Much like Twitter, but with more features and abilities to communicate with others, Plurk is a new social media tool that allows you to connect with your business colleagues and friends.

If you’ve already established a presence on Twitter, it will be easy to understand how to use Plurk as a business tool as well.

Once you sign up for Plurk, you will want to set up your profile and start adding friends.

I’ve been using Plurk to update when I have a new post available to read. And just like on Twitter, I’ve made new contacts that I would not have before.

Check out Plurk, try it for a few days, and let me know what you think.

02 13th, 2008

An average commuter will drive 60 miles a day which equates to $21,098 in cost a year per person commuting. This cost continues to rise as the cost of fuel goes up.The average worker spends in excess of 50 hours a week away from home. As businesses try and get leaner the demands on workers go up and to keep the job more is expected which means more time on the job doing more. People discuss these issues, one to one to millions daily. The conversations are abundant.

The current credit crunch and subsequent long tail effects could cause significant shifts in the “credit economy” with ripples being felt globally. Already new home housing stats are indicating a slow down in residential real estate and the bankruptcy rate is on the rise.  The conversations are abundant.

Consumer debt is at an all time high and the rate of late and default payments is increasing. The gurus of economics converse over whether this is just the beginning or the end of bad economic news. The conversations are abundant.

The debate over global warming continues and there is no denying that we are consuming more of the earths raw materials faster than they can be replaced. The push to conserve natural resources and find alternative energy sources is a global conversation which is and will continue to impact the future eco-system we all live in. The conversations are abundant.

The debate over the war on terror continues to capture our attention and that of global leaders. The different positions on the war continues to polarize people, parties, institutions, religions and governments. The conversations are abundant.

The state of our “relationships” with each other are showing signs of decay. Divorce rates are up, teenage suicide is up, criminal incidents are on the rise, employee turnover is on the rise and medication therapy for our ills is exploding with every new kind of psycho labeled malady being diagnosed and treated with yet another medication that promises to “help” us get through our mental and emotional anguish. The conversations are abundant.

The media feeds us with these stories which only sparks more conversations, responses and concerns as to what we individually need to do to cope with the issues that impact our life. The conversations are abundant.

The current political debates within the U.S. are all centric to these issues and each candidate “promises” to have the answers hoping to appeal to the masses and win their votes. The current conditions of the American landscape of issues and the possible outcomes are part, if not much, of the thread of conversations globally. Each of us and everyone of us are seeking answers to the complex problems that exist in our worlds. The conversations are abundant but the solutions are not.

Are These Abundant Conversations Converging Around Chaos?

We’re not trying to predict doomsday rather we’re only trying to illustrate what subjects are dominating today’s conversations. Subsequently what potential outcomes could come from all this chaos being discussed could indeed become part of the solutions.

Chaos is the complexity of causality or the relationship between events. This means that any ’seemingly’ insignificant event in the universe has the potential to trigger a chain reaction that will change the whole system. A well known saying in connection with this issue is “A butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side of the earth.” This is also known as the “butterfly effect“.

The issues that are dominating today’s conversations are very real and threaten to disrupt the eco-systems we live in. If one or more of the issues accelerate at the same time the convergence could create chaos that impacts our lives and subsequently forcing changes unexpected, unpredicted and adaption to these changes will be required.

In any chaotic event, remember 911, the foundational forces that create calm and adaption to unknowns is relationships and conversations.  When society feels collective stress we turn to our relationships and converse about the issues at hand and the solutions to anything that directly impacts our individual eco-systems.  When 911 occurred we reached out and conversed with those closest to us. We took time off from work and thought about the possible implications. We stayed glued to the media waiting to hear “What Next?”. We felt the need to get closer as families, communities and as a nation. Relationships became paramount and the conversations abounded.

Considering all the current issues the social web may actually become the backbone of society’s need to relate, converse and find solutions to perplexing issues facing our world, its eco-system and our communities, one to one to millions.

If the chaos of the moment forces us to spend more quality time with our relationships engaging in problem solving conversations what could the outcomes be? Self governed and self organized could we solve problems better than those who govern and attempt to organize us now?

What say you?

www.relationship-economy.com 

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.comThe social web is creating a reversal in the process of managing customers. People learn from people and subsequently are avoiding influence from institutions rather the conversations of people, one to one to millions, have become the power of influence.These conversations are creating “social markers” on brands. “Social markers” is a term created by Hugh MacLeod whose blog, GapingVoid, defines social markers as “ a prime form of social shorthand, that people use to STAKE OUT the ecosystem they’re occupying”. A brands social marker can be either good or bad. It is tagged by the conversations of those that have experienced the brands product, service or culture.

