The Future of Work is being reshaped by major trends - namely virtualization of work and consumerization of IT. These comprise the four major forces of change - globalization, virtualization, the Millennial mindset and cloud computing. These have drastically changed the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, buy, engage and consume. When the virtualization of work meets the consumerization of IT in the enterprise - and when systems of recod meet systems of engagement - the dynamics of work itself change.
In an era of the disruption of traditional advertising and the ever growing digital media channels, brands have the opportunity to connect directly with their audiences online and through social media.
Advertisers are re-locating their budgets from traditional advertising to content media.
White paper can be downloaded in many languages at this link:
http://ibm.com/cmostudy
Agenda:
Introduction Swimming, treading water or drowning?
Chapter One Deliver value to empowered customers
Chapter Two Foster lasting connections
Chapter Three Capture value, measure results
The CMO Agenda Get fit for the future
Four technology super trends and their impact on banking: digital society, big data, everithing joins up, integrity and security.
Customer: convinience, safety, personalization
IBM Global Chief Marketing Officer Study - Oct 2011Tom Humbarger
These are the results of IBM's first-ever Global CMO Study that was issued in October 2011.
"More than 1,700 CMOs from 64 countries
spoke face to face with us for an hour. We believe it is the largest survey of its type ever conducted. It clearly speaks to a broad awareness of how our roles have evolved over the past decade."
More info at www.ibm.com/cmostudy
,
strategic and organizational requirements for competitive advantage
,
the context of strategic hrm
,
strategic and organizational requirements for comp
,
jr.
The Future of Work is being reshaped by major trends - namely virtualization of work and consumerization of IT. These comprise the four major forces of change - globalization, virtualization, the Millennial mindset and cloud computing. These have drastically changed the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, buy, engage and consume. When the virtualization of work meets the consumerization of IT in the enterprise - and when systems of recod meet systems of engagement - the dynamics of work itself change.
In an era of the disruption of traditional advertising and the ever growing digital media channels, brands have the opportunity to connect directly with their audiences online and through social media.
Advertisers are re-locating their budgets from traditional advertising to content media.
White paper can be downloaded in many languages at this link:
http://ibm.com/cmostudy
Agenda:
Introduction Swimming, treading water or drowning?
Chapter One Deliver value to empowered customers
Chapter Two Foster lasting connections
Chapter Three Capture value, measure results
The CMO Agenda Get fit for the future
Four technology super trends and their impact on banking: digital society, big data, everithing joins up, integrity and security.
Customer: convinience, safety, personalization
IBM Global Chief Marketing Officer Study - Oct 2011Tom Humbarger
These are the results of IBM's first-ever Global CMO Study that was issued in October 2011.
"More than 1,700 CMOs from 64 countries
spoke face to face with us for an hour. We believe it is the largest survey of its type ever conducted. It clearly speaks to a broad awareness of how our roles have evolved over the past decade."
More info at www.ibm.com/cmostudy
,
strategic and organizational requirements for competitive advantage
,
the context of strategic hrm
,
strategic and organizational requirements for comp
,
jr.
Everyone’s talking about integrated reporting. But not everyone has realised that there’s a new divide opening up within the integrated reporting movement.
It seems clear to us that the integrated reporters who show, rather than tell (and use the lens of the ‘capitals’ to do so), are the only ones able to truly convince their stakeholders that their company is doing something different. We take a closer look at the reporters getting it right in Salterbaxter MSLGROUP's latest ‘Directions’ report, ‘Integrated reporting: measurement matters’.
Is the next Uber coming your way?
CxOs are on high alert for competitors coming out of nowhere. Prepare for disruption – read the Global C-suite study.
Redefining Boundaries - Insights from IBM's Global C-suite Study 2015
So how are C-suite executives (CxOs) tackling the threat of competition from companies in other sectors or with very different business models? Our latest study explores what they think the future holds, how they’re identifying new trends and how they’re positioning their organizations to prosper in the “age of disruption.”
The paper addresses causes of complexity and gives guidelines how to deal with them in a goal and future oriented way, that brings the business back in control and empowers customers, employees and partners. The approach is illustrated by examples from the public, financial and health sector.
See also: http://theiland.posthaven.com/
Note: Republication of a paper from 2011.
Corporate reputation is an intangible asset amounting to up to 70% of an organisation’s market capitalisation. Recent evolutions in the business environment and social communications have made stakeholder engagement an essential part of the strategy of responsible and successful organisations in order to maintain this capital. But research shows that most engagement efforts in multinational or multi-services companies are kept in silos and uncoordinated across business units or departments.
