Your Business as a Tribe

I have become much more interested in the social, cultural and behavioral impacts and changes deriving from web 2.0 and social software, much more than the technology itself. All those tools and features without any business model are reshaping our culture and the economy.

Stowe Boyd, one of the lead thinkers in this space gave a presentation at Reboot, about his concept on Flow. His presentation is available here. The clip is about 35 minutes long so take some time at your lunch and watch it.

Some of my key takeaways. This isn't by any means a summary of the talk but concepts that jumped out at me...

- First in first out processing works well at a supermarket, but not in an emergency room. We are now living in a world that is much more like an emergency room.
- We are actually moving to more of a pre-industrial/agricultural consciousness. More like that of a tribe.
- Today your time is a shared space, which conflicts with current business norms. Is what you are doing of greater benefit to you (or your boss) or does it benefit the tribe?
- The buddy list is the center of the universe. I am made greater by the sum of my connections & so are my connections.
- Productivity is second to connectivity. Network productivity trumps personal productivity

This type of thinking goes well beyond how, and what tool you should let in or look to utilize in your business to satisfy your customers, employees or give a boost to your search results or marketing campaign. Its about understanding how cultural norms are shifting and how you as a business will need to react. I like Stowe concept of the tribe, and although he used it in the context of your social network, I feel like this concept can be brought into an organizations, and supported by the right tools, will help support the productivity of the organizational tribe. The majority of companies are no longer living in a supermarket world (even if their business is supermarkets!). Business is now an emergency room.

Act with Purpose

Have you ever found yourself so busy that you fail to see the forest for the trees? That is, you are so busy doing 'tasks' that you forget why you are doing them? I think this can happen the best of people in any organization large or small. Due to constraints (financial, resource etc) small companies are less likely to do this or at least do it for long before they find themselves out of business, but I believe it is something that you need to remind yourself about every day. I found a quote the other day over at Found+Read that sums this up very well:

Don’t confuse activity for progress.

Time is precious. Act with purpose.

Its not enough to throw this out in a staff meeting, up as a quote on the wall or even as part of your company values unless you also live it every day. Remind yourself regularly, make it a part of what you do, and also part of how you speak. It will then spread to others and become rooted in your culture.

Many times, I believe that large companies could become less bloated, more efficient and effective if they could just embed this simple philosophy, not just as a statement inside their company walls, but as a strand into their cultural fiber.

(By the way a little plug for an item in my blogroll - Found+Read is a fairly new entrepreneurial blog that is a great resource for anything who falls in this category or wants to fall into this category. The other think I like about it, is that it is a blog with some social networking aspects build it - to me this model makes it more 'sticky' than other blogs in your feed list)

Timeless Management Thinking

Leadership and management guru, Tom Peters recently posted a interesting list of management ideas from his experience over the past 30 years. All are thought provoking - here are 3 to wet your appetite:

• failure = normal = good. ("Reward Excellent failure. Punish mediocre success." "Fail Faster. Succeed sooner." "Fail.Forward.Fast")
• Survival = PSF/Professional Services Firm "mindset". Goal#1: Enable clients to become successful beyond their dreams!
• The "right thing" is the profitable thing

Not sure if they all apply in every situation, in the new economy, but nonetheless they will make you think about their application in your organization, and likely also about your current company culture. Have a conversation about how they are applicable in your business and whether you agree or disagree - in the end, they still stimulate a conversation, and therefor worthwhile.