Every business has an ecosystem forming within the social web. The ecosystem is driven by the people who have experience with your brand. Whether suppliers, employees or customers the relational experience with your brand is what influences your brands “social marker“. The social web is an “ecosystem” that enables conversations to spread like wildfire and the more conversations the more attention the conversations create.

If your brand is a positive “social marker”, within this ecosystem, you will have a competitive advantage on the other hand if your brand is a negative social marker well just think about the implications.

Is Social Markers creating a Shift?

Theo Papadakis wrote a post which first appeared in the 2nd Online Customer Engagement Survey Report, and his ending comment states “The first questions for would be customer-engagers should not be “what technology should we deploy?”, nor “how can we engage our audience?”, but instead: “What is it that our customers are currently doing, where are they doing it and what do they want to achieve.” And guess what – the best person to ask is … your customer.”

While agreeing with the context of Mr. Papadakis post the train may have already left the station. The train we’re referring to is a shift in control from the brands desire to engage the customer to the customer taking control over the engagement.

Today business relies on CRM products designed to facilitate customer needs into a framework designed by the supplier. It is like telling your spouse or children “I want your feedback but only within this context”. The feedback system is not designed to listen rather to control the context into “frames” the supplier thinks are important to us rather than “open conversations” that are important to us, the customer. Most corporations would consider the thought of having “open conversations” with a large audience of customers a nightmare of uncontrollable cost. When they consider the “technological tools” of the social web they think of it as tools to control and manage, the customer.

The flaw in this thinking is that people would rather simply be heard than managed. Managing and acting on the intelligence gained from conversations is a much more effective way of building stronger relations. The outcomes should scream “I heard you” and subsequent actions should demonstrate that we’ve changed or learned something as a result of what we heard. Automated conversations are not real conversations.

The Old Methods Have Failed The New is in Control

People are now empowered to influence brands by the reach and influence of conversations, one to one to millions. These conversations are becoming social markers. Frustrated by brand promises not fulfilled, old sales and marketing tactics, dysfunctional corporate cultures, the people are speaking out and are managing, creating and influencing markets. Instead of businesses managing customer, customers will influence how businesses are managed.

Which method are you prepared for? The old or the new?

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.comBusinesses are shaped and built around markets, existing or created. Whether the proposition is a product or service, for a business to survive it has to have a market that wants or needs its product or service.Business follows different methods to build and deliver to the masses. Creating market differential aimed at specific markets is the means for creating market movement. Think of the Apple IPhone as an example of creating and delivering market differential and thus movement.

What and Where are the Markets?

A market is a social structure for exchange of rights, which enables people, firms and products to be evaluated and priced. A market allows buyers and sellers to discover information and carry out a voluntary exchange of goods or services. It is one of the two key institutions for organizing trade. In everyday usage, the word “market” may also refer to the location where goods and services are traded, or in other words, the marketplace of transactions.

Business is a Web of Conversational Transactions

A conversational transaction is an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between separate entities or individuals. These conversations often involve the exchange of items of value, such as information, introductions, knowledge, services and sometimes money. These conversational transactions evolve into relationships based on an affinity defined between two parties then thousands of individuals collectively forming a “swarm” of transactional conversations centric to affinities.

These collective relationships then form into markets being defined by the “collective parties engaging in conversations“. Think about how customers thrilled or disappointed with a new product or service converse with others thus creating a web of conversations that influence others. Think about employees disappointed with employers and the influence the subsequent conversations have when promulgated into the marketplace of people. The marketplace is where the conversation are occurring, the conversational transactions are the influence on the marketplace, any marketplace, your marketplace.

The Social Web is the Marketplace of Conversations

The social web is the new marketplace fueled by conversations and relationships formed at the intersection of people and technology. Web 1.0 was about delivering information. Web 2.0 is about enabling conversations which in turn create transactions. Thus the appropriate label of the “social web”.

Doc Searls book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, and on his blog often and regularly he refers to three categories of activity which are fueled and enabled by the power of the web. These are: transactions, conversations and relationships. Doc writes “In too many markets the mix of the three is warped and strained. Too much of the conversation is insincere, preachy, hollow or otherwise bullshit. And the current methods used by businesses pollutes both conversation and relationship.”

“Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed,” Some of Doc’s key points are:

• These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
• As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
• People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
• There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
• What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.
• Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
• In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.

The Social Web of Business

Business is about markets, methods and masses. The markets are the relationships, people. The methods are about the conversation and the masses is about the reach of the transactions. To win in the relationship economy a business must have solid market relations, honest, open and frank conversations which in turn fuel the transactions, results.

The Relationship Economy is about people, one to one to millions, transacting in the form of conversations but openly, honestly and at velocities never before experienced. These transactions enable new relationships to be formed with a global reach and formed within what we have come to call the social web.

These conversations are about anything, everything, anybody and everybody. These conversations are nonstop able, fluid, frank and with no hierarchy of control, they are free and without constraint. This represents a movement of markets and unless business understands the methods they will loose the masses and the subsequent transactions.

It is that simple yet hard for business to grasp considering the current state of mind. “It” requires a different mindset, a focus on human factors and understanding the value of “real” conversations.

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

The great historian George Santana once said “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”The history of social movements have demonstrated the human desire for independence while the “portals of power” have always tried to make people dependent on the power structures.

More and more people are becoming dependent on social networks for multiple purposes. These dependencies are flying in the face of the basic human desire for independence. Consider the resent Robert Scoble story about being banned from Facebook.

E-Week reports: Facebook on Jan. 3 reinstated Robert Scoble’s membership one day after banishing the high-tech blogger for testing a Plaxo tool that imports contact information from Facebook to the Plaxo Pulse service.

Facebook’s servers detected the automated script, which a representative told Scoble resembled the same type of script used to commit malicious attacks and send spam and shut the account down earlier Jan. 2.

Scoble promptly blogged about how he was cut off from his 5,000 Facebook friends, triggering an outcry from supporters in the blogosphere that is renewing the debate about who has the right to control data on a social network—its users or the network.

Facebook has very clear rules that the data on its network is under its purview; users would like to export their data to other social sites so they don’t have to re-enter data on multiple social networks. When Facebook banned Scoble, it provided a reason for users who want to control their data to reignite the fire.

While the historical conflict of dependence vs. independence has been between the people and the powers that govern the people there is now an evolving conflict between the people and the technology. The intersection of the matrix.

Doc Searls wrties: “Independence is a value that has run like a river, not just through the Open Source movement, but through the Independent Developer movement, the Free Software movement, and through hacker culture for the duration. Its origins are in value systems that recognize the transcendent virtues of personal freedom. Including the freedom of assembly that results in social groupings — especially those that are inherently elective. To be free is to opt in, not just out.”

“Scoble should be able to take his personal data, his social data, and his business, anywhere he likes. Our ability to associate and communicate and work out “social networking” should be independent of Facebook, LinkedIn, or any company’s walled garden.”

“The problem is, we have not framed what we want, and what we invent, sufficiently in terms of independence rather than dependence. We have not started with ourselves and worked outward and otherward from there. Instead we’ve waited for the Facebooks and Orkuts and Friendsters of the world to prototype our “social networks” for us. Which is fine, as far as it goes. But that’s like letting AT&T or Apple some other company contintue to define operating systems for us. With BSD and Linux we stopped doing that, and started making for ourselves.”

“We need to do the same with social networking. We can choose to serve as batteries in the Matrix that is Facebook (and every other “social network” that serves as a world-like habitat). Or we can choose to be free. That’s it.”

The battle between the people and the technology is just beginning. As Doc says, we can choose to depend on the matrix and thus become dependent or we can choose to be free. The choice is ours and if history repeats itself we’re in for a battle regardless of the choices we make.

Independence actually has a set of dependencies. The dependencies are at the conversational intersections between and among people. One to one to millions. The power of these dependencies is when the conversations become united and stand together on common principles that enable independence.

Facebook reinstated Robert Scoble’s membership because the people spoke up in swarms but did they change the rules of the matrix?

What say you?

www.relationship-economy.com

Jay Deragon

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

“You’ll have ten minutes to explain the virtual world of social networks.” That was the instructions from a global corporation who asked us to dial into the proverbial Monday morning executive meeting and discuss social networks.So how does one educate business executives about the value of conversational relationships with a ten minute limit set on the conversation? You can’t!In another example, a Fortune 500 company had engaged us to research their specific niche market as it relates to what the market was doing with social networks and what opportunities could they pursue to create market differential as well as improve customer and employee satisfaction.

