Christopher S. Rollyson

Social Business & Relationship

Few organizations appreciate the shift being driven by social technologies. While the Internet revolutionized how people get information and buy things, social technologies are driving even deeper change because they transform how we make, develop and maintain relationships. They enable us to have more—and different kinds of—relationships.

By changing the economics of relationships, social technology has kicked off a cycle: it alters people's habits and social rules, which disrupts organizations of all kinds and transforms society. Remember how the Industrial Economy completely changed how people lived in terms of family size, marriage patterns and sleeping and eating habits? Today, the Knowledge Economy is transforming how people work, live, buy and vote worldwide. This disruption presents commercial and governmental enterprises with unprecedented pressure. Those founded on the wrong Industrial Economy assumptions will perish unless they evolve—and quickly. Some highlights:

• Customer Empowerment—Customers increasingly organize and drive their agendas with companies and governments.
• Web 2.0 Misalignment—Citizens and customers communicate among each other more, which can quickly change their opinions and expectations, so organizations easily become unaligned and irrelevant.
• The Choice. These market forces present business and government with unusual opportunities and threats. The choice for executives is whether to act first and try to define the new direction or let other players set the agenda.

I help leaders to act first.