This document describes some of the engagement guidelines provided by the AA1000 and GRI assurance standards and how following these guidelines with an appropriate collaborative, full circle platform can help:
* identify important stakeholders and groups ;
* map them and their opinions on the organisation’s strategic issues ;
* engage them appropriately and monitor impacts.
in a natural continuous improvement cycle to help respond to short term events in the context of a long term communication and corporate reputation management strategy.
It also describes engagement in the context of crisis management and social media to show how detecting earlier warning signals both enhances the organisation’s ability to contain the crisis and lowers the cost at which this is done.
Abstract
The shift from transformation activities to interactions represents a broad shift in the
nature of economic activity. Enterprises looking to succeed in today’s rapid-paced new
economy must be agile, innovative and rapidly responsive to changes in their business
environment.
The number of employees doing interactive and cognitive work is increasing rapidly.
Supporting knowledge workers becomes of vital importance for the ability of enterprises
to survive in a networked knowledge economy. By regarding knowledge as a production
factor and by supporting knowledge workers, enterprises can achieve great breakthroughs
in quality, productivity and impact. The emphasis in this vision is placed on “being able
to use knowledge” instead of “having knowledge”.
Traditional capabilities and enablers are not sufficient to meet the challenges of an
enterprise environment that isshifting from push driven to pull driven. It requires inter
alia an agile infrastructure. To support the business transformation there is need for
Enterprise architecture that deals not only with technical capabilities, but also with
information and knowledge, organizational and process capabilities. Knowledge
‘architecture’ is the most forgotten discipline within enterprise architecture. Today we
model and design everything (data, processes,organizations etc.) but not knowledge. To
combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations are forced to develop new
methods of establishing and managing knowledgeprocesses, authentic sources and their
owners. This transformation should be embedded in a Business agility program. An
enterprise agility value center acts as the nucleus for the business driven action
Everyone’s talking about integrated reporting. But not everyone has realised that there’s a new divide opening up within the integrated reporting movement.
It seems clear to us that the integrated reporters who show, rather than tell (and use the lens of the ‘capitals’ to do so), are the only ones able to truly convince their stakeholders that their company is doing something different. We take a closer look at the reporters getting it right in Salterbaxter MSLGROUP's latest ‘Directions’ report, ‘Integrated reporting: measurement matters’.
Is the next Uber coming your way?
CxOs are on high alert for competitors coming out of nowhere. Prepare for disruption – read the Global C-suite study.
Redefining Boundaries - Insights from IBM's Global C-suite Study 2015
So how are C-suite executives (CxOs) tackling the threat of competition from companies in other sectors or with very different business models? Our latest study explores what they think the future holds, how they’re identifying new trends and how they’re positioning their organizations to prosper in the “age of disruption.”
The paper addresses causes of complexity and gives guidelines how to deal with them in a goal and future oriented way, that brings the business back in control and empowers customers, employees and partners. The approach is illustrated by examples from the public, financial and health sector.
See also: http://theiland.posthaven.com/
Note: Republication of a paper from 2011.
Corporate reputation is an intangible asset amounting to up to 70% of an organisation’s market capitalisation. Recent evolutions in the business environment and social communications have made stakeholder engagement an essential part of the strategy of responsible and successful organisations in order to maintain this capital. But research shows that most engagement efforts in multinational or multi-services companies are kept in silos and uncoordinated across business units or departments.
This document describes some of the engagement guidelines provided by the AA1000 and GRI assurance standards and how following these guidelines with an appropriate collaborative, full circle platform can help:
* identify important stakeholders and groups ;
* map them and their opinions on the organisation’s strategic issues ;
* engage them appropriately and monitor impacts.
in a natural continuous improvement cycle to help respond to short term events in the context of a long term communication and corporate reputation management strategy.
It also describes engagement in the context of crisis management and social media to show how detecting earlier warning signals both enhances the organisation’s ability to contain the crisis and lowers the cost at which this is done.
Abstract
The shift from transformation activities to interactions represents a broad shift in the
nature of economic activity. Enterprises looking to succeed in today’s rapid-paced new
economy must be agile, innovative and rapidly responsive to changes in their business
environment.
The number of employees doing interactive and cognitive work is increasing rapidly.
Supporting knowledge workers becomes of vital importance for the ability of enterprises
to survive in a networked knowledge economy. By regarding knowledge as a production
factor and by supporting knowledge workers, enterprises can achieve great breakthroughs
in quality, productivity and impact. The emphasis in this vision is placed on “being able
to use knowledge” instead of “having knowledge”.
