How do you refer to “this space”?
If you’re from a marketing or communications background, you likely refer to “Social Media Marketing.” At Forrester, we named this space “Social Computing” in February 2006, originating out of the Devices, Media, and Marketing research group.
If you’re from an IT background, you likely refer to “Enterprise 2.0″ originally defined by Harvard Associate Professor Andrew McAfee in May 2006, while researching IT for business use.
There’s nothing wrong with these terms. In fact, they speak clearly to the roles they have served for over three years. Social Media Marketing works best as part of integrated communications strategy, along with other forms of media: tradigital, direct, broadcast, out of home, guerilla, et al. Enterprise 2.0 helps technologists focus on new approaches to infrastructure.
Recently, thought leaders have been calling for an elevated focal point: social business. This evolution is natural – and fully anticipated. You see, on their own, social media marketing and enterprise 2.0 are means of building a better mousetrap, of working smarter not harder…and very sisyphean, waiting to repeat the process with “semantic media marketing” and “enterprise 3.0.”
In contrast, social business is a theoretical target for transformation…but the catch phrase alone doesn’t help companies get anywhere.
This is why Social Business Design matters, allowing companies to:
- Articulate the approach to creating a social business: “intentional creation of dynamic and socially calibrated systems, process, and culture.”
- Utilize a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive framework for analyzing the current state of business via four archetypes: ecosystem, hivemind, dynamic signal, and metafilter.
- Outline how functions can apply social business principles within their areas of practice: customer participation, workforce collaboration, and business partner optimization.
Within these practice areas, social media marketing lives as a subset of customer participation. Enterprise 2.0 provides infrastructure support within workforce collaboration and partner optimization. They are complemented by additional people, process, and technology considerations within Social Business Design – which encompasses ALL organizational functions as well as broader industry and value chain perspectives.
It’s time for us to straighten out the terminology we use when describing this space. Social media marketing and Enterprise 2.0 have their value within their respective niches and should still be used to refer to functional niches. Social Business may be trending today but cannot stand on its own – it’s only a theory. Social Business Design drives holistic focus on corporate system change, the responsibility of executive management and the overarching goal for business functions.
Peter,
Insightful, your thoughts are helping us to get there, but we do need to get some of the terminology straight, if nothing else so we can move on. I would like to add something that may help (or just create another term – you decide). Social System Design is the instantiation of Enterprise 2.0 as the technology foundation of Social Business Design. Yes, People and Process first, I know, but technology does need to fit there somewhere.
Mitch
Mitch, you’ll be happy to know that our early thinking on SBD was influenced by investigation of system design. http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2009/01/four-parts-transformation.html
Peter,
Will you expand on your meaning of “socially calibrated”? What does it mean, who does it, and how does it happen?
thanks,
@mwalsh
Look for the explanation of Hivemind here: http://www.dachisgroup.com/social-business-design/our-approach/
I agree that most of the disparate concepts in the Web 2.0 space belong under the umbrella term of social computing. However, your point that social business design provides a focal point for how business is affected seems on point to me. I analyzed the HP WaterCooler project results using the Dachis Group’s social business design framework a few months ago
http://skilfulminds.com/2009/07/15/social-business-design-insights-from-hps-watercooler/
HP’s WaterCooler is a good example of ecosystem in action, as is IBM’s Beehive.
To your point, Web 2.0 stands on its own and is worth understanding as originally defined by O’Reilly: http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2009/01/why-web-20-still-matters.html
Hi, Peter. Glad you’re still fighting the good fight on this topic. I checked out a while ago. I understand the importance of common terminology, but can we set up a vote, agree to abide by the outcome and move on (I take it from your last paragraph that you kind of agree) ?
It’s really not that big of a deal.
(end of mini-rant)
From the perspective of doing the work, definitions don’t matter much, as long as the right focus is in place. From the perspective of focusing the work, the definitions are critically important.
Like I said, I’m glad you’re on the case. I think Dachis Group certainly has the authority to throw down the gauntlet and define this space.
Neither Wikipedia nor Wiktionary have entries for Social Business Design.
I’m along for the ride on this one!
Peter -
At the risk of oversimplifying – isn’t this all just Product Design? If the product/business has/requires a social component, then isn’t this just part of the broader product?
It seems like there’s a constant drive to create new terminology and define new “spaces” while the existing spaces and terminology seem to contain what almost all people are doing quite well.
I saw a presentation recently by some folks from IDEO who spoke about Business Design (sans the social) and, once again, it seemed basically like product development/design and user experience planning and design.
If you’re trying to drive enterprise awareness of the benefits of social components in their strategies and products, perhaps this will help, otherwise, I think a lot of folks are starting to get confused.
[Jeff]
@jboogie
Hi Jeff – if you follow the history of competitive dynamics, product certainly comprises the base component. However, industries historically moved to service-based competitions. We are currently transitioning into experience-based approaches. Ultimately, we will need to drive transformation-based value propositions. That’s there Social Business Design plays.
