Panopticons and Social Business


Yesterday I visited our new Dachis Group headquarters in Austin.  Part of the day was spent arranging desks to form workspaces while giving thought to fostering conversations, where foot traffic might flow, and planning for today vs. tomorrow.

If you’re in a corporate office, look around you.  Do managers and higher ranking executives occupy offices along the walls?  Do junior staff sit in cubicles in-between?  Where do you position your computer, your chair, your personal effects – where others can readily see them or where you’ve got an extra second for a quick alt-tab?

As we finished setting up furniture and took up our new positions, I realized we had more or less replicated the panopticon.  Here’s some more history in a post I wrote last year called “Panopticons and social behavior“:

In the 18th century, English architect Jeremy Bentham designed the panopticon, a prison structure that allowed guards to watch prisoners without knowing when they were being observed – so that prisoners felt that they might be under watch at all times.  Two centuries later, French philosopher Foucault applied the idea to discipline in the organization, particularly in the industrial age.  Managers and foreman stood in offices high above the shop floor to observe activity below.  In modern offices, the panopticon persists in today’s cube farms – where open work spaces may foster collaboration, but also facilitate observation by managers and peers.

As we think about how social business becomes reality, thought leaders advise that we focus on people and culture, beyond the technologies.  If we stop there, we have still only addressed the technology issue, i.e. application and user.

Social business requires a focus on physical reality.  “Real life” as some would say.  And for corporations, that means rethinking the office space.  Yesterday I heard it called “the forgotten factor.”  Indeed.  Some spaces I’ve seen have a fairly open arrangement, like the Humana Innovation Center.  But most follow a traditional hierarchically-based system of awarding senior people with prime observation positions.

Take a look around.  Is your space ready for social business?


Are you a five-tool employee?


Last week, a friend reminded me of a post I wrote last year called “the five-tool employee.” Seems like a good time to revisit the concept.

Last week, Dachis Group acquired Headshift. But we are always interested in speaking with talented professionals.

The people I want to work with are the five-tool players. In baseball, a five-tool player hits for average and power, runs the bases with speed and smarts, throws like a cannon, and fields like a safety net. Every hiring manager wants these players, whether it’s a role in a startup or a Fortune 50 organization.

In business, the five-tool employee is one who:

  1. Gets things done with results to show for their effort – no excuses for failure
  2. Accomplishes things that are remarkable – above and beyond what’s expected
  3. Exercises sound decision-making skills, acting quickly and decisively
  4. Communicates well and can convince others to act
  5. Deals well with ambiguity, makes order where others see confusion

Five-tool employees are rare and worth retaining.  They’ll have many chances to succeed, because they naturally create value for their companies and opportunities for themselves.

If you read the description above and sense an uncanny resemblance to yourself, drop me a line at opportunities@dachisgroup.com. I’m interested in hearing from people with interest and experience in business partner optimization, workforce collaboration, or customer engagement.


Solving the scalability problem


Bridging The Social Divide from Armano on Flickr

A year ago, I wrote about social media marketing’s scalability problem.  It still hasn’t been fully solved, but we’ve seen progress toward a solution.

To reiterate: In theory, using social media for marketing should scale elegantly.  In practice, real life starts to get in the way.  You can’t create “viral.”  People don’t scale, either.  Technologies scale, but programs – especially those with a labor-intensive component – don’t.

Now, I see the solution that I didn’t have a name for a year ago:  social business design.

Looking back, it’s clearly in the comments:

  • “Social media is part of dynamic corporate thinking, which changes organizational culture.” – Helena Makhotlova
  • “Integration into a CRM tool, like calls in customer service centers today.” – Adam Cohen
  • “You are creating deep relationships through social media marketing, a multiplier effect.” – Aaron Strout
  • “Corporations need to build their internal community – then include their markets and customers.” – deb lavoy
  • “Training and practice inside the organization – bigger impact if made part of the discipline of the internal staff.” – John Bell
  • “Any department with customer contact is already taking the message out into the world.” – Ann Kingman
  • “The scale in social media comes from many-to-many interactions.” – Joe Cothrel
  • “Sometimes, you simply need to scale up your customer service teams.” – Shiv Singh
  • “Part of an overall customer experience management strategy, not marketing per se.” –Larry Irons

Social technologies are best applied inside the enterprise – to improve existing systems, grow culture, improve productivity, and scale to a finite point.  Then it requires system design to make everything work in concert.


Enterprise 2.0 conference followup


I have a few content pointers to share with you from last week.  Let’s start with pictures…Armano posted sets from our E2.0 tweetup and dinner.  Jim Storer posted too.