Traditional capabilities and enablers are not sufficient to meet the challenges of an
enterprise environment that isshifting from push driven to pull driven. It requires inter
alia an agile infrastructure. To support the business transformation there is need for
Enterprise architecture that deals not only with technical capabilities, but also with
information and knowledge, organizational and process capabilities. Knowledge
‘architecture’ is the most forgotten discipline within enterprise architecture. Today we
model and design everything (data, processes,organizations etc.) but not knowledge. To
combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations are forced to develop new
methods of establishing and managing knowledgeprocesses, authentic sources and their
owners. This transformation should be embedded in a Business agility program. An
enterprise agility value center acts as the nucleus for the business driven action
Best practices in business incubation_Rustam_Lalkaka 2002Vasily Ryzhonkov
Business incubators, evolving from experiences with business centers and other support
services, have grown rapidly in number from a 200 a decade ago to over 3,000 world-wide today. Incubator programs in the developing and restructuring countries are
typically focused on technology ventures. But the interests of civil society call for the
government, private sector and universities in all nations to address the wider concerns
of empowering disadvantaged groups through employment and facilitated access to
capital (human, knowledge, social and financial).
While incubators have grown in numbers, the uneven performance and poor
sustainability in many situations have become serious issues with the governments and
sponsors who continue to subsidize many of them. There has been much recent interest in
identifying ‘best practices’ that could then be used elsewhere. But these practices are
location-, culture- and time-specific, and can only be adapted to the conditions prevailing
in local situations. This paper reviews the operating experiences in the USA, (which has
about 1,000 incubators of the world total), in China, Brazil and Korea (the largest
programs in the developing world), and other selected countries. The emerging lessons
(yet to be learned) on enhancing performance based on ’good’ international practices
together with some urgent research issues are outlined. Success in the Olympiad of
venture creation and employment generation depends essentially on five inter-linked
rings: Public policy, private partnerships, knowledge affiliations, professional
networking and community involvement.
Find out why the ability to operate effectively in business networks, be they coordinated or collaborative, is critical to sustaining competitive advantage in a commoditizing global economy. This white paper provides insight into the trend of business network transformation from top thought leaders and SAP executives.
A look at business model innovation's crucial role in today's global business environment . Showing organizations how business model innovation should be a key focus area in today's global economy, this book features cases from businesses around the globe that have developed customized business models and achieved spectacular levels of performance. • Case examples from well-known innovation leaders IKEA, Apple, Tata, SHARP, Saudi Aramco, De Beers, Telefonica, Valero Energy, LEGO, and Proctor & Gamble • Shows businesses how to get beyond traditional business models to take better advantage of emerging opportunities • Coauthored by former CEO of SAP AG, the world's largest provider of enterprise software Filled with interviews with key executives, this book reveals the role of technology in driving and enabling changes to fundamental facets of a business. Companies around the world are innovating their business models with tremendous results. IT-Driven Business Models shows interested organizations how they can start the process.
A look at business model innovation's crucial role in today's global business environment .
Showing organizations how business model innovation should be a key focus area in today's global economy, this book features cases from businesses around the globe that have developed customized business models and achieved spectacular levels of performance.
• Case examples from well-known innovation leaders IKEA, Apple, Tata, SHARP, Saudi Aramco, De Beers, Telefonica, Valero Energy, LEGO, and Proctor & Gamble
• Shows businesses how to get beyond traditional business models to take better advantage of emerging opportunities
• Coauthored by former CEO of SAP AG, the world's largest provider of enterprise software
Filled with interviews with key executives, this book reveals the role of technology in driving and enabling changes to fundamental facets of a business. Companies around the world are innovating their business models with tremendous results. IT-Driven Business Models shows interested organizations how they can start the process.
Social Business Innovation & Legacy SystemsJane Young
A journey through the legacy systems that destroy value in our organisations - from email overload and endless meetings, to fear culture and wheel reinvention.
Customer Success. The biggest consulting industry you’ve never heard of.Leon Benjamin
A summary describing the value and status of customer success services to cloud based software vendors and why Customer Success used to be optional but now it's pretty much the whole game.
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Self Service content for collaboration appsLeon Benjamin
Self service content makes a significant contribution to the adoption of enterprise collaboration apps. This is a collection of examples that have dramatically improved adoption of a wide range of collab apps written and designed by Sei Mani.
Sei Mani engaged by Cisco to write and design a Webex Meetings Playbook and adoption toolkit for Customer Success Managers. It's a A complete guide on how to launch Webex in a large enterprise. Shift to value based story telling to drive up adoption with content to sell in the benefits of Webex to different lines of business.
Sei Mani Capability Statement (One Page)Leon Benjamin
A one page description of Sei Mani services and evidence related to adoption performance of enterprise collaboration apps.