Upon finishing the research we began to write the report and send drafts to the appointed project manager within the company. Our first draft was ten pages long. The appointed project managers first response was “we have a rule around here and that is our executives will not read anything longer than two pages.” The essence of the message was “we don’t need to know why and how to do something rather simply tell us what to do and do so quickly.”

Does the “how and why” impact what the final results will be?

Many, if not all, employees of any corporation will relate to the two examples above. Pressed by deadlines and an abundance of task businesses thirst for the “one minute answers” and then when the answers are implemented but do not produce the expected results the blame game begins. Subsequently “pointing fingers at who is to blame” becomes a cultural norm when the “what” answers contained in the two page summaries or ten minute presentations do not produce expected results.

Dr. Charles (Kalev) Ehin, Professor of Management Emeritus and the former Dean of the Gore School of Business at Westminster College writes: ” Have you ever wondered how things actually get accomplished in most organizations despite all the obstacles continuously encountered by the people who perform the day-to-day activities? I’m sure you have unless, of course, you are one of those rare individuals who is independently wealthy and has never worked for someone else. Not surprisingly, all of us have our own individual theories about why businesses survive in spite of the seemingly unworkable systems and processes they frequently employ. Just in case you may have, for a moment, forgotten what those obstacles are let me list just a few of the most common:”

• Unclear goals and objectives
• Ambiguous or unexplained policies and procedures
• Unrealistic deadlines and budgets
• Pressure to do more with less
• Lack of cooperation and teamwork
• Poor and uninspiring leadership
• Lack of open communications and trust

“Can you imagine what gains in wealth, creativity, and social responsibility could be realized if enterprises discovered how to leverage the hidden but powerful attributes that allow firms to make a profit in spite of these barriers? The possibilities are boundless. And think as well about how much more successful mergers and change initiatives in general would be if they could tap into these attributes. Essentially, my focus will be on the nature of the emergent systems or informal networks present in all social entities and what leaders must do to “allow” the tremendous energy and creativity inherent in these systems to support the overall organizational vision and objectives.”

Successful Social Networks are more about the How and Why

The innate power of relationships is the learning element that we adults seem to have forgotten. Part of the element of learning is conversational and without taking time to have a conversation learning is being limited. Half of a conversational process is listening and maybe it is the most important part. If business leaders don’t have time to listen or engage in conversations how will they learn the inherent power of social networks?

I have a five year old son whose constant response to any conversation is “why” which is indicative of human natures desire to learn. Even when you respond to his first “why” he’ll naturally follow up with another “why” until he thinks he’s gained an understanding of the subject matter being discussed. Ironically when he thinks he truly understands something he’ll be the first to correct his father in future conversations relative to whatever he thinks he now understands. Sound familiar?

Business thinking and subsequent institutional behavior has created deficits in learning capacities and capabilities. Finding quick answers to market movements, short term profit pressures and institutional maladies is a repetitive process that robs peoples ability to learn the how and why. Do business leaders really think they have learned enough to simply ask for what without understanding why and how? If we truly found time to have conversations with employees, suppliers and customers what would we learn?

A ten minute presentation or a two page summary may not be enough to understand the power behind a major social movement. Are we so connected to business that our relationships have become disconnected?

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

Today’s social networks are “train cars” of conversations.People connect to people they perceive as “headed in the same direction they desire to pursue”. The subsequent conversations reflect common threads of interest. The different train tracks represent different conversations, different platforms, different affinities and different transactions.

We’ll define a transaction as an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between different people, entities or objects, often involving the exchange of items of value, such as information, goods, services and money. Today’s social networks are fundamentally connecting people and enabling open conversations, transactions of informational exchange.

The evolution of these transactions will be enhanced through the convergence of technological advancements to “networks” which enable people to increase the value of these transactions economically. The “train cars” are fueled by today’s conversations and they are building speed, momentum and the attention of business. The velocity of these train cars, running on multiple tracks, are moving faster than anything in history and most businesses are not even aware that “the train is coming“.

Will there be a wreck at the intersection of people and business?

Doc Searls writes: “Think of markets as three overlapping circles: Transaction, Conversation and Relationship. Our financial system is Transaction run amok. Metasticized. Optimized at all costs. Impoverished in the Conversation department, and dismissive of Relationship entirely. We’ve been systematically eliminating Relationship for decades, excluding, devaluing and controlling human interaction wherever possible, to maximize efficiency and mechanization.”

