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.

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