What if Everyone Were a Corporation?

barcodeIn the state of Washington, it costs 150 dollars to establish a Limited Liability Corporation. All the documents are online and there is no shortage of tutorials on the process.  It’s a whole lot easier to get a job because it’s real easy for one corporation to hire (and fire) another corporation.  Taxes are simple.

Everyone’s liability is limited and transactions are conducted under a uniform commercial code.  And there are no incentives for people doing what they are not good at and every incentive for people to do what they enjoy most.

A corporation is fictitious.

A corporation exists in the form of a bits and bytes simulating a folder of papers in a virtual file cabinet.  A corporation gets to deduct all of their expenses from their taxes. A corporation has a credit score, it can borrow money, and even have a bankruptcy just like a person.   A corporation can donate unlimited amounts of money to a political candidate.  Corporation garner social respect.  Laws favor corporation. In fact, the cards are stacked in favor of the corporation over the employee.  Unless, of course, you are both.

It’s all in the Management….of knowledge assets.

All of the business theories are written to apply within the construct of the corporation. Corporate accounting provides a host of clever ways to manage assets.  You can depreciate assets, you can inflate or deflate “intangibles” as needed for whatever valuation purpose.  You don’t need to show anyone your accounting either (unless you are a public corporation).  American corporations don’t even need to hire American employees, or any employees for that matter.  Outsourcing goes to other corporations.

Land, Labor, and Capital

Corporations allocate Land Labor and Capital – well, that’s the theory anyway.  Land is underwater in a real estate bubble.  Labor is tragically unemployable or under employed or outsourced to the political slave markets. Capital is being consumed by the “interest” monster conjured into existence from the debt.  Uuhhmmm….So how’s that workin’ for ya’ll??

So why not become a corporation??

Social Media is able to perform almost all of the functions that a corporation would normally do internally. The “Last Mile of Social Media” is when local communities organize themselves on, say, Facebook.  High integrity is rewarded and low integrity is punished. Now you can reliably find other corporations to do your accounting, Human Resources, Marketing, and content design and distribution.

If you need to actually produce something “solid”, well there will always be a corporation willing to do that too.  All of these things are only a keystroke away.   So why isn’t everyone a corporation?

No, seriously……

We teach our kids to be good employees, not to become good corporations.  How do we expect social priorities to compete with Wall Street Priorities?

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Social business beyond just the marketing department

Keyboard with social I’ve been thinking a lot about how organizations extend the use of social networking beyond the marketing department. You’ve probably thought about this too or are even implementing it at your company.

It seems there are three phases of development as an organization matures its social business:

1) Fear and distrust of social networking and a culture of saying “no” to tools like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I’d say this is where 25% of companies are right now.

2) Putting a few people in the marketing department “in charge of that social stuff.” This is where more than half of companies are today.

3) Developing a social culture throughout the organization, including social business in each department. Less than 25% of companies have matured to this stage. IBM is there. The U.S. Department of Defense is too.

Many others have written on this theme.

Just this weekend, I found these posts:

Jeff Bulla’s post asks: Who Is Winning At Social Media Marketing: Ford or General Motors? Jeff talks about how Christopher Barger at GM and Scott Monty at Ford are leading the way in social media. I’ve travelled to Detroit to meet with both and have video interviews with Christopher and Scott. I can say with certainty that both of GM and Ford are pushing social business down into the organization.

Also writing on this theme is Peter Kane who asks: Why You Don’t Need Your Communications Team? Peter asks who’s important on the communication front? Customer service representatives? Sales departments? The $10 per hour worker on my floors? Peter answers his own question by stating the obvious: All are. All are new marketers.

Sxsw2010 I’ll be exploring this theme at South-by-Southwest next week when I lead the Future15 panel on social business. It is scheduled for 11:00 AM Austin time on Tuesday March 16. If you’re at SXSW please stop by the discussion. If not, watch the #SXSW hashtag then.

