In 1988 tunnel boring machines aimed at one another began their slow attack from France and the United Kingdom respectively.  The ultimate death match resulted in the Chunnel – a consistent, fixed mode of mass people/cargo transportation across the English Channel.

A similar thing is happening with the inevitable convergence between the fields of Enterprise 2.0 [communities of practice, collaboration networks, knowledge management] and Social Marketing [customer communities, influencer networks, social media, Social CRM].  With the goal being a consistent link between workforce, partners and customers and with the infrastructure to provide a continuous ebb and flow of knowledge, ideas, reputation and all things intangible.  Kinda like the Chunnel.

The success of the Chunnel, as with merging Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing initiatives, depends on clear objectives, planning, tools, people and sheer determination.  There’s a big difference too, though.  The Chunnel diggers started at the same time on each side.  I recommend starting your internal/Enterpise 2.0/collaboration initiative before engaging customers or influencers in your customer community/social media initiative.  Don’t meet in the middle.  Why?

Ideally you want some experience with internal collaboration before customers are engaged.  Or ‘Get your house in order before you invite over company.’  Think of your workforce as your immediate family, and your suppliers, partners and vendors as your neighbors.  They can see your house a little messy – especially if it’s due to a snazzy renovation.  Your customers are more like your dates – your best foot is always forward.

It’s for this reason that a strategy where internal collaboration is enabled first is best.  Work out the kinks of collaboration with your internal workforce, suppliers/partners, etc. first so that you’re prepared to respond to customers ridiculously faster than with a silo’d organization.

Evolution of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing

The worlds of Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing are the result of a similar evolution[in my mind].  Enterprise 2.0 represents the needed transition in learning and knowledge management from formal [classrooms and databases] to informal [communities and Web 2.0] while Social Marketing is the same evolution in marketing from traditional [print and banner ads] to social [customer and influencer communities].

They have a different audience but the same objective – integrating anyone you count on for success into your strategy for better products, services, efficiency or enhancements to your business model – aka innovation.  Internal and external communities are the incubators of ideas for improvement.  Bring them together successfully and you’ll have the most valuable resource needed for the new economy – knowledge.

Next Steps for Enterprise 2.0 and Social Marketing

As the respective fields are evolving it’s in everyone’s best interest to…wait for it…collaborate.  Shocking, eh?  And this is where those nasty changes in process come into play.  Just b/c it sounds like a great idea for teams form Marketing, Knowledge Management, Innovation, IT, HR, etc. to work together for the sometimes utopian goal of a freeflowing exchange of information through a company’s value network it doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Inconvenient things like politics, personalities, power and culture are all front and center.

This is where we find it helpful to use a tool to visualize and measure process as it occurs in today’s dynamic times. A value network analysis shows stakeholders their current process flows [intangibles included] and let’s them determine how best to rearrange them for mutual benefit.

However it’s done, though, these areas need to be working together – the tunnels within your organization and to those that you count on for success need to be dug and the infrastructure needs to be in place so that knowledge, ideas, reputation and all of the other intangibles you rely on can flow as they need.

There’s a lot of talk going on these days about how businesses need to embrace their social nature and intangible elements in order to compete [see Enterprise 2.0, Social Business Design, etc.]. The reason being that very few businesses produce anything tangible and even those that do still rely on a complex web of relationships, ideas, insight, brand, collaboration and leadership in order to do it.

This evolving understanding of the business landscape reminds me of man’s understanding of a different scape >>> space.

Until recently it was believed that our Universe of visible stuff [planets, stars, comets, gas, etc.] would continue expanding for a bit and then begin to recede. But the data didn’t agree. The expansion of the universe was actually found to be accelerating at a rate that means it will continue to expand eternally.

What’s behind this mystery? Dark matter and dark energy. Their presence is required in order to explain the behavior of the objects in space that we can see. The same is true for the networks and intangibles in organizations.

Dark matter is described as being “undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred by gravitational effects on visible matter.” Sounds like office politics to me.

Seriously, though, dark matter and dark energy are true forces with which to be reckoned. Estimates are that they make up about 95% of the known universe as the chart here shows.

Scientists were recently able to visualize these forms of matter and energy through what I’m sure is some pretty basic math [not]. What they produced was both eye-opening and jaw-dropping. It shows what was previously invisible and is allowing them to better understand it and its effect on us.

