Social business is business

Last week, I wrote about my company's thinking about social media, technology and why it's time to transform.  People responded in the comments, on Twitter, and on your own blogs.  Some people supported the idea, some people were dismissive, others were confused.  In any case, many points raised are worth elevating and being reblogged to take the discussion further.

Adam "CoachAdam" Krajchir says,

"Remember when everyone was talking about the promise of eBusiness? You might have been around when we were saying that eBusiness is business, meaning that it's just another set of tools and channels to do what what most every business is interested in: improve productivity, reduce costs, increase sales and earn profits. The application of social media for business is no different and at some point, just like we don't walk around talking about eBusiness, we might not be talking about SM or perhaps even social business."

Absolutely. I'm not interested in turning the phrase "social business" into a new buzzword.  I could go back to strikethrough and replace on the original post, but you get the philosophy - we're thinking about a new way of doing business.  We means the people in my company (Jeff, Kate, and Ellen) and you - whether supporter or detractor - our discussion refines our approach.

I mention detractors; different types emerged to respond to the post.  Believe me, I check out all of the links back to my posts and enjoy the opportunity to learn from a difference of opinion.  And one thing I always do is think about deeper motivations and meanings - as Annie Lennox said, "everybody's looking for something."

Talking about our company's philosophy will take time to fully unwind.  The thoughts I've shared on this blog have always been a manifestation of corporate transparency.  Transparency comes in different forms; BzzAgent's Beelog was a five-year transparent window into the company.  This blog is another.  I've been working at this company (name TBD) since July 2008 and what I've written here reflects what we're working on, e.g. community.  It's part of how we think business should be done.

So what do we care about?  Helping companies increase revenue, decrease expense, and mitigate risk.  Technology is a catalyst, but only one element; society and economy have also created an environment for transformation.  Social business is really just "business" and we haven't yet seen the full potential of what this can become.

Comments

[Peter Kim]

Steve - I think you're right. The context change happened with the advent of digital business models, not just social media. I think multi-channel retailers provide you with plenty of examples, as do pure plays that thrive, e.g. Zappos. Technology is the catalyst and the goals remain the same as before - profits through relationships.

[Steve Martell]

Peter, in an effort to constantly compartmentalize the actions or strategies we take I think we often overlook some great examples of how the context of business has changed. As many of the comments suggest, the idea of social business or ebusiness is our attempt to pinpoint a shift in actions or context. It may be magnified because we have so many tools at our disposal to connect to consumers, manage the conversation and evolve with our target market - however, I am convinced that there are probably numerous examples of organizations who have taken advantage of this shift in context, but are not centered around the web or part of the social media wave.

I say 'probably' as finding examples of new media thinking in a non-social media context proves to be easier said than done. Any thoughts?

[Heidi]

Absolutely. it is both fascinating and exciting to watch and participate in the unfolding transformation. Thanks!

[Peter Kim]

Heidi - agreed, so much more we can do here. Thinking of sales, are companies using Siebel or Salesforce really social by virtue of using the technology? Of course not - they need process and culture that help drive success. When all three of these are aligned - along with the rest of the organization - the stage will be set for real transformation.

[Peter Kim]

Beth, I'm curious. What's your role at SMB Live? I'm guessing PR and/or marketing.

[David Mattia]

What is social about business? (Larry comment) What is social about diplomacy? It's serves a great purpose for sure. Lot's of rules though as part of that tool. I suspect that we will see a pervasive trend of rules the next several years as we reclaim some old boundaries. This can be a good thing. Anarchy can be a little tedious sometimes.

As social media tools evolve quickly in a changing social environment, it may be best to keep it simple by being highly focused on a few strengths and let the anarchy work for you.

[Heidi]

Great post.
It is still ultimately about business. Business on a grand mission and business in the daily task of responsibility. What will be interesting to see is how the "social" realm breathes different life into the many things we all already do.

