Social Business Design

Description

David Armano:

“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“.” (http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2009/06/sbd.html)

Characteristics

Marina Gorbis:

Emergence of Ecological/Epidemiological View of Markets and Behaviors. "Recently, scientists have begun to apply an epidemiological lens to many social phenomena, such as happiness, obesity, criminality, health behaviors and others. Turns out that what we have traditionally seen as individual behaviors are shaped by others.

Understanding the larger ecosystem is required for informed decision-making in the business sector. Prepare for the next generation of organizational and industry consultants to come equipped not with MBAs but with graduate degrees in sciences as diverse as zoology, biology, ecology and others focusing on complex interdependences of actors and resources.

Rise of Amplified Individuals. Two years ago, Time magazine’s Person of the Year was ... “You.” You, the individual, Time proclaimed, were in the driver’s seat as a creator and consumer of products, services and ideas. The story was right but only partially so. We are not talking about the powerful individual operating on his/her own. Amplified individual power derives from his connections to the collective resources and collective intelligence of multitudes of others. It is this ability to connect to their knowledge, tap into their resources and rally them when needed that amplifies individuals’ power and gives them unprecedented ability to bypass traditional organizational structures and boundaries.

Instead of fearing the power of amplified individuals, organizations have the opportunity to amplify themselves by tapping into amplified individuals’ skills and resources. It may be time to think of assessing your employees on the metric we at the Institute for the Future have come to call the “Network Intelligence Index” — the ability to access and use resources of the larger network to amplify one’s individual and, ultimately, larger network abilities.

Focus on Engagement. How do you get thousands of people to do things for free simply because the task is so absorbing, so satisfying, that they can’t stop? We see examples of this every day — people sharing links and ideas on Twitter, contributing Wikipedia entries and edits, offering reviews on Yelp, and spending hours playing online video games. My colleague Jane McGonigal, renowned game researcher and designer, calls this retreat from reality. But rather than blaming people for spending time on useless pursuits, ask yourself what is it that these platforms and worlds offer people that you don’t? And how can you harness this kind of engagement for the benefit of your project?" (http://www.rollcall.com/features/MissionAhead-AmericanWorker-2009_2009/ma_worker_future/34937-1.html)

Discussion

Marina Gorbis on the case for having a new type of "social organizations":

"PatientsLikeMe, Facebook, Twitter, and, I expect, shortly, Chatroulette exemplify a growing clash between the promise of commons-based platforms and the relentless drive to convert them into profit-driven businesses. The clash is likely to grow simply because the number of such endeavors is growing exponentially. What this clash brings into focus is that while we have invented a generation of transformative technologies, we remain stuck in economic and organizational models of the past.

Our technology tools and platforms are highly participatory and social. They take advantage of intrinsic human motivations to contribute in order to be noticed, to share opinions, to be a part of something greater than ourselves. Otherwise how would one explain remarkable success of Wikipedia and many other crowdsourced sites that rely on contributions of volunteers? Our business models, by contrast, are based primarily on monetary rewards. They are mostly hierarchical and non-participatory decisionmaking processes (Facebook's unilaterial decisions regarding changes in privacy terms for members is but one example). And they operate without the kind of transparency of information when applied to their own operations that is at the core of communities they enable.

If we are to truly fulfill the promise of technology tools we have created, we urgently need to design new governance models and new ways of creating value. In the least, organizations whose value derives from communities they create should incorporate the governance principles of successful commons organizations and use the same technology platforms that are at the core of their operations for governance purposes. Here are some principles I believe they need to put into practice:

1. Clearly articulate the promise of the platform to the participants, with all the ensuing rights and responsibilities for members

2. Create or elect a community governance board (without direct financial incentives to the project) to guide and review major policy and strategy decisions.

3. Crowdsource major decisions guiding development and evolution of such platforms.

4. Ensure radical transparency around key decisions and financial metrics

5. Create reward structures for management and employees more akin to those of non-profits or coops rather than for-profit entities.

As community members, we, on the other hand, may need to stop thinking of such platforms as completely free and start supporting them financially in the same way we support Public Broadcasting Corporation or other non-profits whose services we use or whose missions we endorse.

We already have several organizations that operate on such principles. Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Sunlight Foundation. Several others use alternative financing mechanisms that are in line with their public and commons-like structure. BoingBoing.net accepts advertising only from organizations whose activities are not in direct violation of core beliefs and messages of its founders, either individually or collectively. Curetogether, another crowdsourced health and treatment platform, does not sell its members' data; to keep the site going, it helps pharma companies recruit subjects for clinical trials–companies can send their inclusion criteria for trials they need filled or surveys about adverse side effects, which Curetogether can then distribute to members who opt in.

No one would suggest that founders and staff working at organizations such as Twitter, Facebook, Curetogether, or many others like them should be doing it for free or should live in poverty. However, because of the unique promise of these organizations and the fact that without all of our contributions they simply would not exist, traditional profit-based business models just don't fit them.

It is not that radical of an idea to suggest that our organizational models need to change in line with the evolution of our tools. Let's not forget that organizations we inherit are not pre-ordained or immutable—they grow out of prevailing cultural norms, economic conditions, and technology infrastructure. Marshall McLuhan famously said, "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." We invented a new generation of technologies. Now we need to allow those technologies reinvent us and our organizations." (http://iftf.org/InventingSocialOrganizations)

More Information

• Updates via delicious tag at http://delicious.com/mbauwens/Social-Business-Design

• Key background essay on the history of collaboration within the firm: Paul S. Adler and Charles Heckscher. Towards Collaborative Community / (Book: The Corporation as a Collaborative Community) [1]

• "There are some consultancies emerging which are helping companies with this task of re-imagining their value creation system, these include The Dachis Corporation, The Altimeter group and Victor & Spoils". [2]

• Netcentric Management

Bibliography

From Peter Fingar:

• Brafman, Ori and Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish And the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Portfolio, 2006.

• Chesbrough, Henry, Open Innovation — The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

• Cross, Robert L. and Andrew Parker, The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations, Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

• Fingar, Peter, and Ronald Aronica, The Death of “e” and the Birth of the Real New Economy: Business Models, Technologies and Strategies for the 21st Century, Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2005.

• Grantham, Charles, Jim Ware and Cory Williamson, Corporate Agility: A Revolutionary New Model for Competing in a Flat World, Amacom, 2007.

• Harrison-Broninski, Keith, Human Interactions: The Heart And Soul Of Business Process Management, Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2005.

• Hayes, Tom, Jump Point: How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business, McGraw-Hill, 2008.

• Howe, Jeff, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, Crown Business, 2008.

• Kelly, Kevin, New Rules for the New Economy, Penguin, 1999.

• Li, Charlene and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Harvard Business School Press, 2008.

• Malone, Thomas W., Laubacher, R. J., and Scott Morton, Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century, MIT Press, 2003.

• Malone, Thomas W., The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life, Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

• Mulholland, Andy and Nick Earle, Mesh Collaboration, Evolved Technologist, 2008.

• Mulholland, Andy, C. S. Thomas, and P. Kurchina, Mashup Corporations: The End of Business as Usual, Evolved Technologist, 2008.

• Olson, G. M., Malone, Thomas W., and Smith, J. B. (Eds.), Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology, Erlbaum, 2001.

• Shirky, Clay, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Penguin Press, 2008.

• Surowiecki, James, The Wisdom of Crowds, Anchor, 2005.