With all the attention being given to “social networking” much of the underlying dynamics that drive the adoption of the “networks” are misunderstood. Businesses, analyst, markets and the media again are focusing on the results rather than understanding the systemic nature that produces today’s results. The attraction of over a half a billion individuals engaged in today’s “networks” is a business attraction motivated by economic possibilities. While the economic possibilities are significant the understandings of the dynamics which are creating the possibilities is critical to capturing the economic gains.

If you reflect on Doc Searls comments above you will see a systemic failure of “business” to make progress in the fundamentals of human interaction, relationships. People produce business results and businesses produce relationship results. If we measured the “relationship results” of businesses the scorecard would likely create a failing grade. Businesses have been consumed by financial measures as dictated by public and private markets that measure economics. The social web is creating a new measure of business based on the fundamentals of relationships. The people have known and continue to know how “business has failed them”. It has never been a secret rather business environments have simply controlled the conversations that speak to the relationship issues.

John Maloney, Founder, KM Cluster; Global IT Architectures says: Social networks and SNA are excellent research tools for academics and scientists. They are excellent at showing and understanding relationships. However, from a purely practical sense, a business and economic sense, for driving growth, they fall down badly. Why, again academics, scientist and businesses are measuring and analyzing the wrong thing, results.

Measuring and reacting to results is like trying to play tennis by watching the scoreboard. The results of “social networking” is nothing more than a scoreboard indicating “something is driving people to engage, exchange and connect”. If businesses want to succeed in a “social network” they must engage, exchange and connect with people in order to reap any benefits of social commerce.

The momentum of a train is based on speed and mass. The faster it moves with greater mass the harder it becomes to stop it and anything in its way simply gets runs over.

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

Based on the ebb and flow of the social web in 2007 this new year promises to bring more disruption facilitated by the cascading conversations of individuals, one to one to millions. We are likely to experience significant adoption of the social web by businesses representing every market segment and industry.

The force that fuels significant growth will be the “noise” created by cascading conversations at velocities never imagined or experienced. Conversations are markets and unless businesses learn to engage they will loose their market positions, some slowly and some overnight.

A cascading conversation is a consecutive series of organic conversations which often proceed via social networks, one to one to millions. It allows the conversational synthesis of topics from a single user’s creation to spread at the click of a mouse and with no geographical boundaries or other limitations as to who chooses to engage in the conversation or who is touched or influenced by the cascading affect.

The cascading conversation contains many functional streams that take part in the conversation’s transformation one at the time. Often another cascading conversation is generated from a previous conversation. The social web accelerates cascading reactions from conversations due to the dynamics of one to one to millions conversing about anything and everything, including businesses.

Cascading conversations carry an idea forward in ever-broadening circles. The very nature of cascading conversation implies, “the conversation creates the results.” The social web creates the medium to engage thousands…then millions…of people. These people create conversations centric to topics of interest and issues of affinity with others who have migrated to groups–commonly known as swarms.

The Social Web: A Conversation-driven Process

The social web created a two way conversation between people. At first its appeal attracted the younger generation looking to be heard and wanting to converse. Now more and more adults are finding satisfaction from the conversational web. Whether engaging for personal or professional reasons, adults are finding the creativity of the social web and the dynamics of virtual relationship appealing. The subsequent cascading conversations have fueled global conversations about business, politics, causes, opportunities, knowledge and any other thing which one would classify as adult conversational topics. People are connecting in the virtual world and finding ways to help one another, including finding jobs, finding friends or finding stimulating conversations.

What is the effect of these conversations on businesses?

The essence of any business is primarily about conversations. Business leaders spend most of their time engaged in communication. Whether face-to-face with their teams and customers or alone in their offices dealing with memos and e-mails, these are all conversations about the business—its brands, strategies and effectiveness. At its simplest, the role of leaders is to have the right conversations with the right people in the most effective and efficient manner.

However, experience has shown that conversations can also be the cause of many organizational ills. Individual conversations may poorly engage the work-force; fail to reflect reality; fail to focus and align people; and stifle individual and business transformation. A common failure of business conversations is they can be one sided and lacking a learning exchange. Business success is simple: increasing or accelerating the organization’s effectiveness requires changing the organizational conversation. Cascading conversations can accelerate business transformation whether planned or not.

