TheSocial Business Enabler of Digital Transformation reveals how social technologies have changed the economics of interacting and collaborating, and it presents four ways that Chief Digital Officers can use social to lower risk and boost returns of digital transformation.
![The Social Business Enabler of Digital Transformation [CDO Guide to Social Business Part1]](http://rollyson.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CDO_socbus_1_main2.png)
Social business competency is pivotal to digital transformation because it combines four unusual characteristics. First, it makes interacting and collaborating an order of magnitude faster and less costly than current processes; second, few organizations understand how to use social business to interact with key customers to boost profit, so leaders enjoy rare advantage; third, when compared to ecommerce, mobile and big data & analytics investments, social business shows results quickly and costs less. Lastly, social business reveals what stakeholders really think when organizations aren’t in the room, so it’s effective for due diligence and “requirements analysis” for ecommerce, mobile and big data investments.
As Social Business Enabler of Digital Transformation explains, social business has a two-fold value proposition for Chief Digital Officers: they can use social directly to drive reputation, innovation and […]
[UPDATED] Connected customers have the Internet in their pockets and use mobile and other devices in all stages of conceptualizing, considering, evaluating, buying and using purchased products and services. These customers want to interact with firms and brands in a seamless experience that features single sign-on as an entry point; they want the firm to respond using their individual data when that makes interacting more valuable. Omni-channel commerce refers to a collection of technologies, practices and strategies firms use to provide the personal individualized experience that connected customers expect.
U.S. healthcare transformation has been the subject of innumerable conferences, debates and programs for many years, and social business will play a large role. Reducing cost without sacrificing quality of care has become the common goal, so I believe social business will be a key lever because social technologies dramatically reduce the cost of collaboration.
Chief digital officers and transformation will go hand in hand as the position and its competencies take shape over the next few years. Historically, commercial, government and nonprofit enterprises, when faced with profound business change or technology disruption, respond by elevating new types of leader to the “C” level. Chief Knowledge Officer, Chief Process Officer, Chief Ecommerce Officer and the like become de rigeur for a few years and fade, either because the new disruption proved less sustainable than anticipated or because the competency became subsumed by a more core function.
[UPDATED] Social business strategy use cases represent scenarios in which most organizations find themselves, and they reflect some of the choices of which CDOs, CMOs and CEOs may use as they plan to evolve their enterprises in order to either improve returns or simply remain relevant in volatile markets.![Transform the Enterprise [Social Business Team Building] case5](http://rollyson.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/sbtb5.png)
Transform the Enterprise is almost always initiated by the CEO’s office, the CDO, the board of directors or other strategic body. Its defining characteristic is enterprise transformation, using social business as a key enabler. Some of its common business contexts are: the hiring of a (new) CDO (Chief Digital Officer), which is itself a commitment to use social business for transformation; a merger, major acquisition or sale whose focus is to redefine the enterprise; “pervasive social business” that results when several of the enterprise’s brands have had some social business success that the executive team wants to scale; scaling enterprise 2.0 social collaboration technologies; self-disruption to create a new level of competitiveness.![Herd the Cats [Social Business Team Building] Case4](http://rollyson.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/sbtb4.png)
[UPDATED] Herd the Cats is usually initiated by the CMO/CDO (Chief Digital Officer) or other enterprise practice or brand executive who discovers that various business units or brands in the organization have diverse social media presences without much apparent direction or business results. S/He wants to use strategy to provide a keel that resonates with corporate strategy, addressing issues as diverse as corporate citizenship, community, health or policy.
Anonymity, Marketing and Predicting the Future shows that, although each culture has its own concepts of “anonymity” and “marketing,” anonymity will prove to have been a temporary phenomenon in most human cultures because communications technologies are counteracting it. Moreover, based on my studies of and experience with sociology, evolutionary psychology and technology, I observe that 20th century marketing is grounded in anonymity, so we can predict the future of marketing by exploring anonymity and its relationship to marketing.
[UPDATED] Marketing, advertising and public relations (MAP) agencies have comprised the largest share of the “social” advisory and execution firms for many years. Most of the other advisory firms are relative late entrants, with the exception of some Analyst and Enterprise I.T. firms. Communication forms the core of social technologies, and MAP agencies have been pivotal in leading the growth of social media activity in their clients, many of the largest brands in the world.
I covered the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Economic Forecast last week, where all speakers issued this refrain: “More of the same.” Key economic indicators have been stuck in neutral—the proverbial “sideways” movement—so the consensus in the room was one of faint frustration tempered by gratitude. Everyone had lived through worse.