July 5, 2007
it’s doc’s world. we just happen to live in it.
As part of this SAP report he’s writing, Shel Israel interviews Doc Searls with ten questions. Totally awesome stuff. Doc in fine form etc.
5. How has business fundamentally changed because of social media? How will it change in the coming years?
The walls of business will come down. That’s the main effect of the Net itself. Companies are people and are learning to adapt to a world where everybody is connected, everybody contributes, and everybody is zero distance (or close enough) from everybody else. This is the “flat world” Tom Friedman wrote “The World is Flat” about, and he’s right. Business on the whole has still not fully noticed this, however.
Rock on.
"Hugh's Daily Cartoon" Newsletter.
A new cartoon sent out every weekday morning to your inbox [RSS version here.].
A wee chuckle to start your day off right etc.
Will business resist and die? How many will welcome and adapt quickly? How will business models change? Will I buy a car online? Or a house? Will I take a virtual drive or a walkabout? Will it suffice? Will it fulfill?
Will the walls tumble like Jericho? Or remain firmly intact and prove Doc wrong?
I’ve been thinking for a while whether or not, to create a business group for our company on Facebook. So this morning I did and then I felt happy after I read this.
Jamie
I don’t really go along with Dos Searl’s notion that what we need to do is:
“equip customers with means to tell whole market categories exactly what they want, and have vendors compete to give it to them“
We do need to know what customers want but we can’t rely on them telling us.
Here is a link to a short video from innovation strategist Tony Ulwick who consults on innovation strategies for Microsoft amongst others. Check out video3 “outcome driven innovation“
http://timberlinevideo.com/clients/strategyn/
apologies for the quality — this is a rough edit version of a DVD
I’m glad I read this. With social networking companies are becoming more open to discussion. A positive to social networking.
Wow, that’s totally awesome, it’s s-o-o-o-o cool.
Only one problem. The earth isn’t flat, it’s round, however much Thomas Friedman would like it otherwise. It used to be calling the earth flat marked you as a moron. Now it’s a sign that you’re about to blow $600 on an iPhone. It still takes a very long time to travel around it, and if you actually care what it contains (apart from what your friends in Facebook tell each other, that is), it takes a bit of digging — and digging (unlike typing) is hard work.
I’m reminded of when people trying to figure out Richard Nixon called him “two men”, one good, one bad. Actually he was one man, and the truth somewhere in between.
If you really want to break down walls in companies, make sure you know what the walls are made of, and why they were put up in the first place. Otherwise, with all your good intentions, you may just end up in open-plan cube hell.