Harnessing Networked Intelligence for Business

Being a networked human

People now invest more of their minds, hearts and spirits in their personal life, but they also want to replicate this in their commercial life (but can organisations rise to this new challenge?). They are mostly doing this in their personal time but what if you could capture that creativity and embrace it within a business. What if people felt that way aboout your business; what could be achieved.

Even marketing gurus such as Philip Kotler now recognise that having a cause and purpose is vital for organisations. He has coined this Marketing 3.0. It is the humanisation of marketing, the recognition that mass marketing has gone and the empowerment of customers to be seen and heard, influence others and vote of what communications they do or do not want to listen to.

Our Networked Intelligence

Being networked and understanding your market, employees, competitors and the changes and dynamics of these systems is now vital to running a business. The case studies abound with good and bad case studies of how effectively people use social technologies. What is interesting though is being networked affects value and is being tracked by stock exchanges and affects share price. Why? well you only have to recognise how lack of understanding about social media and lack of reputation management have impacted some organisations - United Airlines , Goldman Sachs , Toyota. PR has always been there, but now it is the difference between a camp-fire gone wrong and a bush fire. Here we learn the lesson of compassion that connects brands to customers and that of values (e.g. sincerreity in facing issues and addressing these head-on). The ethos for the customer has to be true for the people within though doesn't it?

Evolving

Change at any level is not easy; however understanding your own network of people can help facilitate change. If you know your key internal influencers and can enrol their support during change, involve them, garner feedback from them; then you are recognising the network intelligence of your own organisation. Moreover you are more likely to harness your network and succeed in your change programme. If you then take this further and embrace the fundamental collaboration that social technologies enable you are lighting the toch paper of creativity.

Context and Relevance

Your People are your brand.  Employees need to feel part of the brand and understand its purpose (pdf) - the Why, and their context within this. This is the relevance of sustainability and differentiation and enlists them to a cause. With new systems that give employees the ability to vote on managers e.g. Cubeduel and Honestly.com. So understanding people and developing open communication channels leads to trust between customers & people in organisations who are the heart of the brand. Social Media then helps validate brand values.

Each person is a network (the neural network which exists in their brain), part of a human network (swarm theory), which is itself part of networked ecosystem of our world. These patterns of connectivity resemble the web, but they are also models of behaviour reflecting the need to be adaptive and agile; a philiosophy needed at both an organisational and individual level. A network that collects information about its environment and adapts survives.

Innovation

The transition to a more social business provides opportunities for creativity, collaboration and exploration; a way to redefine the organization and its relevance to its customers.



Harnessing the energies of people internally can facilitate a change in the brand from being isolated from its customers to being involved.

How? Think of businesses that like BestBuy, Zappos and even the maverick business of Semco led by Ricardo Semler. Semler transformed a fairly old stodgy business with over 3,000 employees into a place where everyone knows what everyone else earns, cleaners can book a spot in the next board meeting, and there are no secretaries.

Engagement

Why? because as organizations listen, they learn and by learning they can change what they do at the same time developing relationships with customers.

Social technologies and tools now provide research capabilities on a scale and to a level not known before. Data can be gathered that has behavioural context, influence and relational context as well as well as  demographic and personal details.

Organisations using this rich seam of data can decide upon customer engagement strategies that deliver experiences and so we move brands into an experience economy where customers freely engage with the brand based on the value it delivers. But this engine of marketing is flawed if not reinforced by employees who are engaged as well.

Change is about people as well as technology

Many organizations are focusing on the need for integration of new technologies.  Embracing change means guiding the business through a process of dismantling the legacy systems; adopting new and transitioning skills and processes.

Strategic decisions on how to align value from new business models, transition from existing, develop a strategic path, choose the appropriate technology and vendors, underpin resources to use and seed change through pilot projects and  scalable technologies....success factors and costs associated are often on the speed of change and how effectively the technologies are used.

So what does this mean for an organization

As organizations devolve decision making and become more transparent and open; engaging employees and harnessing their capacity for innovation are vital. People are not only critical resources within an organization, they are the organization.

Marketing 3.0 explains the growing imperative for companies to understand that they have a social role to play. Moreover, those companies that recognise there social purpose and deliver recognisable value will benefit by being competitively favoured.

Kotler highlights the increasing pace of change that Social Media is driving. Change is accelerating: technology is converging creating new business models whilst media is creating evermore fragmented markets. The dynamic for most companies has and will in the future be about identifying value and attracting customers through experiences.

In history we had a period of huge change called the renaissance which spanned the 14th - 17th Century. It was a time of political, cultural and artistic upheaval. I am not suggesting we are going through the same; there are many differences. However, there is a momentum of change, a spirit encompassing the idea to work together, to learn together, to make changes together that resonates with the idea of a new renaissance.

At TribalCafe we are looking at ways we can help others move forward, make viable changes within their business to seed and propagate innovation. We do this through people and technology. We help organisations integrate the people into the technology - provide training, help develop their understanding as we implement projects.

How do you think organisations will change - to a social business or an enterprise 2.0 model (the difference is the people approach)?