming blog entry… Thus stay tuned! Plenty more to come…!

Tags: Ulrike Reinhard, Lee Bryant, Dominik Wind, Simon Wind, Pragmatic, Enterprise, Traditional Enterprise, Social Enterprise, Business Processes, Over-Engineering, Transaction Costs, Redundancy, Simplicity, Simplify, Complexity, K.I.S.S., Brands, Branding, Marketing, Social Dynamics, Business, IT, Information Technology, Customers, Clients, Innovation, Co-Creation, Feedback, Social Software Adoption, Adoption, Enablement, Bottom Line, Commoditization, Connecting People, Finding Experts, Humanising The Enterprise, People, Social Strategy, Social Philosophy, Quarter by Quarter, Sustainability, Sustainable Economy, Economy, Knowledge Economy, Hippie 2.0, Movements, Culture, Corporate Values, Values, Business DNA, Making A Difference, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity