I can’t shake the overwhelming feeling that there is something wrong with business today. Grant it I have been reading books like Linchpin and Rework, but they have been confirming my thoughts rather than introducing radical new concepts. The amount of excess and waste is astonishing and entirely ineffective.
Last week another example of how quickly and collaboratively ideas move thanks to the power of social networking, I unexpectedly found myself in the process of starting up a co-working location for Little Rock. To me this concept reflects where the future of work is heading. This is why I am interested in this project, and excited about the possibilities it brings to Little Rock.
To understand where we are going we have to, as often is the case, understand where we have come from. The idea of working for a large company in a big office building is a new concept in the history of the world, yet it is the only mass way of work that any of us know. However you only have to look as far as the late 19th and even early 20th century to see how this has not always been the case.
Since everyone has been telling me it is the start of a new physical year I thought it might be an appropriate time for one of those looking forward post.
Recently at a conference which I did not attend a “social media expert” made the bold statement that Twitter will be dead in 12 months. I’ve been asked multiple times from people who have attended the conference what my thoughts are on this statement. The person went on to say that location networks, specifically Whrrl, would fill the void of Twitter, and that Twitter offers no conversation or relationships.
*Note: I’ll admit, I’ve been a little surprised by the response to my Practicing Social Media blog post. I’ve had more comments both in passing and through email that I ever expect. Like any good blog post of course it did make a few people mad, but the comments have been overwhelmingly positive. This was all originally part of a larger idea about social media that I had, so consider this post chapter 2.
I’ve watched over the last year or two as social media “experts” and companies have struggled and failed at social media. It is sometimes like watching BP trying to stop the oil spill. The problem is that this whole thing (which I will hopefully try to define) was never about social media. As soon as you try to establish yourself a social media “expert” or try to start a social media division of your company you have already failed.
When I was little I would get scared a lot at night. Boogy man, zombies, aliens, @andreasmalec’s Chicago accent… you name it when the lights went off it scared me. So what I would do is hide my head under the covers. By doing that I could pretend it didn’t exist, I felt safe and protected. Now of course my threats were imaginary (except Andrea’s accent), but I always felt the best way to avoid my imaginary fears were to hide from them and pretend they didn’t exist.
Some organizations take this approach to social media. They ban it, block it on the server and threaten to fire employees if they don’t stop blogging … everything short of physically hiding under the covers to pretend it doesn’t exist. Much of this fear is imagined. And just like me as a child, if there really is a treat in the room by hiding from it that zombie is going to eat my brains for dinner.
