Social Business is Someone Else's Problem
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I've been reading, thinking, speaking and writing a lot about social
business recently. There are many definitions being bandied about. Some call it
Enterprise 2.0. Others say the networked enterprise. I keep coming back to
Social Business and I quite like this definition that comes via IBM, a client of my employer Text 100:
A Social Business embraces networks of people to create business
value.
But I'm not writing yet another post about the issues of definition.
I'm writing on the issue of application. One of the core principles of a social
business is that constituents (be they employees, business partners, voters,
customers and so on) are involved, via social networking technology, in
business decisions.
The best example of this in action is crowdsourcing new ideas from a wide
range of stakeholders using platforms such as IBM's Social
Business Jam. This is absolutely best practice, with the 2006 Innovation
Jam, for example, bringing together thousands of people worldwide and
creating 10 new IBM businesses with seed investment totalling US100 million.
IBM is clearly ahead of the curve. But for those businesses starting
their thinking, there are a bunch of challenges. The biggest single barrier for
many business is somehow overcoming the business silos that make inter-function
communication and in many cases impossible. Assuming you can get the right
people around the virtual table and start bouncing around cross-functional
ideas that will make the company millions, stop. Pause. And consider.
Reflect on how many brainstorms you've been in where literally hundreds
of great ideas are created and everyone comes out of the room energized. Yet
how many times have you walked back into that same room months later to tackle
the same problem and realized nothing had been done? All the best intent in the
world means nothing unless you're also planning to filter, prioritize and
implement.
And this is hard. It requires resource committed in advance. It
requires people willing to take charge and make decisions. It requires lobbying
and c-level endorsement and participation. While social media (sadly) is often
thrown to the nose-ring-wearing intern, social business is business engineering
and change management.
Before you start on your social business transformation, realize that
the grown-ups need to get involved on the ground. And realize that this is a
long-term play that needs sustaining well-after the brainstorm endorphin buzz
dies down. There needs to be boring things like consensus, approvals, budgets
and, most critically ownership of the implementation process. In social
business - just like regular business - look before you leap.
-Jeremy
Photo Credit: Afterwards Tom and Eric weren't exactly sure at which
point during their discussion the elephant had entered the room, David
Blackwell, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilestreetlife/4179063482/