Sei Mani was founded in 2011 to address the massive gap between the expectation of enterprises’ investment in collaboration technologies and the reality of too few people using them. London HQ. ISO 9001/27001 Certified, Jan 2017.
Travel policy to support video conferencing return on investmentLeon Benjamin
Describes the different types of meetings in large enterprises and the most appropriate travel policy to support a business case for the investment in UC/Video collaboration technologies.
BT On The Productivity Puzzle in CollaborationLeon Benjamin
Leon Benjamin, Sei Mani's co-founder contributes to its strategic partner BT' and its perspective on the value of collaboration in the enterprise.
As a concept, mobile and flexible working is nothing new and the idea of where people work has widened to pretty much anywhere. The issue is no longer ‘where’ people work, the question we’re now asking is ‘how’ people work.
One page business case on the value of real time collaboration with high level description of case studies supporting travel reduction, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and increased sales
Colin Miles presents Virgin Media's social collaboration story at HR Tech EuropeLeon Benjamin
It doesn't take that many people to change a company.
Colin describes Virgin Media’s Flexible Working journey underpinned by social collaboration systems; from how the business case was developed and sponsored by its Chief People Officer, the benefits realised and the challenges around adoption, through to changing the way people work and its impact on the culture of the organisation.
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A presentation to regional CIOs in Hong Kong on the value of social media in business with a focus on the benefits of its deployment inside the company - "Change comes from within"
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Holger Mueller of Constellation Research shares his key takeaways from SAP's Sapphire confernece, held in Orlando, June 3rd till 5th 2024, in the Orange Convention Center.
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Industry expert Scott Sehlhorst will:
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FIA officials brutally tortured innocent and snatched 200 Bitcoins of worth 4...
The role of a super connector
1. The Role of a Super
Connector
21st Century Leadership
Abstract
This essay makes the case for the role of a Super Connector in large organisations whose sole responsibility is to
create the same levels of connectivity, collaboration and productivity achieved by open source movements,
conversational software and social media platforms. It recognises the need for evolution rather than revolution
and most importantly describes the end game, and the implications for leadership, employees, revenue,
stakeholder return and market valuation.
Author: Leon Benjamin
Date: 21ST September 2009
Version 1.0
2. The Role of a Super Connector
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 3
2 What is a Super Connector? ............................................................................ 5
3 Super Connectors: The Value Proposition ....................................................... 7
4 The Value of Intangibles - Outbound Deliverables .......................................... 8
5 People On Demand - Inbound Deliverables ..................................................... 9
6 The Big Picture...............................................................................................11
21st Century Leadership 4-Sep-09 2 -2-
3. The Role of a Super Connector
1 Introduction
The horrific events of September 11th and their aftermath, including war, restricted mobility, big
government, and fear. The banking crisis, crippled economies, the shift of economic power to the
East, pandemic flu, climate change, peak oil, the war on terror, the emergence of social networks the
size of continents, a black US president. When will things get back to normal? They are. This is the new
normal.
Business and government aren’t structured or designed to cope with this rate of change and it’s
apparent even to ‘the man in the street’ they’ve struggled to understand, react and adapt to a
seemingly endless stream of social, economic and political crises, many of which don’t even arise in
their own countries.
In business, entire industry sectors have seen much of their value destroyed by upstarts using cheap,
open source technology, offshore software development and financial support from visionary venture
capitalist firms. Some parts of the media industry in particular have experienced massive destruction
in value, most significantly by the omnipresence of file sharing networks. TV, print and broadcast
based advertising in general are in decline and the next generation of consumers simply aren’t
interested in it, almost exclusively preferring peer recommendation. Even the porn industry has been
eclipsed by social networks and social media sites, now the most visited web sites on the planet.
Mass action and mass participation enabled by internet mediated social software has forced political
u-turns, embarrassing corporate climb downs, regime change, and put presidents into office. The
biggest story of the 21st century is the realisation that a 2000 year old model of centralised, command
and control organisation is unable to adapt to an ‘outside world’ that is increasingly network centric
and decentralised. It isn’t fit for purpose. It’s that simple.
This essay makes the case for the role of a Super Connector in large organisations whose sole
responsibility is to create the same levels of connectivity, collaboration and productivity achieved by
open source movements, conversational software and social media platforms. It recognises the need
for evolution rather than revolution and most importantly describes the end game, the end state; and
the implications for leadership, employees, revenue, stakeholder return and market valuation.
Before we start, it’s worth taking a look at this table. It describes the differences between the old
industrial economy and the new network economy. Clearly we’ve been in transition for some time
and few people would argue against the new economy trends. However, it doesn’t convey the sheer
speed at which markets are changing and whilst most organisations can rightly claim they’re ‘living
and breathing’ the new economy, many struggle to keep up.