The picture here shows a lonely Hubble [to the lower left] as it peers out into the distance and sees massive clusters of galaxies [the bright spots in the image] surrounded by enormous globs of dark matter.

The ability to see these formations as well as analyze the data that comprise them allows scientists to better understand how the Universe works and how our role in it can be affected.

Until recently most organizations focused just on visible things [products, materials, warehouses, property, etc.] in order to operate and compete. The problem was that only focusing on tangible things left out the major driving forces of business today [i.e. relationships, ideas, knowledge, brand, etc.].

And just as scientists needed to be able to *see* dark matter and dark energy in order to measure and understand it, we too need ways of visualizing the critical elements of organizational performance in order to affect it in the new business landscape. Enter Organizational Network Analysis and Value Network Analysis - two tools designed to see how organizations really operate today.

An Organizational (aka Social) Network Analysis reveals the social fabric of an organizations and, depending on the question asked, can show us who people go to for information, which geographic locations that may be out of the loop, where holes may develop as a result of succession planning, and countless other scenarios.

The image here is the actual output from one of our clients with global operations. Dots=people; lines=information flow. Just knowing that you can see that there is no information flowing from site to site – it all comes through corporate. Not being able to see this as well as analyze the data behind it wouldn’t allows us to create and execute on a strategy to save money, reduce rework, increase innovation, etc.

A Value Network Analysis shows us how work really gets done from more of a process perspective. The key differentiator is that a VNA includes both the tangible [i.e. reports, deliverables, communications] as well as intangible [i.e. credibility, confidence, brand, etc.] elements that are required for success in business today.

The image here is another real example from a global client. There were several departments at headquarters whose collective objective was to support the activities of various global sites but they had never been able to visualize how their activities were affecting the sites. The VNA revealed that despite their best intentions, the sites [the oval on far left; mid-way up vertically] were not receiving the intended support and allowed us to create a strategy that coordinated and focused these activities into a process that reduced workload and better supported stakeholders in the field.

The topics of Social Media, Social Networking, Enterprise 2.0, etc. are all the buzz these days. There’s even a raging debate on whether to include the word ‘social’ [my opinion is that 'intangibles' is more inclusive/accurate than social but not nearly as sexy]. Scratch the surface, though, and much of these discussions revolve around technology. I’m the first to admit that there are some pretty slick tech offerings out there to help organizations operate in this new landscape but to implement them correctly there must be a comprehensive understanding of the whole environment.

So just as scientists have leveraged Hubble and some wicked math to learn about how our Universe is structured and therefore how we can play in it, businesses must have a deep understanding of their culture, ecosystem, processes, people, etc. before launching any of these social [intangible] initiatives. So…what does your organization really look like? Can you illustrate the invisible forces that are truly determining your path?

The New York Times recently published this map which shows data searches where users jumped from journal to journal as part of the knowledge they were seeking.  What a great visual of knowledge networks in action…

What would a map of your workforce look like as they went after the knowledge they needed to do their job?  Does your current learning and development/training strategy support it?

Many organizations are recognizing that the picture above resembles how work gets done in their workforce and leveraging tools such as social or organizational network analysis and value network analysis to create a strategy to support these knowledge networks as ways of transferring knowledge, improving performance and increasing innovation.  How about yours?

Who is responsible for your organization’s success?  Customers?  Employees?  How about suppliers?

Optimizing the performance of an organization requires a careful look at its entire value network.  Orbital RPM’s Value Network Analysis [VNA] provides a map of how work really gets done.  By visualizing the exchange of both tangibles and intangibles a true systems perspective of performance emerges.  The resulting VNA map is then used to determine the best approach to support knowledge transfer within the entire value network of an organization.

• Customer Communities
• Social Media Marketing
• Crowdsourcing/Open Innovation
• Brand Monitoring

We execute on a Market Collaboration plan that allows you to not only hear the voice of your customers, influencers, partners and suppliers but participate in an on-going dialogue with them.

• Organizational Innovation Program
• Idea Campaigns for Specific Topics
• Crowdsourcing for Idea Generation

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.

• The Leader Ship
• Action Learning Programs
• Networked Leadership Assessments

The result is leaders that have the skills to lead your organization into the knowledge economy along with critical, tangible organizational improvements they have implemented while on their learning journey. Orbital RPM’s Leadership Development solution is built to integrate with broader Talent Management initiatives such as succession planning, retention or compensation programs.