The “social” dilemma is an interesting one – I respect Andrew McAfee’s position on it but don’t yet take it as gospel. There are companies such as Jive Software that are so confident in social that it’s baked into their main product and tagline and they’re doing pretty darn well with it.

On the other hand I honestly don’t think “social” encopasses all of the aspects that are changing in business today. I think ‘intangible’ is more accurate but way less sexy.

Ultimately I don’t care much except for our own tagline which is easy to change; the work we’re doing is still marching forward and when a term is finally determined we’ll happily fall in line.

While I agree with the convergence of viewpoints, I don’t know that Social Business Design will be the term of choice to describe it. In Enterprise 2.0, Andy McAfee is stridently against using “social” with business people because it implies party more than performance. Let’s cook up a new term.

Happy New Year.

jay

Re: wirearchy I look forward to learning more about it. Apologies for the cynicism in the quote you cited above – it’s good to have a long-term vision such as wirearchy…my comment was left at the end of a long day on a client site and it was tough to imagine it at that point:)

Very good point.

I (and others) are on record as saying we believe that the full-scale transitions / transformations we believe will happen will take quite a long time.

And, I want to emphasize that I definitively am not calling for an end to hierarchy, but rather a re-interpretation of its uses and dynamics in an interlinked and networked ecosystem of participation.

There’s OD as Organizational Design, and then there’s OD as Organizational Development. Of course the two inform each other.

I think I’d argue that the field of Organizational development encompasses or has spawned some of the the areas of activity you cite above, hence my attempt to be politically correct by noting that (as i see it) OD (Organizational development) is a cross-disciplinary amalgam .. etc.

Re: wirearchy I had heard the term but don’t know much about it. In my brief search spurred by your comment the elements I read certainly make sense as a goal for social business. What I wonder about is the timeframe and feasibility for an organization to truly make that shift.

That said, it’s certainly something to shoot for – it appears you’re a pioneer in this field so I look forward to your continued insight on it.

I’d argue, however, that you’ve omitted the field of Organizational Development (OD) and some of the grandfathers and grandmothers of that arena (although you could probably argue that it is a cross-disciplinary amalgam of systems thinking, ind./org. psychology, organizational learning, organizational design and leadership and management development).

The principles engendered in these disciplines have been in evolution for at least the last 50 years, IMHO.

On a tangential note, I’d love to learn what you think of the concept of ‘wirearchy’ as an emergent organizing principle for the interconnected-and-networked Information Age.