For sales professionals, as an example, the standard sales process involves: prospecting, creating and building relationships, uncovering opportunity, holding "discovery" conversations, etc - all in an attempt to help companies "increase revenue, decrease expense and mitigate risk" by selling them "X".
How will the added value of Linkedin, Twitter and all of the other social media networks and utilities help a sales team perform better?
- Does following companies, industry experts and contacts on Twitter offer enhanced value for sales pros, even just as an information and knowledge stream? Does it advance the discovery and gap analysis conversation?
- Does being able to conduct a search, or just connecting, on Linkedin help penetrate a company faster in prospecting activity?

I happen to think there is great value here and this is application to what sales people do every day. After all, it is still ultimately about doing business. For sales pros, it is about what they hear every day - "go sell something!"

This is just a quick example but I believe we need more content about real life business application (and not only in marketing and advertising areas)
Food for thought.

[Beth]

Peter, this follow up was insightful.
Transforming is definitely key. I just read a blog post that sites: "Consumers are increasingly in control. They decide which marketing messages they will consume. Everything else they ignore.

As a result, one way monologues (adverts) are less effective. Two way dialogues (conversations) are the future of marketing."

This post couldn't be more on the money. You can read the full post here and others like it:
Outbound Advertising is Dying: The Future is Inbound
Advertising on Social Networks: The Lights Are On, But No One's Home

[Sameer]

Hi Peter
"So what do we care about? Helping companies increase revenue, decrease expense, and mitigate risk"

Your intent is on the mark and I don't know enough to appreciate the execution plans you have in mind but this statement above in and of itself is a risky starting point.
The basic tenants of the consumer social web started at the grassroots level. Individuals bookmarking interesting stories, microblogging into the abyss only to find followers, rogue wikis in corners of large organizations and on and on. However, Enterprise vendors and consultants often rush to retro fit generalistic organization wide value propositions for a social business enterprise that originally sprouted from the bottom up.

What's needed is more discussion of specific business processes where the social web can for instance help find and nurture leads, shorten AR cycles or blow open product development concepts and prototyping across the supply chain. Once that's established, then figure out where the the optimal opportunity exists - make money, save money or reduce risk. That's when we will see measurable and justifiable potential that the social web has to offer. A good example of where social or so called E 2.0 solutions are showing great promise are customer facing deployments where target user (customer, partner or prospect) and use case is crystal clear.

[Josh Fialkoff]

Peter,
This is great!
In 2000, I heard a great interview with Jerry Yang. He said something that stuck with me: "Soon there won't be a distinction between Web and non-Web companies. The Web is like electricity. All companies use to to make their processes more efficient."
I think social networking is the same way.
It's another arrow in a company's quiver.
Thanks,
Josh

[Larry Irons]

In my thinking Mike Gotta has it right when he points us to consider the question: What is social about business? Thomas Vander Wahl also offers useful insights on the question and the way social software relates to it.

I offered some thoughts on this general topic last fall, Social Software, Community, and Organization: Where Practice Meets Process which seem relevant.

[Chris Hall]

Thanks for continuing the discussion, Peter. Its important.

One of the things that I'm looking forward to in the next evolution of business is building the reporting into the work. Tools that allow me to do my job, and automatically aggregate and report the output of my work up the chain can save countless labor hours aggregating reporting information.

[Peter Kim]

Thanks Meryn. As you can tell from this post, I'm not trying to coin a new buzzword. Thanks for the heads up on the blogs - looks like wirearchy feeds into theappgap. FastForward09 is a great aggregator as well and I'll be at the upcoming conference in Las Vegas. If anyone else will be there, let me know and we can meet up!

[deb louison lavoy]

I think the difference that social can make is in transforming "business" from faceless, impenetrable, and invulnerable, to a more human scale where human relationships, strengths, weaknesses and character become visible and truly valuable in business. This is a sea-change for corporate culture - and its benefits and pitfalls will unfold. Trust and credibility are clearly the first wins.

[Meryn Stol]

Just so you know, the term "social business" has already been claimed (more or less) by Muhammad Yunus.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_business

For your idea of a more "collaborative" business, I recommend you to read the following blogs:
http://blog.wirearchy.com/
http://www.theappgap.com/
http://www.fastforwardblog.com/

I think you're on to something!