Cascading Conversations Can Transform Markets

Markets have historically relied on traditional media to carry their messages to the masses. Using multiple forms of media, businesses have tried to reach consumers with advertising messages aimed at getting consumer attention through product or service appealing images. Consumers have been surrounded by messages appealing to the human senses, needs and desires.

Slick advertising campaigns, sponsorships and a host of other media techniques have been used to create affinity and attract consumers. These methods have been used for years and advances in technology and media have simply increased the creativity of the messages and the means. Conversations between people have become the media and the cascading effect is gaining power and momentum. Businesses are just now beginning to pay attention.

Some businesses are following the social web because that is where the people are migrating. IBM has developed social networks for businesses. The likes of Wells Fargo, American Express, Bank of America and Nationwide Insurance to name a few have recently engaged in using the tools of social media to reach their customers. Many businesses either do not know what the social web is or they have underestimated it and discounted it as a fad. However the wave of cascading conversations will grow at exponential rates throughout 2008 and the collective voices of the people will only get louder. Businesses will follow the noise even if business leaders do not understand how to engage in conversations.

The new business leaders of tomorrow will understand the value of conversations and subsequently we will then begin to see the evolution of a new dynamic called social commerce. Today these are just ripples in the ocean of the social web. Tomorrow these ripples could create a wave of change again at velocities never before imagined or experienced.

Substantial issues regarding the effect of cascading conversations need to be considered going forward.

Are your people having the right conversations? Are business leaders focused on the impact of cascading conversations? Could business be more effective at conducting or leveraging cascading conversations? Are business leaders listening? Will business be transformed or will it lead the transformation?

What say you?

Jay Deragon

www.relationship-economy.com

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

There is an old saying, “if you stay in this world you will never learn another one.”Learning the dynamics, the art and the science of the new world created by the social web is one of the foremost challenges for businesses.

Current business theories are correct in their own world, but the problem is that the theory may not make contact with the new world.

For businesses to succeed in the new world a transformation in leadership thinking will be required.

Back to the Future

Imagine if business leaders were able to go forward in time and see what needs to change today in order to create a better future. Most business leaders would jump at the opportunity to be able to see the future in order to better manage today’s decisions. Well here are 10 Points of Business Transformation required to survive and thrive in a new world:

1. Management practices of the past have smothered the individual and tried to contain and manage individual expression. The social web brings back the individual and enables individual freedom of expression.
2. The social web is not a thing, rather it is a movement accelerated by the art of self expression, the reach of relationships and fueled by the science of advanced technology. This combination of art and science has created a new world with new markets fueled by conversations, one to one to millions individually.
3. Economic activity takes place within social relations. People create economic gains by what they buy and recommend and how many others with whom they share their preferences. For businesses to reach buyers they need to reach people.
4. If you destroy the people of a company, you do not have much left for the future. People drive all business processes, products and services. People influence customer and supplier relations. If your cultural robs expression what are you customers and suppliers hearing and feeling about your business
5. Fear and lack of trust can make economic growth impossible. Don’t fear the social web, embrace it. Distrust destroys relationships
6. The social web gives businesses reach and richness in finding innovative answers to perplexing business problems.
7. Businesses are social networks. If you didn’t know this you are in denial about the power of people conversing with other people.
8. Human Resource Management is no longer a rules game. People don’t resist change–they resist being changed. The traditional approach to human resource practices needs to be transformed to practices that empower people.
9. People have conversations with people, not things. Customers will connect with customers and employees will connect with employees. What are these conversations producing? What can a business learn from these conversations?
10. Remove the barriers to relationships. Lead the transformation or be transformed by it.

Much of our day to day life, personal and professional, is interaction with other people and the patterns of interaction influence so much of the events around us and before us. The social web is creating new patterns of interaction which in turn is creating a new world of social exchanges about everything, anything and between everyone everywhere.

For businesses to survive and thrive in this new world they will need to go back to the future and adopt the 10 Points for Business Transformation required to thrive in the new world. We will cover each point in greater detail in the future.

What say you?

Relationship Economics

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

Ever wonder where all this “networking activity is going?” For months I have been formulating my own predictive models and attributes using numerous sources of information. At the risk of sounding  a little “futuristic” allow me to provide a picture of what I consider to be a realistic model which will emerge in the not to distant future. First I will categorize my findings into what I call “Relationship Economics” and provide appropriate definitions.

