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This has been a common conversation for me over the last 5 years or so…

Most People: What is it that you do again?

Me: I help companies operate and compete in a knowledge-based economy.

Most People: Huh?

Me: I work with companies on their learning,development, knowledge management, innovation, marketing, HR and other processes to help them do business now – which is much different than how businesses have ever operated in the past.

Most People: [blank stare]

Me: I’m a consultant.

Most People: Oh…I know what they do.

Although the above is exaggerated I’m not naive enough to think that the label ‘Social Business Design’ will cause the conversation to be too much different than it is now – but I strongly applaud the team at Dachis Group for coining the term and providing a rallying cry for a whole industry [software suites, authors, consultants, etc.] of folks that will contribute to transforming organizations for a landscape that has no boundaries and relies on relationships, ideas, conversations, knowledge and all things intangible.

Social Business Design may become the next buzzword but I think it’s a simple yet eloquent and descriptive term for the results required to compete in a knowledge-based economy.  So much so that we’re incorporating it in our communication about Orbital RPM’s offerings.

And while I lend credit to Dachis Group and Altimeter Group for energizing this arena I also thank and credit the following fields for their work in what I feel provides the foundation for a transformation to operating socially [representative honorees shown in brackets - there are way too many to list]:

• Social Network Analysis [i.e. Rob Cross/Cross Networks Analytics, Valdis Krebs]
• Value Network Analysis [i.e. Verna Allee, Value Networks and team]
• Systems Thinking [i.e. Peter Senge/Pegasus Communications, iSee]
• Industrial/Organizational Psychology [i.e. Kurt Kraiger]
• Organizational Design [i.e. Peter Drucker]
• Scenario Planning [i.e. Art Kleiner]
• Organizational Learning/Knowledge Management [i.e. Etienne Wenger, John Seely Brown, Jay Cross]
• Leadership Development [i.e. Reg Revans, Steve Kerr, Michael Marquadt]
• Workspace Design [i.e. Frank Becker, Charlie Grantham, Jim Ware, Camille Venezia]
• Innovation [Peter Skarzynski, Rowan Gibson, Clayton Christensen]
• Social Marketing [i.e. Charlene Li, Peter Kim]
• Social Software developers/vendors

Combining insights from these [and other] fields brings a comprehensive solution to organizations wanting to become social businesses.  The timing is right to combine the best of what’s new [i.e. web 2.0 & social marketing] with age old approaches [i.e. communities & action learning] that will help with this transformation.

This is what we’ve been doing for the last 5 years.  Now we have a name for it.

Microsoft’s line of videos about business collaboration are well done and inspire a lot of thought about the possibilities of the new networked business landscape.  What they make me wonder though is which product are they espousing be used for this purpose?

Although it’s flying off the shelves, SharePoint is known to be strong when documents are the central focus – this creates space in the market for SharePoint’s Featured Partners who extend the functionality to support communities of practice, knowledge networks, innovation and more.

As I look at these after-market products as compared to the potential that collaboration and learning communities can bring to an organization I have to wonder how long it will take before one is just gobbled up and integrated right into SharePoint?

One of our projects now is hung up in IT due to our desire to use a SharePoint plug-in ASP provider with Community of Practice functionality – it’ll be nice when all of this comes in one ‘box.’

Well I’ve been noodling [aka procrastinating] on this post awhile – given my recent interview with Inc. Magazine on selecting collaboration tools, though, I thought it was time…

For many of the organizations that I speak/work with regarding knowledge networks/communities of practice they have [or are planning on implementing] a collaboration software package with many slick bells and whistles but without a clear path and strategy for getting up and running – this often results in an empty knowledge landscape with little showing except for some bells and whistles strewn about.

Even in the CIO world it’s popular to say that collaboration and innovation isn’t about the software but what do you do in addition to buying software? 

The Iceberg in IT

The delimna I frequently witness is what I call the ‘Iceberg in IT’ conundrum.  Someone decided that people needed to collaborate more and told IT to implement a package that enables collaboration.  While a good software package is certainly a required step, I prefer to put it near last instead of first. 

Using the admittedly cliche and ubiquitous iceberg metaphor above, social software is simply the visible thing that enables collaboration to happen.  When IT is told to purchase it when there is no strategy to generate adoption, it will feel cold and barren [sorry - couldn't help it].  In order to truly affect how this can help people do their jobs there is a large amount of work that needs to done behind the scenes…hence the 7Cs of success:

• Capturing:  the notion of collaboration is foreign in many organizations so people often need to be shown what potential is there if they were to collaborate.  We always visit different geographic locations and capture [via video, audio, memory stick, etc.] what people are working on so that we can determine common topics and have some seed material to begin populating the software system.
• Connecting:  even software that’s designed to connect people will do little in that regard if left on its own.  People [especially when at the early phases] need some help connecting with one another – simple things like setting up bridge calls and facilitating conversations serve to build trust and awareness and provide nuggets of content that can be housed in the platform.
• Combining: in a dispersed organization you’re bound to find bits and pieces of similar work living in a great many places.  Helping the users combine that information using the wiki feature of a platform, for example, will show users the efficiency in working together while training them on what in the world a ‘wiki’ is.
• Contextualizing: the most effective collaboration initiatives will integrate members from an organization’s suppliers and customers and related academic institutions.  Translating that into compelling content that will make sense to your users will be critical in getting them to absorb and leverage it.
• Confirming:  similar to above, if you’re getting knowledge from various sources, care must be taken to ensure that what’s being provided is accurate information so that it can be acted upon.
• Circulating:  what good is the best information if no one knows about it?  The role of a community/network coordinator is essential in circulating news about what’s new, recent questions, etc.
• Communicating: having someone dedicated to getting the word out about the success stories in your knowledge network will go a long way in generating interest, excitement and ,of course, additional funds that will be necessary to continue operations.

Having an effective Web 2.0 collaboration platform at the center of this activity certainly will make it much easier to coordinate but the software alone [today's versions anyhow] will never replace the behind-the-scenes efforts required to start and sustain collaboration and innovation.

Innovation requires a steady stream of ideas within a governed structure that filters, vets, advances and integrates those ideas based on the strategies and goals of the organization.  In practice most innovations succeed in spite of the odds due to the lack of a coordinated idea generation process and an infrastructure to support its throughput.  Serendipity is nice but you don’t want it in your strategic plan.

Orbital RPM’s innovation management solution allows organizations to enhance and oversee an active pipeline of diverse ideas, while establishing standard processes and procedures for executing on the ones most critical to your strategy.  Our comprehensive approach helps determine areas to focus idea generation, equips your workforce with the knowledge and skills to innovate, designs the process to get ideas flowing through collaboration, and defines the execution process.

The result is an organization that enjoys a steady pipeline of ideas proactively targeting customer needs and improving business processes critical to organizational performance.  Be it operational excellence, new product development or process improvement – we incorporate all facets of the business.  Key components of this solution are the following services:

• Scenario Planning
• Social Network Analysis
• Value Network Analysis
• Knowledge Management
• Organizational Design
• Content Delivery
• Coaching
• Social Software
• Innovation Architecture