I have recently been thinking about what will happen when we take the media out of social media and build more network into social networking. I am not the only one. David Armano at the Dachis Group recently gave a presentation to the Web 2.0 Expo in New York:
Below, I have framed some of my thoughts around his wonderful presentation.?
The trend is toward Social Business that goes far beyond just media and marketing. It is a network economy and our business models must evolve from the old Industrial Age silos and hoarding to a structure of collaborative hives and sharing to survive. That means breaking down department barriers and relationship barriers. It means that the walls between your business and your partners’ and customers’ businesses will be torn down and replaced by conversation and engagement and interaction. Entire industries may merge with other industries to create a mobile, multifunctional work/society. Will you work for Google or Apple or Microsoft or Amazon or Zappos – or all of them at once? Will you be a supplier to them and a customer of them? All of the above.
Accounting will have to change to accommodate this radical shift in how business is done. The numbers will be more organic, less structured, more measurable, and possibly less competitive (at least in our traditional definition). If that sounds like heresy, it is. It will take unorthodox change to create a new system of beliefs. And those beliefs are already becoming standard equipment.
Society and work are merging through technology. That’s hardly news. We all have friends online. But how much client contact do you have through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn now? If you say, “not much,” that will change. It has changed. Many people talk more with clients through these mediums now than they do face to face. Why? Because that’s where everyone is. It is where everyone will be as well – except the dinosaurs. Like it or not, it is just a fact. So embrace it or find a new line of work – which will also be hard to do without those social networks.
Why do business this way? Will the tremendous time it takes to manage such a system bring commerce to our coffers? It will because the biggest shift in business is toward people. Any business built on processes and functions and profits alone will begin to unravel. Only businesses built around people will survive. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, most businesses are built around marketing to a target and selling that target a product or service. People are refusing to be targets. Will continuing to treat them as such work in a world where your intentions can be outed on Twitter faster than CNN can break a story about a balloon boy above Colorado?
In this social business world, everyone has a voice – you, your people, your partners and your customers. Even you competition is friending you. As this happens, your org chart will flatten. Meetings will become organic Google Wave-type affairs. But how do we measure business in this networked environment? New systems will have to be installed to do that. Initially, it will be trial and error (like Edison creating thousands of lightbulbs before finding one that worked). But the measurement system is out there. It just may be different for some transactions than others.
Look at Zappos. They’ve found a way to make a beta version of this social business work to the tune of over $1.2 billion a year. In these open cultures, customers are giving companies great ideas that are profitable. Starbucks is turning their business around doing this. The old days of constructing a building on the street is giving way to building your business between people’s ears – a much more valuable piece of real estate.
I have made the radical case that your best website just may be your Facebook page. Your best customer service may be delivered through your Twitter page. You best customer may be someone you have never tried to even talk with before – on their mobile device. In the new network, customers control the transaction. They don’t come to you, you go to them. Technology makes that much more affordable than luring them with traditional marketing.
In the end, how will we make money doing all of this? The real question is: how will we make money if we don’t?