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13 October 2011  Connecting the Creator, the Visionary and the Executive was the Ardent Desire to Serve
Much has been written about Steve Jobs the creator, the technology visionary and the enterprise leader, but none of these personas entirely get to his essence. Steve Jobs was all these things, par excellence, but what deeply touched and inspired Apple’s customers and what made Steve bearable as a boss was an unconscious yet poignant feeling that he was there to serve people. He flew the flag of The Rest of Us. Unswervingly. Vehemently.
Without this higher calling, Steve would have been merely a successful tyrant. However, Steve’s commitment compelled thousands of brilliant and highly intelligent people to work for him and millions of customers to feel that Apple stood for something rare. Beige boxes and senseless software are optimized for profit, but Steve loathed mediocrity and its inherent compromises because they didn’t serve people, they acted at the expense of people. The desire to serve drove Steve Jobs, the creator, the leader and the innovator. Steve would never have led an oil company or a CPG, because he wasn’t a businessman. He wanted to make people’s lives better through technology. That was his love and his life’s work. Perhaps it was felt most palpably through interactions between people and Apple devices. My tribute to Steve honors him for this, in an unusual way…
Continue reading Steve Jobs: Behind the Fierce Competitor and Exacting Boss [Tribute]
17 March 2011 Behind the Curtain: Why You Might Want to Attend
 I had never attended SXSW before because I always had other things happening, and the value proposition was never obvious to me. In general, I attend very few “social media” conferences as the hype usually exceeds the delivery in an “industry” that’s particularly prone to self-congratulation. This year, a client launched a new venture at SXSW, so I decided to stay a couple of days afterward to see what the noise was about. Here are my informal impressions that I hope will be useful to you in deciding whether it might be worthwhile for you to attend. I invite your comments and impressions, too.
[Update: links to additional coverage below: Gowalla, TOMS, LinkedIn execs]
4 March 2011 Curmudgeonly Looking into the Past to Divine the Future—That Nagging Privacy Issue—Debunking the Elephant
 The Big Switch is a valuable book that reflects what has become Nick Carr’s trademark role, heckling IT and Web enthusiasts, albeit from good seats. Carr seems to relish his role as “the fly in the ointment” of the idealistic IT-enabled world that Web missionaries espouse. Although this book has shortcomings, I recommend it for two reasons. First, Carr makes a convincing and useful argument that the “electrification” of business and society (the Edison part) has valuable lessons for the “computerization” transformation of business and society (the Google part) that is currently unfolding. This parallel provides context to think about some of the disruptions around your business, society and career. Second, Carr raises serious questions about possible privacy implications of computerization. He palpably weighs in on the dark side and seems to want the world to change course from the “googlization of life.” If you haven’t read The Long Tail, I would read these books in proximity because they are very complementary and both quick, important reads.
As usual, I will outline the book’s chapters before giving my interpretation and insights in Analysis and Conclusions.
12 February 2011 SocialTech Grows Up—Relationship the Foundation of Business Success—Digital Clodhoppers Become Sore Thumbs
 2011 will mark a turning point in the adoption of digital social technologies because the experimentation phase is drawing to a close, and stakeholder expectations are increasing. Organizations and people will no longer gain attention by executing badly. At the enterprise level, participation will wane in venues and initiatives that have no business strategy, focus, content strategy and commitment. Paying inexperienced people or agencies to “share” snappy content will expose brands as digital clodhoppers and push customers away. Individuals will also have to improve their game and focus on the most relevant people in their networks. Stop sending default invitations on LinkedIn. Proactively support people whom you respect and trust the most. The theme is determining and executing on strategy, focus and commitment.
In 2011, the bar to attract and hold attention will be higher, which will present organizations with a new threat: when participation falls, some executives will conclude that “social media” was only hype anyway, and they will curtail investments. This reaction will create opportunity for people who understand what works and why. At the same time, stakeholders are more savvy and responsive when you show sincere interest in them, which will result in stronger relationships and business results when your interactions are based on a sound strategy.
Continue reading Web 3.0 and Social Business—2011 Predictions & Recommendations
29 January 2011 At first, it seemed that the machine had tilted, its levers, bells and flippers having hit some kind of glitch, causing us to lose the ball and the bonus points.
 As the curtain rises on the second decade of the twenty-first century, we will see that the machine is actually fine, but it’s become a different game. Quite entirely. To put it mildly, “the economy” is proving to be quite a drama, its pungence largely dependent on where your company or career is wired into it. Although it is quite frowned upon in the U.S. to admit despair, some pundits have even flirted with the moniker, “The Great Recession” to describe the crisis, a faint nod to the Great Depression of the 1930s, but this comparison is off-base. As I have argued for some time, the 2007-2010 “financial crisis” has played a mere overture to the real story, a transformation of the global “economic architecture.” I first heard this deft phrase from His Excellency Shri Kamal Nath, India’s very diplomatic Minister of Commerce in 2008 (coverage here).
2 September 2010 Social networks let us have more relationships but we don’t know how
“Digital social networks are transforming… [everything], from society and romance to politics and business… because they change the economics of how people discover, develop and maintain relationships.” – Social Networks’ Relationship Life Cycle
 Social networks are remaking society because they enable us to have more relationships and more kinds of relationships. Relationships give us more diverse kinds of information, and information leads to more dynamic action. The problem is, most people don’t know how to be social appropriately in this emerging environment, which will delay value creation and pervasive adoption. However, if you recognize these limitations and take them into account, you will have the advantage over your rivals, many of whom will get frustrated and curtail their social media investments.