Productive professionals make big enterprises competitive, yet these employees increasingly find their
work obstructed. Creating and exchanging tacit knowledge through interaction with their professional
peers internally and externally is ‘what they do’. Yet most of them squander endless hours searching
for the knowledge and access to people they need, even when it resides in their own companies.
Mckinsey reported in 2005, “Each upsurge in the number of professionals who work in a company
leads to an almost exponential—not linear—increase in the number of potential collaborators and
unproductive interactions. Many leading companies now employ 10,000 or more professionals, who
have some 50 million potential bilateral relationships. The same holds true for knowledge: searching
for it means trying to find the person in whose head it resides, because most companies lack working
"knowledge markets."
One measure of the difficulty of this quest is the volume of global corporate e-mail, up from about 1.8
billion a day in 1998 to more than 17 billion a day in 2004. As finding people and knowledge becomes
more difficult, social cohesion and trust among professional colleagues declines, further reducing
productivity”.
21st Century Leadership 4-Sep-09 3 -3-
4. The Role of a Super Connector
Table 1 - The Network Economy
ISSUES OLD ECONOMY NEW ECONOMY
ECONOMY
Markets Stable Dynamic
Scope of competition National Global
Organisational form Hierarchical, bureaucratic Networked
Structure Manufacturing core Services core
Climate Change What’s that? Economy as a wholly owned
subsidiary of the environment
Source of value Raw materials, physical capital Human and social capital
BUSINESS
Organisation of production Lower cost through economies Flexible production, peer-to-
of scale peer, open source
Key drivers of growth Capital/labour Innovation/knowledge
Key technology driver Mechanisation Digitisation
Source of competitive Lowering cost through Innovation, quality, just-in-time
advantage economies of scale along the whole supply chain
Importance of Low-moderate High
research/innovation
Relations with other firms Go it alone Alliances and collaboration
('winning by sharing')
CONSUMERS
Tastes Stable Changing rapidly (promiscuous)
Skills Job specific skills Broad skill & adaptability
Education needs Craft, skill, degree, one of Lifelong learning, collaboration
requirement and communications skills
Workplace relations Adversarial Collaborative
Nature of employment Stable Risk & opportunity, fractional
GOVERNMENT
Business-government relations Impose regulations Encourage growth opportunities
Regulation Command and control Decentralised, transparent
Government services Nanny state Enabling state
The traditional theory of the firm was about the unitary, rational actor that more or less controls all
the pieces of the puzzle that it needs in order to produce its outputs but today global companies are a
part of a huge set of interlinked networks across the planet, creating value by any means necessary,
no longer constrained by hierarchical relations and boundaries. Crucially, there’s been very little
innovation in labour models, transparency and the decentralisation of decision making, the hallmarks
of network centricity, that enable an organisation to innovate and change before the case for change
becomes desperately obvious.
Major problem solving activities and the creation of new ideas is still the reserve of a small number of
people at the top who lack the diversity of inputs needed to come up with the kind of innovation that
enables the organisation to compete.
The future of an organisation is as much about the nature of its issues, as it is about its capacity to
invent social structures able to solve them. That’s why social software is at its most transformative
inside the organisation and the implications for its performance, sustainability, value and long term
survival, are far reaching.
Enter the role of the Super Connector – the guardian of an organisation’s DNA, it’s personality, it’s
heart beat – a collective, collaborative group that creates a social fabric in which peer-to-peer
production can occur; a form of production that brings with it unimaginable levels of value creation.
21st Century Leadership 4-Sep-09 4 -4-
5. The Role of a Super Connector
2 What is a Super Connector?
The term Super Connector refers to a group, a single entity. In traditional terms it’s a function like IT,
finance and other shared services. It has a leader but not with the word ‘chief’ in their job title, as in Chief
Listening Officer or Chief Network Officer because ‘chief’ implies and re-enforces the very command-and-
control behaviours a Super Connector seeks to change. Network Leader is more appropriate because
leaders get their support and power from the ‘bottom’ of the organisation where as chiefs and managers
get theirs from the ‘top’.
For the purpose of this essay Super Connector refers to both the role as Network Leader and a functional
group that delivers a portfolio of network services to the organisation, its partners and suppliers. It must
have a wide range of technical and social (or community management) capabilities if it is to create value for
the organisation.