Each Future15 session consists of a two-hour block of time focused on one particular theme The theme of the session I am leading is Social Business and presenting with me, each for 15 minutes, will be:

1) Marketing goes social
David Meerman Scott, The New Rules of Marketing & PR

2) Media relations goes social
Capt. Nathan Broshear, U.S. Air Force

3) Customer service goes social
Melanie Baker, PostRank

4) Hiring and recruitment goes social
Jeff Berger, KODA

5) Workplace Collaboration goes social
Nilofer Merchant, Rubicon

6) Outsourcing goes social
Bert Dumars, Newell Rubbermaid

7) Q&A session with entire group.

What do you think about social business?

Image: Shutterstock / stevanovic.igor

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Creative Capital; The Next Factor of Production

Land_Labor_capitalThe financial system that we live in today is allocated to us all through combining chunks of Land, Labor, and Capital. It should be fairly obvious that there are some issues with land (real estate bubble / mortgage crisis), Labor (high unemployment / out sourcing, underemployment), and Capital (financial system meltdown / Debt / Deficit / insurance).

As Dr. Phil would say: “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

There has been a flash of conversation centered around the idea of Social Capital as a form of currency in these two blog posts by Brian Solis and Venessa Miemis. I would like to use this post to expand those ideas to one of at least two more “Factors of Production”: Creative Capital, and Intellectual capital, in future blog posts.

Introducing the subject of Creative capital (more later, no doubt), here is a video from TED about the league of extraordinary dancers. Watch them move but also listen to how they talk about what they are doing. Skip through the 17 minutes if you must (you probably can’t!), just see how different they see the world.

If we expect to deliver an alternate social currency backed by innovation, we need to reflect deeply upon this specific factor of production. We need to think, observe, and interpret with the flexibility that “Creatives” have – if not, we need the humility to let them help us. Only then can we start connecting the dots.

Thanks to Mike Sansone for bringing this video to my attention and of course, TED, for letting me post it.

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Social: Solving or Creating Problems?

Just when we think we’ve found a solution the reality is we’ve just created a new problem. Many look at social media as a marketing solution and pursue the solution aggressively. Many then learn that not thinking through the systemic impact of “all things social” they have created a bigger problem.

Looking at social as a marketing solution without considering its impact on other “parts” of your organization reflects silo thinking.

Silo thinking is evident everywhere. We see it from suppliers of internet technology designed to contain us and our conversations within their wrappers. Doing so may create value for the moment but problems in the long term.

The model of containment reflects silo thinking. If we can get more users to our site then we can get more advertisers (Facebook, Twitter,  Google etc). More advertisers represents more revenue. More revenue, more users reflects higher evaluation. The problem then arises when users find alternatives and the results from advertising begin to diminish. Sound familiar? Look at the patterns for social networks and the advertisers that support them.

When The Silo Gets Disaggregated

The expression “silos of information” is typically applied to management systems where the focus is inward and information communication is vertical. Critics of silos contend that managers serve as information gatekeepers, making timely coordination and communication among departments difficult to achieve, and seamless interoperability with external parties impractical.

Silos tend to limit productivity in practically all organizations and frustrate consumers who increasingly expect information to be immediately available and complete. Information silos are becoming far more recognized as the major reason why organizations are unable to take full advantage of the Internet’s power to interconnect business processes.

The vast number of incompatible database applications in use perpetuates the existence of silos, making it impossible for run-the-business software to take full advantage of the Internet. Consumers are feeling the waste and inefficiency of “social silo’s”. Every site they land on wants their profile, their opinion and their friends. Every brand, network and community wants to contain us, trap us and control us.  Everyone wants our content so they can use it within their silo of activity. Activity within one silo to another represents wasted productivity. Wasteful activity steals value from consumers. Stealing value because of silo mentality is an anti-social mentality.

Are The Silos Coming Down?

In the old world contained communications controlled by the few was the means for shaping a story and influencing an audience. Whether the message is aimed at the world, an institution, an organization or a local community media silos shaped not only the message but the meaning.

While social technology may be viewed as a solution it is in fact creating problems because of the lack of wisdom.  Omair Haque writes: The scarcest, rarest, and most valuable resource in the world today is wisdom. The countries, companies, and people that possess it will prosper. In many ways, wisdom is the opposite of strategy — and today, it is strategy, bought by the dozen from legions of besuited, back-slapping consultants, that is cheap, abundant, and worth little.