I hosted a couple of panel discussions.  On the “lessons learned from internal communities,” my panelists did a fantastic job of preparation.  This awesome content is the output of Joan DiMicco (@joandimicco, IBM), Jamie Pappas (@jamiepappas, EMC), and Patricia Romeo (@patriciaromeo, Deloitte).

David did a great job of capturing the session on Ustream.  You can also check out related tweets, which make for a great running commentary on the panel.  For longer form content:

My other panel was on the main stage, “does social media and marketing matter?”  David caught that one on Ustream as well and again the tweets make for a great playback.  For longer form content:
My colleague Kate moderated a panel called “metrics in the hands of users.”  If you want to learn more about measurement in social business, you should watch the video and read the tweets.

Dachis Corporation will be discussing social business design further over the coming weeks and months, so let us know if you want to be among the first to know.

Reflections on Social Business Design



It’s been almost a year since I started building Dachis Corporation to make sense of all the social things going on out there.  Along the way, I’ve constantly been asked, “what are you working on?”

Today I’m ready to share part of the answer with you, which is social business design: a framework for understanding and applying social constructs to business (visualized above).

Social business design is a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive way of considering how a corporation, business unit, or project can create and capture value from today’s emerging technologies and evolving operating environment.  The social business design framework captures ecosystem (community), hivemind (culture), dynamic signal (collaboration), and metafilter (content).  Putting these into play creates improved business outcomes as well as emergent outcomes.  Measurement provides the backbone to the entire framework, as driving change requires proof.

Dachis Corporation has developed advisory and implementation services to help companies understand and implement social business design.  Over the past year, we’ve worked with some major brands on component parts of the big picture.  Moreover, I’ve been talking about social business design all year; to learn more, take a read through these posts:

Although we’re actively engaged with clients, still haven’t officially launched with a name or website.  To be notified when we launch, tell us about yourself here.

My colleagues have also posted their thoughts today on Social Business Design:


Upcoming: Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston

In a couple of weeks, the annual Enterprise 2.0 Conference arrives in Boston.  I’m writing this post specifically for the readers who’ve been with me for a while and are mostly interested in the marketing side of things.  Here’s why I think you should care…
  1. Social technologies are bigger than both marketing and IT.  This is a great chance to build connections with people who can help you drive long-term change.
  2. You don’t have to pay to get a lot of great content.  For real.  Check out the “what’s free at E2.0” page – why wouldn’t you want to check this out?  
  3. My entire company is going to be there.   Dachis Corporation will be present and active.  My colleague Kate Niederhoffer will be moderating a panel called “Metrics in the Hands of Users: Empowering the Enterprise 2.0 Workforce.”  I’m moderating two panels, “Lessons Learned From Internal Communities” (#llic) and “Does Social Media and Marketing Matter?” (#e2smm)  My colleagues Jevon MacDonald and David Armano will be blogging and tweeting from onsite.  And CEO Jeff Dachis and associate Ellen Reynolds will be floating around as well.  If you’ve ever wanted to know what we’re up to, now’s your time to ask.
  4. There’s going to be a great tweetup.   Yes, I thought the word “tweetup” was silly when I first heard it too.  But they’re a great way to get people together and we’re coordinating on for Tuesday June 23 from 6 – 8 pm at Atlantic Beer Garden at 146 Seaport Blvd.   The idea is to get E2.0 conference attendees together with other social media types – you can RSVP here.  The hashtag for the tweetup is #e2ct. Use it wisely.
  5. A critical mass of social media leaders. Boston has plenty of stars to network with while you’re in town, like Laura Fitton, Todd Defren, Ann Handley, Chris Brogan, Christine Major, Jeff Cutler, Steve Garfield, Bob Collins, Susan Koutalakis, Alexis Karlin, Doug Haslam, Rachel Happe, Ilya Vedrashko, and surely more that I’ve missed. 

Trust me, Boston is best visited in summer.  If you’ll be around for the conference, let me know!


Aggregate or be aggregated


An idea has been floating around in my head ever since we began working with Workstreamer.  Or maybe not just an idea as much as the seed for a manifesto.  Perhaps just a strategic principle.

Aggregate or be aggregated.
It’s been bugging me for months, with roots in the portal wars of the mid-1990s.  At the time every internet company’s obsession was eyeballs.  AOL, Excite, Yahoo!, Lycos, et al. were busy fighting to become your browser’s default web page by aggregating the best content.

Then we had the rise of e-commerce.  I built and managed PUMA’s online stores, watching comparison shopping engines like MySimon and Froogle fight for attention as one-stop product information aggregators.

Most recently, social networks have become relationship aggregators.  Friendster, then MySpace, now Facebook.  Maybe Twitter will continue its meteoric rise and topple Facebook.  It actually doesn’t matter.