So, if I’m understanding your point correctly, the goal of SBD is to get corporations to understand that the experience IS the product? And then focus on what that experience SHOULD be?
[Jeff]
@jboogie
All of the above.
How does “social business design” differ from pure and simple business design? Isn’t business inherently social? Isn’t smart business inherently by design? Are we just playing semantics with these social and 2.0 terms as cues to others that we are in mastery of the new business terrain?
While the tools and platforms for social connection are evolving, and new vocabulary around these new tools is proliferating, it seems that the social nature of business is the one constant that hasn’t changed: good business has always been about good relationships, just as successful teaching is always about strong relationships.
To put it differently, what *isn’t* social business design? If we cannot define what lies outside of that domain I am not sure it clarifies much as to what is new or different in this view of the business ecosystem.
A richer question to debate might be to ask how definitions of business “value” may evolve as we begin to broaden our perspective of business ecosystems and increase use of the new social tools and platforms.
Corrine – in theory, I agree with you – to a certain extent. If you read Doug Rushkoff’s thinking, “social” trends give companies the opportunity to move back to an era of participation and social interaction. But the problem lies in where we are today. The nature of advertising certainly isn’t social. The metrics that govern the operational efficiency of a call center certainly aren’t social. The silos that exist between budget holders in IT vs. marketing aren’t social.
Most of today’s companies aren’t designed for social business. By doing so, they’ll unlock value.
Hi Peter,
I’ve always been a fan of your blog, subscribing to it via Google Reader and am an admirer of the work that you have done in the social media space. However, having been in marketing for well over a decade, online and off, I am wondering if some of these recent posts are falling into the classic marketeer trap of writing long-winded marketing-speak, full of 3-syllable buzzwords.
I have found over the years that clients – especially those that are not in marketing departments – will either ignore me, switch off or at worst shut me up when I begin talking/presenting in what they term as stereotypical marketing-speak. We are often criticised for not being tuned into the bottom-line aspects of business, of being theoretical instead of practical and of over-complicating business processes. A few years back I even had an MD (American CEO) tell me that if I said one more marketing buzzword she would have security throw me out.
In rewriting his work, the author DH Lawrence would ruthlessly slash and burn his day’s work, cutting 3-syllable words down to 2 and 2-syllable words down to 1, simplifying his text as much as possible in seeking to communicate his ideas. Could we not learn a bit from how he turned simplicity into art?
Hello Stephen,
Point understood. Naming confers meaning and value – when used deliberately, it can be powerful. We call our approach Social Business Design because it signifies something distinct, not an idea that is the same as everything else at its core.
If it is the same, I haven’t yet heard from anyone who has taken the time to understand the depth of our thinking and respond with meaningful counterpoints. Blog posts like this one only scrape the surface. Real work and deeper thinking take place elsewhere, in formats that allow for much larger value creation and capture.
http://www.dachisgroup.com/PDFs/Social_Business_Design.pdf
I’m trying to follow the thread. It seems as if you have developed a term and a model you like, and you’re asking us all to to use it since your business is based on it.
“It’s time for us to straighten out the terminology we use when this describing this space” . . . and use yours. Did I get that right?
No, that’s incorrect. Perhaps you should re-read the post.
OK, I re-read the post.
I find your ideas and your company’s ideas fascinating and valuable.
You analyzed vendors at Forrester, so you know vendors’ claims need to be evaluated from the standpoint of where they are in the market and what they are trying to accomplish.
Your “thought leaders” statement would be far more convincing if it linked to other thought leaders. Your argument would be stronger. I have seen them out there — why not cite them?
As a vendor, not just a thought leader yourself, you have a responsibility to present more evidence, including evidence from outside your own company.
Now we’re getting to the point of the post here. I’ve cited two thought leaders already (McAfee and Forrester) and given credit for their work. It’s analysis of the work contained in those concepts, along with additional insight into business strategy, process, and technology that has led to Social Business Design. Some might even call it a “big idea.” It’s not something we’re selling – it’s the shape of what business will become. The depth of our thinking is captured in the thought piece we’ve made available to the public.
Hi Peter,
I have long admired your thinking and followed you for some time. As an O’Reilly alumni I felt you were one of the “outsiders” to get what Tim was talking about with Web 2.0. so you have great street cred
Like you I believe that we are at the beginning of some tectonic shifts in how business gets done.
The challenge you have is in trying to convey the depth of your thinking and the value of your offering to those outside your company. Ironically you have a marketing problem.
You have chosen to clarify a new term (social business) with other new terms (hivemind, metafilter etc.) which makes it doubly hard to get inside of the core concept of social business design.
One thing that might help is to begin speaking in stories and examples that illustrate these four “archetypes” in the unequivocal language of a case study so that we can understand more clearly (1) who has effectively deployed a “metafilter” for example, (2) how do you calibrate it and (3) what does the result feel like.
I look forward to keeping up with the good work you are doing.
Best,
Josh
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