From Social Media To Social Business Design

(most of the material below is collated from the Putting People First blog)

Some people are working to completely redesign business processes, using social media.

Why is that important?

In my essay last month on “Russia and the next long wave“, I started developing a scheme, applicable worldwide, contrasting the failed constituents of Kondratieff 6, which ended in the Sudden Systemic Shock of 2008, with the emerging constituent elements of the Kondratieff 7, which should emerge after the creative destruction of the meltdown period.

You may remember how we added a missing piece to the puzzle here, when we discussed the zigzag evolution of collaborative community within the firm.

That remarkable essay gave an extraordinary overview of the past, broadly confirming our own approach, but didn’t fill in much about the expected new period.

Filling in this next missing piece is what David Armano is trying to do. He explores what businesses would be like if they were truly social.

Imagine if a company like GM, was at the core “social”. Not just participating in “social media”—but through every part of their business ecosystem, were connected—plugged into a collective consciousness made up of ALL their constituents, from employees to consumers to dealers, to assembly line works etc. What if big organizations worked the way individuals now do. We’re actively using cloud services, mobile, networks and applications that offer real time dynamic signals vs. inefficient and static e-mail exchanges. In short, imagine if what makes “Web.2.0? revolutionary was applied to every facet of an organization transforming how we work, collaborate and communicate? We think this is possible. And we’re calling it “social business design“.”

(Armano’s company Dachis Corp. is currently working on rolling out a set of offerings to help businesses understand and apply these constructs to achieve leveraged and emergent outcomes that are measurable.)

Bruce Nussbaum confirms the work’s importance:

” This is one of the most important attempts to answer the key question of What Comes Next? What comes next after the great recession ends? What will be the New Normal for consumers, for businesses, for all global organizations.

In essence, David argues that it is not sufficient for companies to merely plug into and participate in the social media of its customers. Companies must BECOME social media and be organized as social media.”

See also Jevon MacDonald’s commentary.

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