Becoming a “Social Business” (Part 3 of 3)
Corporate Adoption Curve measured against my Friends
Already long before I founded SOMESSO I have been interested in how communities work and behaviour within communities. My career so far and my friends around me can confirm that I believe in the strength of word-of-mouth. It has brought me where I am today – I’ve also been actively focusing and live-exploiting many networks during studies and professional career.
Almost every day I have the privilege to get to know new people from widely different communities, across continents, from many industries, nationalities, and professions. This ranges from investment bankers, to graphic designers, artists, skaters, young parents, bloggers, evangelists, consultants of any kind, workaholics, surfers, entrepreneurs, expats, venture capitalists, and so on. Each of these individuals in my network also obtains a network of their own, which means they belong to other communities too.
Now, my point is that a network of contacts with highly diverse backgrounds is probably difficult to grasp in terms of behaviours, but they also form an immensely strong army of ambassadors who more accurately understand me because they know me well. As I have spent a great deal of time with my friends they understand me better when I say something or react to something, and most likely a friend will provide a more accurate answer to a question than a stranger. Therefore, the “amount of time spent with one another“ is another crucial factor for determining whether a trend has become adopted behaviour, or not.
Friends confirm when jargon has been adopted
I’m not a news junkie of any kind – I very much believe in keeping a low-information diet. I don’t spend much time on emails, nor on surfing the internet for news – except when doing research for a previously defined topic, or sometimes when something just catches my sincere interest and I can’t wait to hear more about. Instead of looking for information, my friends and the people in my direct environment keep me up to date. They are my automated filter for a low-information diet, but also a measurement tool for the adoption of any new jargon. To me, new jargon is only adopted in society when it’s adopted by … me! I’m sure you feel the same. Only when this happens in my mind something comes into my world, not earlier. This is interesting, because it also keep you aware of the fact that your friends and the people who you surround yourself with always are a certain reflection of yourself – of your own life. You create your own world and only you are responsible for it.
Hence, I evaluate my own life regularly to the people I hang out with. Although jargon like “social media“, “social business (definition nr2)”, “web2.0“, “new media“, or “social enterprise” are increasingly mentioned in our vocabulary in both private and business lives, we still haven’t reached that point in time where we have agreed on a solid unified meaning. There’s still a lot of work to be done and I expect intense discussions at conferences, forums, and literature around the topic. However, as I mentioned in my first post of this series the Internet is here to stay and so are social media tools. On top of that social media will only advance to change the way how organisations communicate and do business, while they – when used in the right way with the right behaviour and mindset – can very much benefit from striving to become a “social business”. Slowly but steadily this new jargon will be adopted into society.
If you have any comments on any of these posts, please insert them below, or contact me. I’m always happy to learn, or enable a dialogue.
* this article has also been posted on www.somesso.com
