Social Business Competency Center at the Chief Digital Office

The Social Business Competency Center at the Chief Digital Office helps digital executives use social technologies to transform their firms’ relationships. Its reports, thought leadership, and presentations focus on strategy and execution of digital social initiatives that engage people in new ways and create new revenue streams. The Chief Digital Office has competency centers in mobile, ecommerce, big data and social business.

Point of View

Social business is the missing link in digital transformation, and enterprises that don’t discover it and use it as the foundation of “digital” will have lower returns on transformation. Digital transformation thought leaders assert that the aim of big data & analytics, mobile, ecommerce, social and smart devices is to “create new digital experiences and revenue streams.” That presupposes that leaders of initiatives know what “new experiences” look like, but teams still use sales data, social media monitoring reports and surveys to get input from customers and stakeholders. Then they execute.

Digital social changes this game but only when it’s practiced much differently, only when it focuses on using online interactions to study implicit as well as explicit behavior. This requires thinking and practicing digital social at a higher level, but many years of client work have shown that it works consistently.

Vision: Where do we start?

Social business is the fastest way to learn how to create “exciting customer experience.” Digital social platforms (“venues”) are a new world that firms don’t perceive since most have been using a promotional social media approach. Social media usually focuses on getting firms’ messages out. That’s silver, but gold awaits firms that focus on helping customers (“users”) to get things done by using products and services.

Most executives and social media agencies don’t yet appreciate how users share experience, knowledge and passion when they collaborate in social venues. Prior to digital social technology, users were anonymous, mute and isolated, so it’s understandable that firms don’t fully perceive the change that connected customers have. In fact, they hold the secret to organizations’ future influence and profit. The first step is using social to understand and validate ideas about what users are trying to do when they use the firm’s products or services.

Strategy: How do we optimize what we have now with where we need to go?

Start social business by rigorously defining the firm’s users, ranking who’s most important and identifying how they interact online. Look deep into high priority users’ sharing and collaboration habits and what their desired outcomes are. By specifying their characteristics and outcomes, you can rank digital social venues and create a strategy for engaging with users in the optimal venues in which your least effort produces the largest impact. Then analyze the firm’s assets and knowledge that adds unique value to user outcomes, and create a social business strategy to share in optimal venues. Once you have a consistent process for collaborative engagement, you can reevaluate your social media investments. Social media and social business can strengthen each other. Social Business Strategy Use Cases provides more specific guidance.

Execution: How do we invest while mitigating risk?

Social business strategy will specify several pilots to test the strategy and educate your team in interacting and collaborating to help users attain their outcomes more easily, which increases your product/service value add. This increases users’ trust, engagement and commitment to the firm and brand(s) over time. Pilots test and teach in short cycles, and they either grow to ongoing initiatives or get shut down.

CSRA on Social/Digital/Transform

My latest thinking on social/digital transformation:

Why Design Will Eat User Documentation

Why Africa Is a Nascent Innovation Powerhouse

Customer Experience: How to Boost the Accuracy and Power of your Journey Maps

Free Chicago Seminars Experiential Social Media Nonprofits

True Love for Customers

Drive to Trust Trailer

Reflections on CSRA Ten Years

All CSRA posts on social/digital transformation.

The secret sauce for winning stakeholders’ trust and commitment is helping them use products to attain outcomes—not selling to them. Firms that prove their commitment to users will sell more.

Social/Digital Transformation “Best of the Web”

Latest links from CSRA’s curated feed dedicated to using social business for digital transformation:

[comment] Useful reframe of #business #agility: How robustness falls short, what's better
[commented] VALUABLE distinction: how #influencers differ from #celebrities in #socialmedia
POV & predictions on global demand for business process outsourcing #BPO for #SocialMedia #customer service #CX
Superb: virtual panel discusses orgs' difficulty w "ethnography" researchers; useful examples #kudos
Rich coverage of #mobile #transformation trends: Practical insights: @forrester @johndeere @bosch @trunkclub & more
Marketo/Economist study + interviews of marketing/strategy leaders tries to describe #marketing #transformation
BOOKMARK & read this: compendium of Transformation vision by @jhagel and @jseelybrown #kudos
REFLECTIONS on #digital #customer experience & how it's disrupting legacy marketing & #brand management

Even more links, the whole lot!

Social Business Competency Center at the Chief Digital Office

Chief Digital Office Directory

  • Real-time presences & interactions:
  • Google+ (leaders) | Twitter (mainstream) | Home (concierge)

Social/Digital/Transform Reference

These are must-read resources for understanding social business as a transformation opportunity:

More reference/social business/foundation resources

Social/Digital/Transform Discussions

Join these conversations in which I’m participating about using social business for digital transformation:

[comment] Useful reframe of #business #agility: How robustness falls short, what's better
[commented] How to use #data #analytics to prevent #customer #churn Kudos @rautsan #cx
[commented] VALUABLE distinction: how #influencers differ from #celebrities in #socialmedia
[Commented] Why #SocialMedia should be practiced as a way to listen and related to people, not marketing
[comment] RARE insight on customer service, social media, marketing & operations: banking context #custserv #kudos @frankeliason

Even more discussions on social business & digital transformation.

CSRA helps CDOs, CEOs and boards to use social business for transformation by: conducting feasibility studies, developing strategy, leading pilots focused on measurable goals, and scaling and integrating social business with legacy processes to transform productivity and profit. To learn more, see How We Work or contact me.

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