In a connected transparent world it isn’t wise to believe that capturing, controlling and tricking buyers will solve problems or increase transactions. Rather wisdom suggest doing the opposite is the new solution.  However wisdom would also suggest that one should consider the problems created from giving people freedom.  People set free from containers creates change unexpected. Unexpected change requires more wisdom.

It cost capital to maintain silo’s. Today capital is scarce and the more advertisers and marketers reduce their spends the less the silo’s will have to run the game.  The next iteration of the internet will be aimed at setting people free. Wisdom will have to flourish in order to comprehend the value of freedom.

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Blockbuster Writes Their Own Obituary

blockbuster_video_storeI’ll keep this post short because that’s about how long Blockbuster seems to want it.

Blockbuster just announced a new late fee policy.  If the video is not returned in 5 days, they will tack on 1 dollar per day.

Now here is why that’s really stupid:

In my family, Movie night is Friday or Saturday.  Friday is exactly 7 days away from the next Friday.  I think that it is fun and efficient to return the old videos at the same time that we rent a new video – that’s what keeps the game sticky.

Since 5 days is less than 7 days, someone needs to make an extra trip.  This extra trip costs 20 minutes of life, fuel, and car mileage.  Suppose my free time has a monetary value that exceeds the value of the product.  No, seriously, isn’t it a little arrogant to think you have the luxury to drive favorable customer behavior with a bummer?

So, what were once a family of loyal customers are now a band of free agents launched into a world of new alternatives and posting their experiences in Social Media.

I don’t know whether to say ‘thank you’ or good ridence, so I’ll say both.

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Measuring Social Moments?

The obsession with measuring all things social is indicative of thinking inside rather than out. Inside thinking focuses on justification of time, energy and efforts all aimed at creating results.

Outside thinking focuses on learning market needs and intents. Do you measure market needs and intents? The irony of measuring all things social is that the measures are put for the moment.

Given the dynamic nature of how people use social technology, how suppliers are advancing the technology and the subsequent dynamics everything is but for a moment.  If things are in a dynamic state then measuring a moment becomes irrelevant to what is happening the next moment.

Is Measuring Social Relevant?

Business mindsets believe that measurement of “things” is relevant to managing results. Production cycle times, process variation, employee productivity, sales, marketing etc. etc. are all “things” that most businesses believe they should measure. Most business managers don’t realize many important things, that must be managed, cannot be measured. You can’t measure everything of importance to management. You must still manage those important things.

W. Edwards Deming once said “Organizations are a means to improve the lives we live.” How would you measure whether your organization is improving people’s lives?

Brainwashed By Measuring Results

Measurement-based or fact-based management is not new.  A form of it was developed during and after World War II when so called “Whiz Kids” became powerful managers within the Fortune 500. This approach to management was oriented to an industrial age that is now in the past but the practices still exist. It strikes us as cold and impersonal, the mind-set of Dilbert’s boss.

Today we still see organizations holding on to part of the old mind-set, the measurement part. Measurement mentality continues on as a sacred mindset to justify actions against the holy grail of results. Meanwhile market have become more and more dynamic fueling constant changes largely because of the influence of technology and communications.

A Moment of Measure

The headlines tell us that things are changing rapidly. One day it is all about Google Buzz followed by a new move by Facebook. We chase these developments and look for ways to use these developments to produce results. However, by the time we get around to using something new something else replaces it.

The moment of measure, attention and the subsequent results become irrelevant because of the flood of new developments. Stepping away from measuring the moment can be helpful if not critical to seeing the real meaning in a space that is not stable. The only thing stable is that things will change. Changes in utility, reach and usability changes the measures of value. Obsessed with measures we jump around measuring the impact of changes only to realize new influences are changing the dynamics which changes the result.

The relevant moment of measure is in context to improvement. Without enabling improvement no measure can be relevant or in context with the intent of an organizations effort to improve results. However end results are influenced by actions way upstream. Marketing and advertising actions are downstream. Unless an organization understands and improves the attributes that influence all things downstream then efforts to measure and improve downstream actions become fruitless.