Here’s why.  The path to maximum value capture for all of these companies is by pwning a space.  The more you dominate, the more money you make, and the less you want someone else siphoning off your eyeballs, affiliate clicks, or active users.  So services establish barriers, API limits, etc. – and they ultimately end up as walled gardens, valuable only to those who don’t eat apples and are content to frolic inside.  This won’t work in the long run because information wants to be free.

And Google is the master aggregator.

All those portals that didn’t work out?  Google.  Need click-throughs to product listings?  Google.  Walled garden social network?  In 2007, Facebook opened up to public search.  Earlier this year, Twitter changed its title structure for better search indexing.  Here comes everybody…no wait, it’s just Google again.

There’s a lesson in here for brands, and it’s not “bow down to your Gmaster.”  Fred Wilson recently blogged, “aggregation is the central element of distributing content on the web.”  Steve Rubel hails the end of the destination web era.   Jeremiah Owyang lets you know about your irrelevant corporate website.  Let’s face it: your corporate website is sunk cost.

An answer is inherent in social business design.  It’s not command-and-control, nor is it inmates running the asylum.  It’s a measured approach to how people, process, and technology can be applied to create value.  It’s about proactive aggregation, not reactive right-click copy protection.

Aggregate or be aggregated.

A visit with Humana’s Innovation team


For more Humana pictures click here

While in Louisville, I was invited to sit in on a meeting of Humana's Chamber of Commerce.  It's a group of 18 individuals across the company who have interest and expertise in social media, meeting regularly to discuss how to make the company more social.

Before the meeting, Chris Hall took me on a quick tour of the Innovation team's space, which includes a game lab, treadmill desk, and freewheel!n bicycle, among other concepts.  The team's goal is to integrate healthy living into lifestyles, which results in better outcomes for everyone.

The Chamber of Commerce meeting was led by Greg Matthews and I was surprised to see that most of the discussion taking place in the room was being accurately reflected in the tweets of participants.  My assumption was that a level of selective filtering would be in place, but the content online very much mirrored the conversation.

The topics of discussion for the day included Louisville PM, Humana's social media commons, network access vs. security, and social business design.  Humana operates in a highly regulated industry (healthcare) and it's commendable that these individuals are eager to engage.

You can follow future meetings via #hcoc on Twitter.

Guest Post on ZDNet’s Social Business blog

Hi – things have been busy and it's been a while since I've posted, mostly due to internal strategy I'm working on.  However, today Jennifer Leggio was kind enough to let me guest post on her Social Business blog.  I've written a short piece over there about culture, measurement, and managed expectations regarding social business.

Also worth reading, related posts from my colleagues:

I've got a lot in my head and will be back soon…

Reflections on SXSW ’09

IMG_0237

This was my first year attending SXSW and it was a great experience.  Here are some of the things I noticed:

  • Live blogging is dying.  In most sessions, the audience and sometimes the panelists were engaging via some flavor of Twitter client.  At conferences in the past, there might be a main event blog and attendees would put up quick posts after each session.  Now we see that different tools are better suited for different communication cadences (and purposes).  If you're still into liveblogging, Louis Gray explains How to Blog Live Events and Publish With Lightning Speed. 
  • Corporate field trips.  One client-side attendee told me that he had run into plenty of familiar agency and vendor folk, but none of the client-side people like himself.  From what I gather, they were certainly around but didn't make a big deal about it – perhaps because many of the client-side companies were there to learn and absorb.  And besides individuals like Scott Monty and Chris Barger, there were small teams from Pepsi, Wal-Mart, Panasonic on site to learn and experience things first hand.  Very similar premise to the P&G Digital Night held right before SXSW kicked off.
  • Weighted value of sources.  Your incoming expectations will temper what you get out of the different interaction formats.  I think you'll need to mix panels, hallway conversations, lounges, meals, and parties to get a full experience – and recognize that they will all add value to your time spent, even if you're not the most social butterfly or note taker. 
  • Papa Smurf can get kind of crazy. 

Everyone's starting to return home and reflections are sinking in.  More reflections:'

– Jackie Huba, 18 cool things at SXSW
– Rachel Happe, SXSW '09 retrospective
– Alora Chistiakoff, Highlights from SXSW 2009
– Mack Collier, SXSW Recap – The Sessions
– Jeff Beckham, SXSW Scorecard
– Aaron Strout, Overheard: I Survived SXSW '09 and Lived To Talk About It
– Marc Berry, 2,584 words on SXSW Interactive 2009
– Mike Stopford, SXSW Interactive 2009 – Reflections
– Kyle Flaherty, SXSWi Decompress Part I:  My Mistakes
– Kaitlyn Wilkins, The One Where I Wrap Up SXSW

Being: Peter Kim