Figure 1- Super Connector Capabilities
The Human Resources (HR) function is traditionally responsible for pay & rewards, regulatory
compliance, and talent acquisition. Given how much of this is outsourced, one has to wonder exactly
what role HR has to play in a networked economy. The most visionary HR professionals will see their
role as the sponsor of a Super Connector that serves and joins up the core silos that exist in all large
organisations. HR functions have to evolve into active enablers of knowledge flow and connectivity
across the entire business ecosystem or risk consigning themselves to a bit part in the 21 st century
organisation, where HR may well come to stand for Hardly Relevant.
An internal technical capability is critical because if you can’t build real social sharing applications for
your own people, you can’t begin to understand why it changes their behaviour. Why would anyone
want to outsource these insights to a third party? Of course partner with specialist agencies, but
responsibility has to be taken for service design at a technical level to ensure compatibility, ease of
21st Century Leadership 4-Sep-09 5 -5-
6. The Role of a Super Connector
integration with existing systems, and data analysis – the value of which cannot be over stated. If an
organisation insists upon subject matter experts for new HR and Finance systems, why shouldn’t it do
the same for social media applications? The mandatory areas of in-house technical competencies are;
Social software development. Whilst it’s preferable to work with partners on software development,
it’s equally important to have the capability to respond to internal needs for tools that are specific to
the business. The development of these tools need developers co-located with subject matter experts
such that short term anomalies and trends can be exploited ‘on the fly’. Without this, 21 st century
organisations cannot adapt and cope with the rate of change. Expertise in open source software
engineering, social media, data security and integrity, application integration and infrastructure are a
minimum.
User Experience Design (UXD). There’s an interesting consensus emerging in HR and IT circles that
current end user applications are not sufficiently productive and easy to use as the web, gaming and
mobile applications the next generation of employees (so called generation Y) have grown up with.
This restricts the organisation’s ability to attract and retain new talent who prefer to work in smaller
companies that allow them to use these (cool) applications. I’ve worked recently in one global brand
that is unashamedly proud of a mainframe based room booking application that’s so complicated to
use, even the most experienced end user needs administrative support to operate it. Unbelievably
they’re happy to pay for expert resource to operate the application on behalf of busy project
managers instead of just retiring it and this posture speaks volumes about this brand’s commitment to
enriching its employee experience. Apple Mac and iPhone applications are releasing explosive
creativity, so why this can’t be achieved inside the organisation? In-house UX Designers and
Information Architects can dramatically reduce the cost of IT application support by adopting (and
improving) the support models used by the big social media platforms.
Change Management. Execution is everything. Rigorous project management and agile software
development practices are non-negotiable. Without professional, timely delivery of operationally
robust applications, there is no credibility for the Super Connector which must be seen to ‘walk the
walk’ as well as ‘talk the talk’.
Data Analytics. The value of data derived from customer and employee interactions, in terms of their
behaviours and preferences provide the organisation with the ability to predict demand for new
products, tools and services whilst at the same time, drastically reducing the risk of getting it wrong
when they’re made a reality. Resources are needed to continuously analyse information ‘from the
front’ and disseminate it throughout the organisation. This provides an essential positive feedback
loop to the entire organisation that stimulates the changes in attitude and behaviour it seeks.
Social competencies refer to ‘soft skills’, emotional intelligence and the capability to create and
sustain communities of practice and include;
Communications. The Super Connector must understand the organisation’s internal communications
infrastructure and be able to leverage it, programmatically if necessary (for example Microsoft
Exchange, intranet servers, Blackberry servers). This includes how people receive, transmit and
organise their data through shared network drives and email folders and how the organisation delivers
information to end users in set piece forums and meetings – business rhythms.
Community Management & Facilitation. Real value comes less from managing knowledge and
more—a lot more—from creating and exchanging it. Etienne Wenger, the ‘father’ of the academic
study of online communities “is an educational theorist and practitioner, best known for his more
recent work in the field of communities of practice. Wenger holds that learning is an inherently social
process and that it cannot be separated from the social context in which it happens” (source:
Wikipedia). Community managers facilitate and accelerate professional and social exchange, and
enable employees to establish a bond of common experiences and challenges, and build networks of
relationships which are leveraged offline. Skills in creating, moderating and sustaining communities of
practice internally and externally are vital to the overall success of the Super Connector.
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7. The Role of a Super Connector
Networks & Connectors. This includes a wide range of activities but at its core is responsible for
finding connectors, influencers and agents of change across the organisation. A range of services
should be provided from social network analysis (finding knowledge experts and influencers by mining
email and telephone connections) to stimulating and hosting offline forums and events.
