My college mentor once noted that the technology of television could’ve been used to educate around the illiteracy barrier. But the first movers successfully promoting a marketplace for TV were the news, entertainment and advertising industries. Not surprisingly they largely defined how television emerged culturally. It’s used for education, a little, but mostly for news, entertainment and advertising.
As is well know by geeks the world around, the original purpose of the Internet was not news proliferation, entertainment or advertising either. Yet, as with TV, the media and marketing industries were first movers in leveraging these new technologies to their industries’ needs (and profit). Though ham-fisted in their efforts at times, by and large the influence of the marketing/media industry can be felt as far down as the development of code standards for display (would engineers or researchers have created a need for CSS or AJAX)?
Today, the influence of the media industry (under which I bucket news, entertainment and marketing) on the dialogue over Web 2.0 technologies can be felt right in the name ‘Social Media‘. The technology itself is not media, per se, it is in its usage that the media piece comes into play*. But what if the ‘media’ piece went away? What if some other industries had been the first movers? How might social-interaction-enabling technologies (a better, if wonkier, term in my mind) be used if we ignore the tendency to leap into thinking like an entertainment or marketing person when the topic comes up.
(* if you’re about to argue ‘everything is media’ hold your breath, I get it, but that too is a media-centric world view.)
Dream a little with me now…
You’ve just been employed by ACME corporation. On your first day at work you show up and your computer’s homepage is your personal page on the company social network (think of it as Intranet 2.0). Sitting down with your coffee you’re able to see images from the company softball team’s latest game. There’s a new video of the CEO’s keynote speech at her alma mater. You notice a new employees forum where you see advice on where to find the office supply closet, how to call a car service and where the best place is for burritos.
This isn’t all touchy-feely though. There’s serious business to be done. Further into the site you notice new product designs are available for viewing. In fact the company wants everyone’s input, via a poll, on the best color combination for the new widget. Better yet, there’s a small reward for doing the poll. Accrue enough points in the reward system and there are some prizes to be had – MP3s, a free lunch at the great burrito joint, a Q&A session with the CEO.
R&D has also posted requests for insights from people who participate in Medieval Maypole Dancing (humor me, at least it makes for an interesting read, right?). These insights will be used in developing a product extension to meet the growing needs of this fertile market segment. R&D has also invited current customers of the company to participate in the company’s ‘innovation lab’. In exchange for their ideas, and some person-to-person interaction with the scientists in product development, outside members of the lab will be in a drawing to receive a free new widget when the next version is released.
While you’re pondering who you might refer this Innovation Lab to, HR contacts you through the network to discuss your benefits package and to let you know that there’s a new employee cocktail hour happening up the road tomorrow night. Already you see that the company is using the network to post internal job openings and to allow managers to provide feedback and even recommendations for employees within the company.
During your first day at work, you note that all interoffice messages route directly through the system as does calendaring, sales leads and follow-ups, meeting notes, etc. This, in turn is easily synched with your smartphone. And without ever leaving your desk you’re already beginning to meet the people in the company as they chime in with instant messages through the network. In fact, a simple search of the network returns three people on your floor that grew up in the same area you did.
But perhaps the nicest part of this interoffice system is how easily integrated it is with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube. Through the company network you can open or close gateways to your personal profiles and content online. And your friends on LinkedIn looking for work can jump right in through connection invites you make with them and HR (saving the company headhunting fees in the process). Even the suppliers you’re going to work with can build (or import) profiles on the Company network making business transactions easier and keeping all the traffic, memos, notes, invoices, and messages streaming through a single pipeline.
…this is, of course, a dream but it doesn’t have to be. Individually the technologies do exist. What is needed is an embrace at the operational level of the type of transformation these technologies can make in a business. R&D, product development, HR, sales, customer service, operations… almost any facet of a company could benefit by integrating social-enabling technologies into the very fabric of the organization. And it need not be in the full Eutopian sense of the dream above, it could be in small, simple, inexpensive but nevertheless meaningful ways.
My point is, freed from the seemingly defacto association with applying these technologies to media/entertainment/marketing problems, there is much fertile ground to leverage them across an enterprise. Connecting people, opening dialogue and harnessing the cumulative knowledge of a group can improve the outcome of many, many endeavors.
In a plug for my own company, taking a holistic look at a business (we use a construct called Enterprise DNA) and seeing how the technologies of today can help it today (something I refer to as looking at Now Not New) often leads to some interesting ideas.
I continue to hear rumblings in meetings, and see evidence online of an early-stage backlash against social media from a marketing standpoint. Personally, I believe it is too early to tell for sure whether or not, and how, social applications will influence customer acquisition. While I think its foolish to dismiss social media in marketing outright, the more tentative, measured and reasoned thinking going on now is probably appropriate. As with anything, I’m guessing the truth sits someplace between the hype and the cynicism. In the meantime though, it might be worth opening up some new avenues of thought on how to leverage all the incredibly powerful technologies we have today toward other aspects of enterprise value creation. Start by walking down the hall and asking the company accountant.
While I agree that “connecting people, opening dialogue and harnessing the cumulative knowledge of a group can improve the outcome of many, many endeavors” I think there is a danger of overefficiency. The frictions that result from lack of communication, missed opportunities, the compartmentalization of knowledge–all are a part of maintaining dynamism and creative drive. I suppose if the goal is improved outcomes in the short term, then yes–but if the goal is long-term then building in some inefficiency may be crucial. Discuss.
Interesting thought. And actually, I think I may agree. Inefficiency breeds innovation (as does competition… a point the communists missed). That said, I knowingly presented something of an idealist vision of what it could be. Every company I’ve ever worked with has had plenty of inefficiency built right in. Connection, dialogue and cumulative knowledge by their nature will return a level disagreement, inconsistency and inefficiency because, well, people are people.
Without getting too Zen about this (though I know you, Ted, of all people will appreciate the Zen angle) the journey toward absolute efficiency might be the destination.
I have experienced aspects of this “idealized portal” at different companies and the reality of the situation is that there is a barrier – and that barrier is the technology itself. As easy as it is for guys like us to dream this stuff up, we often forget that the majority of employees are barely technology literate. Many have trouble with email, let alone logging into the company’s intranet portal site.
In my mind what needs to happen is that social media, the desktop and the cloud all need to come together to produce a unified platform. I can see it in my mind, but the reality of this is still years away. We need a social media aware OS running on a desktop that is connected to the cloud where all the goodies (apps & data) reside.
When this all becomes transparent, and connecting a department or company with your work is no more involved than just doing your work – that’s when this becomes reality.
Steve, great thoughts. And I would concur entirely. I think the technorati often get ahead of them/ourselves in terms of how quickly people adopt to technology (another fundamental principle of ‘Now Not New’ thinking. That said, and understanding the Eutopian dream may be just that for years to come, some modest experimentation might yield interesting results without busting the bank. Take for example the discreet area of R&D. Most scientists will have a higher technological predisposition so starting a social-technology-enabled ‘innovation lab’ might be something both executable (because of the reduced scope) and useful (more ideas, more insights, more communication). The big idea is always seductive, but I believe its the small steps that get us there. I’d like to see different industries and departments considering how to use new technologies if only to balance what seems to be a media/marketing-heavy implementation focus currently.
Thanks for your input. Much appreciated, specially given you’ve walked a few miles in the shoes of which you speak.
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