Monday, December 31, 2012

The end of business as usual: is it possible in the workplace?

I was reading brian Solis blog titled "this is the end of business as usual and the beginning of a new era of relevance.

http://www.briansolis.com/2012/11/this-is-the-end-of-business-as-usual-and-the-beginning-of-a-new-era-of-relevance/

In this blog, he focuses on the consumer world and how social media has required people to adopt 10 Steps Toward New Relevance:
1. Answer why you should engage in social networks and why anyone would want to engage with you
2. Observe what brings them together and define how you can add value to the conversation
3. Identify the influential voices that matter to your world, recognize what’s important to them, and find a way to start a dialogue that can foster a meaningful and mutually beneficial relationship
4. Study the best practices of not just organizations like yours, but also those who are successfully reaching the type of people you’re trying to reach – it’s benchmarking against competitors and benchmarking against undefined opportunities
5. Translate all you’ve learned into a convincing presentation written to demonstrate tangible opportunity to your executive... make the case through numbers, trends, data, insights – understanding they have no idea what’s going on out there and you are both the scout and the navigator (start with a recommended pilot so everyone can learn together)
6. Listen to what they’re saying and develop a process to learn from activity and adapt to interests and steer engagement based on insights
7. Recognize how they use social media and innovate based on what you observe to captivate their attention
8. Align your objectives with their objectives. If you’re unsure of what they’re looking for…ask
9. Invest in the development of content, engagement
10. Build a community, invest in values, spark meaningful dialogue, and offer tangible value…the kind of value they can’t get anywhere else. Take advantage of the medium and the opportunity!

All 10 steps point to one simple fact - there is a major shift in empowering the consumers, companies have to learn to listen, engage and give them what they want!

I wonder how much we can apply these 10 steps when introducing social platform within the workplace, when groups and team come together to get things done (whether to create new solution, serve clients' needs, solve a problem, set the strategy, execute an initiative), but not necessarily working as "equals" (and so the power structure and individual ego kicks in).

In the next blog, I will assess to what extent do these 10 steps are useful to guide the introduction of social platform inside an enterprise.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment here.