In summary;
The Super Connector is a network. A network with ‘clue’ and the ability to execute. It’s not a single
person, although does have a leader, but instead a group of people dedicated to delivering services
that extract untold value from existing resources. In effect, ‘doing better with less’. But it does need
the same level of investment as any other strategic shared service. In return, the Super Connector can
bring about profound measurable organisational benefits in revenue, productivity and the cost base.
So what’s the value proposition?
3 Super Connectors: The Value Proposition
All programmes of change need clearly defined goals, an end state that defines ‘what good looks like’
but the rationale for a Super Connector needs a business case in its own right. There may be several
business goals but the two key absolute minimum goals that define the value proposition and make
the case for a Super Connector are;
1. Increasing the value of intangible assets. Getting to a point where accountants and
economists can agree how to accurately measure the value of good will and relationship
capital. This can bring about a step change in the valuations of organisations regardless of
type in an ethical, authentic, and transparent way. A way we can all trust right?
2. An on-demand network of resources, or ‘people on demand’. Deriving a larger proportion of
the workforce from reliable, freelance networks of portfolio workers who seek different
models of work/life balance (eBay for work is coming soon!). For many organisations where
huge numbers of retirees are walking away with thousands of years of tacit knowledge this is
the only way to keep tapped into them by providing a platform on which their knowledge can
be accessed in exchange for fractional models of work and pay.
Figure 2 – Strategic Goals
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8. The Role of a Super Connector
4 The Value of Intangibles - Outbound Deliverables
If you really think about the network economy, it’s about a shift from the physical to virtual in terms of what
is actually valuable. With Google it’s clicks, with Facebook and Twitter it’s number of active accounts and
the value of the data they generate. Even bricks and mortar businesses recognise the value of online
reputation and even pay specialist service providers to help them manage it. Customer communities, and
their collective wisdom, are creating disproportionate value in product and service co-creation, in some
cases taking a third of the cost out of research & development activities.
Revenue is being derived from digital assets and in particular software APIs that allow third parties to re-use
and rebrand an organisation’s service to exhibit their own identity. This evolution from hard assets
(machinery) to intangible assets (digital and relationship capital) changes the way an organisation interacts
with its markets and there is enough evidence and research to suggest that one day they will become
balance sheet items (or perhaps the new EBITDA?). The outbound activities of the Super Connector are by
definition market facing and revenue generating and arguably carry the most risk if things go wrong. So
why do so many organisations outsource the management of their customer conversations (and their
personalities) to third party agencies?
Figure 3 - Outbound Deliverables
Doc Searls, one of the authors of the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto said recently;
“Think of markets as three overlapping circles: Transaction, Conversation and Relationship. Our financial
system is Transaction run amok. Metastasized. 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.”
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9. The Role of a Super Connector
We’ve all been touched by the global financial crisis and nowhere more is the impact of a transactional
approach leading to systemic organisational failure exposed for all to see in the banking industry. In other
industries (airlines, car), companies have failed to engage their stakeholders and customers and involve
them in the value creation cycle. Ford spent $8bn on R&D in 2005 and made a loss of $17bn in 2006. The
culture of ‘not invented here’, an inherent fear of their markets, and incentives that reward individual
triumph ahead of collective effort, prevent the best ideas and practical solutions from bubbling up from
anywhere in the ecosystem – at the cost of the very survival of the organisation.
One of the Cluetrain Manifesto statements says; we’ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we
need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute? What happens when a brand
diverts a small fraction of its marketing budget to fund a tool like Twitter or Friendfeed? Would it need to
spend millions on internet advertising ever again?
Brands just need to go ‘out there’ and solve problems for people and make them strong and connected.
For example, banks should match customers with second homes abroad to other customers who they
know can afford to rent them and make the transaction easy for both parties. Drinks companies like Red
Bull who target the very demographic that is most sensitive to unemployment should be diverting some of
their marketing budget to help them back to work, and TV companies should be asking their audiences to
generate new formats (for programmes) – what if they could come up with ideas as successful as Big
Brother, every month? There is demand for dozens of web tools and mobile apps to be invented to make
people’s lives easier that cost a fraction of the marketing budget. Consumers don’t need to be persuaded to
consume, they just need the task of consuming to be made easier for them.
In Britain, 7 million people are economically active between 6pm and 9am (the next day) and rising. Who’s
at the office at this time to engage these customers? By being in a constant dialogue with their markets
brands will find their next best selling product, discover what their customers actually want and eventually
become part of their cycle of need in an open, authentic way. Whether you like it or not the reality is that a
social web is being spun.
One person (Chief Listening Officer) cannot sustain, marshal and manage conversations and initiatives on
this scale. Multi-disciplinary and multi-agency collaboration is the only way with the Super Connector
orchestrating the activities and providing the tools and services that enable and measure the value of
intangible assets.
