Social Business Design. Birth of a new industry?

September 12th, 2009 • Social Business

I just read metarand’s article about Social Business Design. It reflects Anne McCrossan’s article Re-turning the returns which assumes that a new post-marketing industry is materializing currently. An industry that shapes institutions and companies, not brands and brand messages. Her definition is…

…Social business design sits at the intersection of organizational development and marketing, and can loosely be described as the practice of developing communities of engagement to develop ideas, activities and outputs for commercial and social benefit.

As organizations adopt the principles of social business design, intangible, soft assets like brand value, purpose, human resources, processes and capabilities come to the fore. Social business design is about engendering involvement and it’s inbound.

Slightly differently, marketing services and ‘broadcast’ media operate on the basis the message and transaction are the means to the end. Marketing services communicate primarily outbound.

Anne’s article reacts on the forming of a new key players in this field (Dachis Group/Headshift), along with the hiring of Social Media Rockstar Owyang by the Altimeter Group.

Both incidents took place in the last 20 days and indeed it seems like a new industry is forming. Nevertheless critics of the concept, such as Luke Harvey-Palmer argue that Social Business Design is just a remix of the community business of the early 18th century:

What has changed, has the toolset that is ’social media’ simply made the notions of community more possible in our ‘bigger world’ or has human behaviour gone back to the future, and created these tools to help us live under the same principles as we did in the past…

I agree with him that Social Business Design may have ancestors. Ideas of collaborative work go back to the days when herds of prehistoric men roamed the savannah. But what is happening currently is far more than just a couple of new marketing opportunities crossing our way or the digitalized version of an old principle. For the first time in history we have the chance to inspire, collaborate, create and connect on a global level. We reshape realities that existed since the Industrial Revolution.

And while many critics argue that the very basic principles of the Internet go back to the 1960s, nobody would really deny that it’s fundamental impact came because technologies were mature enough to let everyone participate. Everyone who professionally interacts with this social concept knows that we have opened a door. A door to something which we explore day by day. No, the provoking thesis David Armano has put to the front of his presentation (Armano rejects this thesis as well) is not correct: “Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise its not better.”

If you believe in this thesis then you haven’t understood how far-reaching the social revolution is and how fundamental our world changes. Maybe this “new industry” won’t last that long. Maybe at some point in the future designing social businesses will become as self-evident as creating classic marketplaces nowadays. But for now we have to think beyond the scope of marketing or business consulting. Social will redefine many companies, brands and the way they behave, interact, design, produce, or how they are getting managed. This is not a job for McKinsey. And this is not a job for Crispin Porter (I stole this great metaphor from my coworker @jkleske). This is a job for a new industry.

I am interested in your thoughts.

Tags: Altimeter, Business, Dachis, Debate, Future, Headshift, Prediction, Presentation, Social Business Design, Strategy, World

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