First the word “Relationship” being defined as connection or association; the condition of being related. Second is “Economics” being defined as the study of resource allocation, distribution and consumption; of capital and investment; and of management of the factors of production. So I will define the collective meaning of Relationship Economics as: The people and things we are connected with or have an association to which distribute or consume our “capital” which influences our individual production outputs. We will use the term “capital” meaning that which we give or take that creates numerous forms of value.

Practical Relationship Economics Examples: We have relations with people and things. Both either take or give to our “capital“. People and things take or give us time (capital). People give or take information and knowledge (capital). We work with people to make money (capital). We strive in business to create or loose money (capital). We use machines and technology that either give or take value (capital). We interact with “things” that either give or take value (capital). We participate in institutions that both give and take value (capital). Our governments provide the means to gain or loose our freedoms (capital). In essence we have relationships with people and things that give, take or both in terms of our individual abilities to be “productive with our capital”. Collectively “Relationship Economics” is about people and things we give or take which influences numerous forms of value, our “capital“.

When you think about the primary means of most interactions we have with people and things it is technologically based. Whether your working, playing or relaxing you ultimately interact with some form of technology, everywhere and in everything. For the most part technology increases the value of our interactions with people and things. It is hidden and assumed.  Initially any new technology takes your time (capital) to learn how to optimize it. However, once proficient you begin to appreciate the value but expect more from it.

When we engage in human relations it takes time to learn whether the interaction creates value and whether the values are in common. When relationships become “disconnected” the primary basis is usually differences in value given or taken and differences in “values”. The primary difference between our interactions with people and things is one of values vs. value. Technology produces value while people dictate the “values” that technology enables for either the building or tearing down of relationships and the related capital.

Relationship Economics is just beginning to take shape and its future has significant rewards. The future,not to distant, will naturally emerge into a convergence of collective technologies which connect us to everything, everywhere. Imagine the following scenarios:

We will have our own network “ Link to Our World” in which we define what is interfaced into our world. Our mobile phone, PDA, Automobile, Television (s), landline telephones and any device in which we receive or transmit communications will be integrated and connected to our Link to The World. Our World portal will have a set of “button” interfaces with people and things categorized by a matrix of relations. Said buttons will appear on our desktop, our mobile phones, our PDA, Televisions, our car screen and any other communication device we use. Some of our devices will contain voice recognition software so we’re able to multi-task safely, i.e in our automobiles, boats or planes. I think you get the picture, everything and everywhere we are able to connect to people and things.

So How Do We give and receive value?

Many of us currently sell products and services in exchange for economic value. The future of Relationship Economics will be based on “value taken vs. value given“. The oldest exchange of value is that known as tithing and it is largely tied to religious organizations. Another exchange of value is that of “tipping for services rendered“. Another old paradigm which the masses have adopted as socially acceptable and expected. Fast forward.

In a world connected to everything everywhere we as individuals are enabled to profile and exchange our value and our values. Already, in today’s market, we’re seeing an exchange of value in terms of relationship introductions and the process of using the means for job recruitment. Job recruiters make money off of placement, an old model of exchange for value which HR departments have adopted as a better method to internal staffing and screening. Now combine the old models of value exchange with a new model. A model in which in the “networked world” we buy tokens of economic value globally. When some one provides us value it is assumed and expected, but not written in contract form, that we would be rewarded according to the perceptions of value by the receiver. The receiver would simply credit our token account with a value they deem appropriate for the benefit gained. In turn we would do the same for those that deliver us value.

Since the technology of the “networked world” provides us with the luxury of efficiency and effectiveness we are able to produce value to whatever degree we choose. The choice is individual. Some will work overtime because others will compensate them for their ability to produce. Others will receive and not compensate, they will be quickly identified as takers, not givers and the entire network will know the difference. The Global exchange of value ignites competitive propositions but the rewards provided are an individual choice, not unlike today’s market of products and services. Deliver value and you gain customers, Deliver defects and you loose them, period.

Relationship Economics will create new mediums, new measures and accelerated exchanges that will displace traditional mediums and totally disrupt and displace existing paradigms. A new world order driven by value exchanges and relationships will emerge and mankind will learn to adapt or lose. Those that don’t adapt and create value will be quickly identified and set apart from the larger network. Value migration will build momentum and create significance, individually and collectively.

More details on this prediction and the related models later. For now: Far fetched or realistic?