5 People On Demand - Inbound Deliverables
Statistics on global labour markets in recent years have been truly spectacular and there’s little doubt
massive upheaval in the very nature, mode and pattern of work is taking place, setting up what
observers increasingly describe as a Perfect Labour Storm. In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas
Freidman reveals the impact of 1.5 billion people added to the global labour pool in the last 20 years
and recent US research (cf Prof Alan Binder) estimates 30-40 million ‘high end’ white collar jobs could
be lost within the next generation. There are estimates of 60 million PhD students in Asia by 2015,
31% of UK workforce retiring in the next 5 years, and in the US one-fifth of the country's large,
established companies will lose 40 percent or more of their top level talent in the next five years.
In Japan, 30% of the adult work force is made up of temporary workers. Twenty years ago full, lifetime
employment was a birth right, a given for everyone, but a decade of flat economic growth, zero
percent interest rates (interestingly an economic crisis also triggered by cataclysmic falls in the value
of real estate and hidden toxic corporate debt), low birth rates and increased longevity have created a
perfect labour storm where current research predicts that only 1 in 2 (yes, one in two) people will be
employed in Japan in the year 2050 if current trends and policies prevail. Think this can’t happen over
here? Think again.
The unit of work is no longer a whole job and the traditional career, as an institution, is in unavoidable
decline. Unfortunately public policy is still based on the assumption that careers are the most
desirable form of employment, and that they can be offered to more and more of us.
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10. The Role of a Super Connector
The Super Connector prepares the organisation for an unpredictable future of work at a time when
organisational adaptability and flexibility have become more important to success than ‘line of
business’ performance and efficiency. The inbound deliverables are geared towards creating peer-to-
peer production platforms (internally & externally), transforming the intranet into a conversational,
knowledge exchange spaces and working with HR to create completely new flexible working
arrangements that work legally, ethically and financially.
Figure 4- Inbound Deliverables
The ability to shrink and grow the labour pool according to demand, in near real time is the only way
this can be achieved. It’s a journey, but as Peter Drucker said in his Business 2.0 essays, “The
Corporation as we know it, now 120 years old is not likely to survive the next 25 years. Legally and
financially yes, but not structurally and economically”.
The communications industry is already making the transition and several London based creative
agencies (Law Firm Group, Group Partners, Erasmus, London Advertising) have adopted ‘on demand’,
network centric labour models, passing on huge savings to their clients. This operating model is best
described by one of the foremost experts on the future of work, Thomas Malone.
“Imagine organizations in which most workers aren’t employees at all, but electronically connected
freelancers living wherever they want to. And imagine that all this freedom in business lets people get
more of whatever they really want in life – money, interesting work, the chance to help others, or time
with their families.”
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11. The Role of a Super Connector
6 The Big Picture
Organisations have an opportunity to introduce services that enable connectivity, higher productivity
and organisational behaviour change at scale. It’s a journey and only starts with the hiring of a
network leader but without a supporting cast of engineers, analysts and community managers this
leader has little chance of achieving any strategic organisational goals.
Figure 5 - The Role of a Super Connector
Ultimately, the end game is to create an environment in which there is a continuous, fair exchange of
value between all participants as opposed to the prevailing culture of “I win. You lose.” When the Web
2.0 paradigm emerged its core premise was that the most successful companies of the future will be
those that can build the best ‘architectures of participation’ and with them, the capacity to create
value far in excess of that produced by the prevailing command and control model.
In conclusion;
The Super Connector is a network. A network with ‘clue’ and the ability to execute. It’s not a single
person, although it does have a leader, but instead it’s a group of people dedicated to delivering
services that extract untold value from existing resources. The science of networks has proven over
and over again that it doesn’t take many people to bring about transformative change and viral take
up of new ideas and practices that would previously have seemed unimaginable.
***
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is
the only thing that ever has”. Margaret Mead
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12. The Role of a Super Connector
Bio & Contact Information
Main Contact Leon Benjamin
By Telephone 07974 766 615
By email leon@winningbysharing.net
Blog winningbysharing.typepad.com
Leon is a social media and web 2.0 practitioner and has managed a number of successful social
software implementations with clients including Carphone Warehouse, British Airways, Microsoft &
BT. Co-designed with Ecademy one of only a few economically viable social network subscription
based business models. Previously spent 15 years designing and delivering IT transformation
programmes in financial services, telecoms, retail and travel, for blue chip companies, counting Union
Bank of Switzerland, Barclays Capital, Andersen Consulting, Airtours, Opodo, BT, Tesco, Argos and
Aviva.
This document is licensed under the Creative Commons. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-
Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence
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