The Social Channel of Value explains our era’s drivers of economic transformation and how leaders can use them to strengthen their careers, organizations and communities. Profound shifts in human beings’ means of production restructure society and business because they alter the amount of “value” human work can create as well as the type of “products” that encapsulate people’s work. Individuals and organizations that notice, observe and understand these shifts early on can improve their relevance and competitiveness. Many of those that do not respond quickly enough go down with the ship.
Since the Social Channel is so important, I have published the Social Channel Trilogy, which is summarized here. Find even more information on the Social Channel home page.
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Social business policy (social media policy) engagements are some of the most interesting, revealing and critical engagements CSRA has done. Of course, organizations’ main motivation for creating social business policies is protecting themselves against possible legal threats caused by employee interactions online; however, a far greater threat is overemphasizing the legal threat and sabotaging employee engagement online. Well researched and crafted social business policy increases trust between the employer and employees—and among employees, leading to more appropriate online interactions, which burnish the firm’s reputation. Here, I’ll outline how you can use the process of creating the policy to manage legal exposure while increasing employees’ trust and productive social business activity. 
The Digital Social Ecosystem Audit shows you where to interact to produce the best outcomes at the minimal cost, so it is critical to social business initiatives. CSRA launched its “Ecosystem Audit” process in 2008, and we’ve conducted them for many businesses and brands, which get to know the digital world around them in an unprecedented way. Think of the ecosystem audit as an xray of the social ecosystem. Try operating without it ;^) – but most firms do!
The B2B Executive’s How-to Guide to Social Business is an executive primer on developing B2B relationships much faster and cheaper.
CSRA just completed a global study of social business in ten OECD language markets that may bode well for commercial and nonprofit organizations that are considering global audiences. We found that when you ground your social business strategy on rigorous research into the people you want to engage (stakeholders) and their specific online activities (workstreams), social business strategy can be applicable in several language markets simultaneously, leading to significant leverage and supporting global go-to-market initiatives. Having personally worked and lived in several language markets, I was surprised by the strong stakeholder/workstream patterns; I had assumed that the markets would differ from each other far more. Here I’ll offer my reflections on the research as well as recommendations for using social networks for global initiatives.
Social Business: How Firm Size Affects Strategy and Execution outlines differences firm size presents in social business initiatives. I recently participated in a discussion in which we debated how size of brand or firm should affect social business strategy, so I’ll dive deeper into the issues here because they are an excellent opportunity to show how strategy and execution are connected and how they differ. I’ll compare how startups and enterprises approach four areas of executing a social business initiative: team, collaboration, learning and scaling.
Social networks can help organizations, whether commercial, nonprofit or government, to significantly improve their efficiency in business processes like recruiting, sales and service. This is what we call “Enterprise Process Innovation” because, by using social networks to create and nurture relationships with alumni, your employees can diminish the time required to accomplish tasks within these processes. It’s well known that most alumni, former employees, move to firms that are related to your business (adjacent in the value chain) or complementary in some way. Yes, some move to competitors, but they are usually in the minority. Social networks, by significantly reducing the cost of having relevant, quality conversations, make robust employee-alumni networks actionable as never before.
Since the 1990s, I have advised clients in many industries on using disruptive technology to change the rules, and one of the themes that has constantly recurred is companies’ decreasing ability to maintain high profits from product businesses. Products are not as profitable as they used to be. In the Industrial Economy, product life cycles were long because communication was infrequent and poor compared to today, which prolonged ignorance and novelty and product life cycles. It took years for fashions to cross the Atlantic, through the 1980s. Now fashions emerge simultaneously no matter where they originate. Today, novelty is consumed with alacrity, erasing differentiation and price premiums.
I had never attended SXSW before because I always had other things happening, and the value proposition was never obvious to me. In general, I attend very few “social media” conferences as the hype usually exceeds the delivery in an “industry” that’s particularly prone to self-congratulation. This year, a client launched a new venture at SXSW, so I decided to stay a couple of days afterward to see what the noise was about. Here are my informal impressions that I hope will be useful to you in deciding whether it might be worthwhile for you to attend. I invite your comments and impressions, too.
The Big Switch is a valuable book that reflects what has become Nick Carr’s trademark role, heckling IT and Web enthusiasts, albeit from good seats. Carr seems to relish his role as “the fly in the ointment” of the idealistic IT-enabled world that Web missionaries espouse. Although this book has shortcomings, I recommend it for two reasons. First, Carr makes a convincing and useful argument that the “electrification” of business and society (the Edison part) has valuable lessons for the “computerization” transformation of business and society (the Google part) that is currently unfolding. This parallel provides context to think about some of the disruptions around your business, society and career. Second, Carr raises serious questions about possible privacy implications of computerization. He palpably weighs in on the dark side and seems to want the world to change course from the “googlization of life.” If you haven’t read The Long Tail, I would read these books in proximity because they are very complementary and both quick, important reads.