Upstream means you have to start at the beginning of any system. The usage and outcomes of social media are downstream. To fix or prevent a flood you have to go upstream to the source. Measuring how fast or slow the water is rising doesn’t address the influences that make the water rise or subside.

Results are but for the moment. Knowing what influences results is a never ending process of learning and improving forever.

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They Are Saying Something New About Social Media, Finally

Calculus-fullYes, we know that social media is humongous. Yeah, we’ve all heard the 10 amazing ways to “fill-in-the-blank”. Nope, you are still not allowed to shove your products down the consumer’s throat until you have earned their trust.

Now, all of a sudden, a new idea is emerging…it’s barely an audible chirp, but it will become a tectonic rumble before long:

Social Media is beginning to take on the characteristics of a Financial Instrument.

This is a stunning development with vast implications. Allow me to interpret this excellent article by the respected visionary, Brian Solis, as a basis for my argument.

One thing that everyone can agree on is that “information”, “knowledge”, and “innovation” are related somehow. The problem is that nobody can agree about exactly how they are related. None of the definitions for these terms include the adjacent terms and no algorithm exists which performs the conversions, until now.

Now comes the interesting observation:

They say that Google ranking represents a proxy for knowledge in a knowledge economy. What they mean to say is that the rate of change of information with respect to time can be used as a proxy for real-time knowledge. This is a valid idea because Google organizes the World’s information based on time rates of change of the Information.

Yet “knowledge” can only exist between the ears of breathing, thinking, creating, and acting human beings – one important component for which Brian expands the term “Social Capital”. If we carry his observation one step upstream, we should be able to also say that the rate of change of Social Capital (a component of “knowledge”) with respect to time is a proxy for real-time innovation.

Now this idea should be pegging seismographs and flooding the Valley with the ensuing tidal wave of glee. The implication is that we can now identify and organize innovation by simply measuring the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time that an enterprise induces among social networks in a market. Alas, we can now see the direct Integration of Social Media into the business plan.

Calculus is the science of change.

Definitions are fluid, they must change. Brian Solis has, in fact, introduced the construction of what scientists call a “differential equation”. Much like “distance, velocity, and acceleration” are all defined as a rate change of their adjacent term, so too will “information, knowledge and innovation” become defined.

Economics is the science of incentives

It should not go unnoticed that Bankers are scientists too and “money, interest rate, and market capitalization” are also related by the same calculus. This makes possible the miracles of capitalization, securitization, insurance, diversification of risk, options, hedge funds, etc… For better or for worse, Wall Street lives and dies by this algorithm and so do we.

Let me repeat; social media is taking on the characteristics of financial instruments.

Please, I hope that I am not alone in celebrating this historic moment. Few people may recognize this now, but mankind has just experienced an evolutionary leap in it’s understanding of it’s own nature.  Bravo Brian, Bravo.

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When Social Media Becomes a Science

UncertaintyCartoonJay Deragon posted a series of articles recently on his Relationship Economy blog which I found especially exciting.  As usual, Jay is bringing forward some very important ideas related to social media components and outcomes, but what really sets this new mindset apart is the fact that Jay is asking the same questions that have been plaguing scientists for 100 years.

In Jay’s posting “The Social Moment is Gone” He describes how organizational decisions are driven by metrics that no longer exist.

In another post: ”Measuring Social Moments”, Jay suggests that if things are in a dynamic state then measuring, a moment becomes irrelevant to what is happening the next moment.

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known.

Scientists figured out that in order to study a sub-atomic particle, they had to stop it from moving.  As soon as they did that, the nature of the particle changed.  Scientists could only study their interaction with the particle, not the particle itself.

Jay is saying something similar: “How can you measure social media if it is responding as a function of your interaction with it?  All you are doing is looking at yourself in a mirror – so stop it”. He’s right.

Status Quanta

Keep in mind that this comes in a time when the chorus of social media gurus are still trumpeting the C-Suite Concerto called “ROI or Die”.  Maybe someone should remind them that the value of the Corporation that they so fungibly defend is in fact an approximation based on things that cannot be measured.  Let me explain:

It is not surprising, therefore, that Wall Street hires Quantum physicists (affectionately known as Quants)  to manage money and investments in markets and to “Innovate” new financial instruments.

