![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.
In 2013, digital marketing and firm executives are thinking about building their internal teams to provide more continuity and scale, so the champion often wants to create a social business “center of excellence” to serve several businesses or brands, leveraging enterprise resources to improve social business performance and contributions.
Herd the cats is the fourth of the five-part social business team building series The series describes team building in the context of various scenarios in which firms build social business capability, step by step, while investing wisely. Social Business Strategy Use Cases outlines and compares all five use cases while Social Business Team Building gives general guidance for […]
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.
Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012 is a research survey that looks at social business advisory/consulting firms in a new way. Using quantitative methods, I compared consultancies according to the needs of clients who want to transform their organizations with social business. The twelve metrics measure firms’ performance in business impact, sociality, and transformation areas, and they rank firms within firm categories and overall.
Book Review: Everything Is Obvious* Once You Know the Answer/Duncan J. Watts 
[UPDATED] Several profound market forces are preparing the ascendancy of Knowledge Economy products, which result from collaboration among designers, artists, engineers, customers and firms. This represents one of the Knowledge Economy’s most exciting-yet-disruptive elements: “products” will cease to be dominated by monolithic factories that mass produce virtually all items that people use and consume. Moreover, people have an inherent joy when they can make things for themselves, their friends and their families—and a dramatic new wave of creativity and innovation is imminent. To help you wrap your mind around Knowledge Economy products, this post will recall what happened to mass media and entertainment industries.
Branch disruption enables unusual opportunity for bank executives who consider transforming their relationships with clients. More generally, retail banking provides an excellent example of an Industrial Economy industry whose services are facing commoditization and weakening profits due to the waning of the Productized Channel of Value. In 2013, bank branch networks are under intense scrutiny because they are expensive, and client visits have been falling steadily for several years as e-banking and m-banking adoption have accelerated. Astute banks will use branches to transform their client relationships by leveraging the Social Channel. Here’s how they will do it.
Next Door Chicago is a newish concept for State Farm Insurance that’s a great example of social business in insurance. It differentiates the firm by interacting in the Social Channel. The Lincoln Park/Lakeview community center and coworking space is notable because its DNA is empowering people to improve their lives through financial education. Next Door offers free coworking space and wifi, classes on financial management that are free of product pitches, free events (some financial, some art showings and other diverse events), free conference rooms and an energetic environment. Only the optional coffee bar is paid.
By understanding the dirty dozen social business risks, you can make fewer mistakes than your rivals and get more done for less money, so this may be one of the most valuable posts you read this year. Having advised executives in adopting disruptive technology since the 1980s, I have learned that hidden assumptions sabotage early adopters’ investments and delay desired business outcomes. Happily, early adopters can significantly diminish social business risks by looking for them and mitigating them with agile development methodologies. CSRA’s client work has shown that using a risk mitigation approach is the most effective way to increase social business return on investment.
Banks are under intensifying profit pressure, so all are reexamining the size and value of bank branch networks. In How Many Bank Branches Do We Need in the U.S., posted in Celent Banking Blog, Bob Meara offers a brief discussion of the concept of “branch flexing,” as coined by Oliver Wyman to describe optimization. It’s no surprise that banks are questioning their massive branch expansions during the 2000s, especially in light of increased capital requirements and regulatory costs, which increase cost of operations. Moreover, margins are razor thin as interest rates are at historic lows.