Becoming a Social Organisation

Opening keynote this morning is on Becoming a Social Organisation, by the author of this book:




Got a couple of copies if anyone in Sheffield wants to borrow it.

Organisations deploying Social media often fail. It's the "provide and pray" logic. Provide the software, and pray that people collaborate. But no point implementing tools if you have no idea what your supposed to do with them. Few managers know how to turn potential collaborations into meaningful results.

A social organisation is one that applies mass collaboration to solving their business problems. Resources are applied to innovate, collaborate and achieve results.

In a good social organisation, it's OK to ask questions, to share experiences and trade ideas and experiences. Not related to organisational structure.
Some mass collaboration behaviours:
Collective intelligence - all of us are smarter than any one of us.
Flash coordination - SWAT teams for complex problems
Expertise location - finding the right people regardless of where they are
Interest Cultivation - bringing together birds of a feather
Emergent structures - building an understanding of how things work in reality
Relationship leverage - reaching the masses interactively

It's about mass collaboration, not technology. Mass is the important word. Has to be the whole community. Has to be a purpose, a why.
Social media, community and purpose come together to enable mass collaboration.
For effective collaboration, has to be a cycle of engagement including contribution, feedback and review to encourage more contribution.




Purpose is key. Has to be a reason why you would volunteer your time, experience, attention, energy and ideas? We don't pay people to engage in social media.

Have to guide and nurture mass collaboration. Need just enough structure. Have to watch and nurture, make sure participation is appropriate. Make sure it's achieving it's purpose, but the most important thing is to take the ideas out of the collaborative community and make them work in the organisation.

Is a social media assessment kit on the web to see how ready you are as an organisation.

Have just taken it, and we have a "forging" attitude. I think that's good!



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