The Calculus of Social Media…on Wall Street?

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle lead to the development of a new branch of probabilistic mathematics for approximating both the position and the momentum of subatomic particles.  In fact, the science of Quantum  physics is entirely contained in probabilities that events will or have occurred and not necessarily based on direct observation – and so are the Wall Street Valuations.

Wall Street uses the same calculus to estimate the probabilities that financial particles will have a specific location and momentum without having to actually witness them.  The result is a host of exotic financial instruments that make, bet, hedge, and securitize such approximations for the benefit of stockholders…..

Getting Back to Jay

Markets are conversations.  People  make products, invent things, design stuff, hold stock, buy, sell and trade  everything.  Those Quantum Physicists on Wall Street are estimating the position and momentum of people.

All Jay is saying is that now you can do it too.

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Volunteer & Access Disney Parks

Disney Parks Give

Disney Celebrates Volunteers and Drives Disney Parks Traffic

Imagine rewarding volunteers in your community by offering them something free. In the case of Disney Parks, it’s free admission for one day. Intriguing, no?

Disney announced the program 0n 9/29/2009 in Disney offers free entry to 1 million volunteers.

If you follow the links, you will access Disney Parks. Then, Give a Day, Get a Disney Day.

From there, you can sign up and search for volunteer projects.

For some special fun, you can create your very own personalized Muppet volunteer experience as Becky Carroll did for me!

Here’s the video teaser I just created…

[You may notice some similarities to the buzz campaign that HEMA created.]

What I like about Disney’s concept is that they are linking to consumer and marketplace trends. More specifically, to our desire to be involved in our communities and improve them. Disney becomes both enabler and supporter of volunteerism…

How might you apply the concept of volunteering in your community to your retail experience?

While you’re thinking, go ahead and have a Disney Parks Volunteer Muppet Experience.

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This Social Moment is Gone!

Numbers drive organizational decisions. Numbers are used to try and determine what and how one can improve a result.

In the world of social media everyone has become obsessed with the numbers. The irony of collecting and measuring social media data is that the moment of measure changes by the dynamic developments that happen every moment. Conversations are dynamic, numbers are static.

Knowledge is dynamic and contained within each person. Our experiences, our conversations and relevant relations changes our knowledge. That is if we approach people with a willingness to learn what they know or don’t know. Doing so requires listening which in itself is a knowledge funnel.

Listening to Moments?

In business things change moment by moment. Adjusting to these changes requires a agile thinking about the meaning of changes that ultimately drive the end result. The end result of a business is represented by value obtained from the value given. Value of products, services, relationships and processes are consumed by buyers. Buyers get value when their intents are fulfilled beyond their expectations.

Expectations of buyers change and when they do a business must change how they fulfill new expectations. Unless a business is listening to the marketplace, their employees and the end buyer they cannot hear the changing expectations. Not hearing means you are not likely able to meet the expectations satisfactorily.

Social media is nothing more than a channel of communications. Technological innovation has fueled communications and the subsequent “media” is no longer controlled by the few rather by the many. Conversations change and it is the rate of change that represents dynamic moments with meaning. Measuring a point in time may reflect that moment or past moments of dialog but not future moments. To change the future you have to understand the past. However, the future is not merely a reflection of the past especially when dealing with a dynamic system changing moment by moment.

Listening to the Future

Listening to the future is a predictive model of outcomes, actions and subsequent results of the moment.  If we measure moments to determine the effectiveness of past actions the results tell us little about the future. If, on the other hand, our measures are centric to probable future outcomes influenced by previous moments then we can use data to predict future moments. The problem with determining or influencing future social media moments is that the “system” is not stable rather dynamic and filled with special cause variation. Any good statistician will tell you that trying to measure an unstable system is only relevant if you understand and can measure root cuases.

So what are the root causes of social media moments? The answer is people’s intent. Understanding intents will lead you to measure the things that can fulfill or constrain intents. Said things have nothing to do with use of  social media by suppliers rather it has everything to do with a suppliers ability to fulfill the buyers intent. Which by the way changes moment by moment.

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