The Social Business

Another session today was on how social business is changing the way organisations work by Stuart McRae from IBM

More companies now use social media internally than externally.
We are entering the post PC era. Apple selling 100m iPads in 2013. Usage shifting from creation at desks to consumption on the move
McKinsey estimates that social technologies could raise productivity in some areas by 20%
Driven by 4 disruptive mega trends. Social, mobile, cloud, analytics. (Now, where have I heard that before....)
Increasingly influential and vocal customers. We can't just listen to them. Need to interact and lead them,
Growing demand for 24/7 and mobile connectedness. People collaborate on the move.
If you want the best talent and employees, have to give them a working environment which gives them the best experience and productivity.

A Social Business strategy should be driven by the above challenges
It should enable the workforce to work more effectively, increase productivity and improve employee satisfaction
It should also produce exceptional customer experience, customer engagement and customer delight!

Primarily a culture issue, not technology.
Need to encourage employees to collaborate and not compete
Collaborate with partners to serve customers better
Engage employees in conversations with customers

Social businesses deliver better results by empowering their people to perform better and to serve their customers better.

Need to empower employees, even when it requires working across organisations
Corporate IT has to go away and become cloud based to achieve this.

20th century collaboration tools are no longer good enough. Eg email.
Email model vs social media model. With email everything is pushed to you, just in case you might need it. With the social media model you pull the information - when you need it, you can find it.

"It's not information overload, it's filter failure" , great quote from Clay Shirky

Encourage sharing of information, eg tweeting. Success comes from changing user behaviour, from "knowledge is power" to "knowledge sharing is rewarded".

Content needs to get away from being document centric. Move to online creation and collaboration with mobile device support. Focus on sharing.
Simplify the media. Focus on content and communication.
Make the content discoverable, use tags, social bookmarks. New generation of knowledge management.

Adoption is key to business success.

A thought provoking talk there's a lot more Information on this topic on his website.


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