This post is the third installment of the Midyear Update. It gets personal, where the first tackled strategy, and the second social technologies. I’ll discuss the biggest hidden barrier to social business adoption and how you can guide your firm through it. I include this in the mid-year update because it has been such a prevalent part of client work this year. Understanding it is key to building and maintaining momentum.
16 May 2010 Chicago Salon Speakers Share Breakthrough Applications of Social Technologies
 PopTech’s Social Mapping Salon was 12 May 2010 in Chicago, and its evening component featured three ultra-creative leaders whose teams were using mobile technology to vastly improve business processes, within the context of disaster recovery, incarceration and violence. PopTech itself is focused on creating and nurturing disruptive innovation through design, technology and cross-boundary collaboration. This salon was about using social mapping to create breakthrough. Although I didn’t attend the day part of the salon, I gathered from talking to people that it’s about using social connections to disrupt lock-in thinking and unnecessary assumptions. Social maps (below, right – or, even bigger) are visual representations of connections and breakthrough areas.
Continue reading PopTech Maps Course of Social Change
7 February 2010
Fresh Insights from Enterprise Social Business Executives and Practitioners
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The adoption of Web 2.0 and social networking accelerated significantly in 2009, and it shows no sign of stopping. Global digital word of mouth is disrupting growing swaths of business models, and CEOs want to understand its opportunities and threats. Although the Web is resplendent with prognostications from social media gurus, the voices of enterprise practitioners are too scarcely heard.
Therefore, the Global Human Capital Journal is pleased to present perspectives from highly experienced executives who share their thoughts on how Web 2.0 is changing their businesses and mindsets. Moreover, they share its limitations and problems. Keep in mind that each contributor wrote independently, and I have made no attempt to unify the view, although I will offer my analysis and conclusions as well as the intriguing backstory below. Here is a sampling of the group’s eclectic insights:
Continue reading 17 Enterprise Visionaries Release 2010 Predictions for Social Networks, Web 2.0
6 January 2010 How Mass Collaboration Is Transforming Company and Culture—Mining Disruption’s Silver Lining
 “We are flying into some turbulence, so please return to your seats and keep your seatbelts fastened while we try to find more favorable winds.”
As chronicled in the just-published Decade in Review 2000-2009, the twenty-first century is proving to be volatile and disruptive in every way, and 2010 will continue the trend. Three disruptive forces are converging: the relative value of the Industrial Economy continues to fall as overproduction reigns. Globalization is replete with extras that people at the head table didn’t order. Most imperceptibly yet poignantly, the emerging Knowledge Economy is digitizing communications and changing the economics of knowledge and relationships. Web 2.0 and social networks drive down the cost of communication, which accelerates volatility because when people talk, ideas change and lead to action, and digital conversations happens faster and less expensively. Social networks are rapidly making “the Web” human, thereby attracting an ever-larger portion of all human communications online. In 2009, adoption reached critical mass, ramping strongly among consumers, so many enterprises are following. The Web 1.0 adoption rhythm is very instructive.
Pervasive Web 2.0 also means reexamination or disruption of most areas of life, culture, society, government and business because social networks alter how many and what kind of relationships people have. The impact is similar to Ford’s production line, except it is more powerful: it scales relationships. Large organizations will remain in a profound state of turmoil because they were not built to withstand the volatility these forces are unleashing. Many Fortune 500 companies will be confronted with their survival, and some will not make it. Entire industries will consolidate over the next several years (automotive, airlines, banking, hotels, food, consumer goods…). Web communications mean we consume novelty far more quickly, which curtails product life cycles and leads to ultra-fast commoditization. Companies will require unprecedented innovation to even stay in place. New entrants around the world compete for customers and leverage their lower costs and better innovation processes. And Web 2.0 is still in the early stages of adoption.
This dynamism elevates opportunity and threat for executives and their organizations, so our focus here is to lay out probable milestones for 2010 to assist executives in business strategy and career planning for 2010 and beyond. First, I will lay out predictions, on which I’ll build for my 2010 recommendations. By the way, this follows Year in Review—2009/Social Networking Gains Legs on Heavy Seas and Decade in Review 2000-2009/The Rise of Web 2.0, the New Pervasive Human Space.
2 January 2010 Relationships on Demand Are Changing Economics—The Emergence of the Web as Creative Destroyer of the Industrial Economy
 We need to upgrade the turntable again! When I emerged from undergrad in the eighties, the economy was rotating at 16rpm, which we doubled in the nineties with Web 1.0 to 33rpm. The 2000s had us grooving at 78rpm. Even though one part of me says that this metaphor is poorly chosen because it’s retro, it also reflects another key trend: atomization and mashing up.
The Web is a communications revolution that speeds the consumption of novelty and its economic value, so it is destroying the Industrial Economy’s main value mechanism: value via efficiency and long product life cycles. During the 21st century’s first decade, the overriding trend is that society and markets in which executives have interest saw extensive disruption and change. That meant volatility. As I’ll discuss, this volatility will continue to accelerate because the transaction costs of communication are plummeting, which drives rapid iteration and change in all areas of human society. At the risk of sounding subjective, I believe this will probably be regarded as one of the most disruptive eras in history.
Continue reading Decade in Review 2000-2009/The Rise of Web 2.0, the New Pervasive Human Space
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Social Business Resources
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