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Sam,
I think one is a superset of the other (will leave it to you to pick which one). Processes simply document and predict how tactical business operations unfold, they don’t preclude a social aspect and I would further argue that a social business absent of process ultimately fails because majority of worker bees can’t function in such an environment. The opportunity is to add cut-outs to processes in order to maximize social participation and accommodate unstructured data, the latter offering the single biggest ROI generator.
Totally agreed, Jeff. You need the instrumentation. Knobs and dials are mandatory subset. The problem, as you know, is that enterprises have over-invested in knobs and dials and stretched them beyond their intended use. Hello, Social Business.
And he’s back – great to see you posting again Sam. Always thought provoking!
I’ll cut the fine-line – let’s say that the vast majority of business have neither invested (or even know of) Business Process *or* Social Business concepts and capabilities. Awareness is step one, understanding which tool to apply at any given time is at the earliest step two, but perhaps down the line.
Ala Mastercard “For high-transaction businesses, there’s Business Process, for everything else? Social Business.” Oversimplifying, but not a bad start. Exception handling is a PITA – pulling in social tools to help on the distributed collaboration front just might do the trick.
BTW – I’d have gone with a Lego theme on the right, but that’s me. 
Sam – I really like this model a lot. It’s simple, clean and telling. The tricky part is getting other executives (especially at big companies) to buy into it. Folks like Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Barry Judge of Best Buy have consumed the Kool Aid. Who will be next?
Aaron | @aaronstrout
Very powerful graphic. Lots of layers to this just in the juxtaposition of the toys. One is for 8 year olds and up the other is for 2 year olds and up. Draws a very accurate parallel to how others view Enterprise 2.0 solutions.
Sam, great concept. Thanks for pushing the dot a little further. We will be discussing issues like this at this years Interactive Austin conference that is sponsored by FG SQUARED (my company). The event will be held April 27, 2009 and will include Dion H as morning keynote and @whurley as afternoon keynote. Lots of innovative ideas will be shared this year.
We plan to sell out the event, and would be great if you want to be a part of it. http://www.fg2.com/squaredroot/tag/interactive-austin/
Steve
Seems to me you’re painting somewhat of an extreme view on both sides. Moving from here to there requires building bridges so the people involved see how that different future connects to their daily reality. Otherwise, the transformation is just too jarring and difficult.
As always, your presentation is amazing!
I think there are fundamental discussions I am also looking to understand:
1. Who is business process for VS. who the social business is for? I dont think its the same people, but I am not sure why
2. If business process created “applications”, does social business create conversations?
3. I dont think its database vs. Unstructured data also. I think its structured data VS. Unstructured content.
Good starting point. Welcome back.
Good translations to what’s changing. My boss is more of a coach, I’m thankful for that.
I’m with Jeff on this. Social Business needs to be tied to a stated fundamental business process. The execution of each process however can enhanced by reworking rigid ERP driven structures to more fluid forms, to yield substantially better results. The next wave of enterprise innovation will come from bringing social concepts to traditional functional process (Finance, Customer Support, HR, etc) and that will be the inflection point for social business.
Jeff – I’d argue the issue is less about cut-outs and more about how to meld the collaborative approach with the existing (or new) processes … cut-outs feel like exceptions, collaborating within the process structure should feel more normal … perhaps this is what you’re saying. Cisco seems to have begun to figure this out in practice.
Sam – nice comparison … to build on the above point, John Chambers at Cisco has really figured out how to bring collaboration together with business process … here is a great video, with the first 3:40 being relevant … hard work, Chambers claims they’ve been at it for 6 years to get to this point.
http://tinyurl.com/ck2hd4 (Facebook required … couldn’t get the video out of there!)
my 3 year old son just said he wants to play with the guys on the right because the ones on the left are boring. just sayin’
welcome back my friend! we missed you. 
Welcome back Sam.
I like Mukund’s 3rd point. “Structured data Vs. Unstructured content” is going to be one of the major proving grounds for social business. If companies can learn how to enable employees to create content that is meaningful to them, and harness it in a way that benefits the larger organization, then we’ll be able to turn the corner on Enterprise 2.0
Now, to have the business relinquish that control. It’ll be a telling tale though as far as how they react to these changes in the social sphere. If they can’t change internally to let go of control with their internal customers, what makes us think that they’ll do the same for the external?
Glad to see you back!
As always, I enjoy the visual representations you use to make your point. That said, I think Michael Krigsman’s point is most relevant. We need the critical bridges necessary to get people from Business Process to Social Business. Otherwise, Social Business is too far a leap for them.
Hi Sam,
Umm.. most of the Marvel characters you have there, except Captain America, prefer to work alone, not socially–even Wolverine. Some are downright unsocial and unfriendly (Hulk, Wolverine).
I like the metaphor but you need a loose team like the Justice League (DC comics) or X-men–not quite since they are a hierarchical team with a boss, but it’s the closest popular one–showing how superpowers can also work together to help the
world.
Hi Sam – Glad to have you back!! And with your imagery at full power You depict two extremes. In reality the optimum form is somewhere in between the two, but defiantly heading towards the right side.
Sam, I’ll echo some of the sentiments above. This is a very compelling visual. My feedback: Consider who you are showing this to. Those who already agree will be impressed with the clarity of this presentation. Those who are not “there” yet, will react to the negative depiction of the Borg-side and say, “but we find real value on the left side too, and we are not willing to loose it in order to gain the potential benefits to found on the right side.”
The polemic here is very similar to the management theory X and Y literature of the 1960’s. As it too tries to describe two types of management theories — where in reality both have validity, and both operate together.
Your picture inspired me to go back even further to my Thomas Kuhn “Structure of Scientific Revolution” college text book, since the pattern here is the same as it was in the 1940’s. Paradigm change invites resistance, breeding revolution over evolution.
What I mean: You have a movement that is promoting radical change to the workplace, as depicted above, lead and echoed by E2.0 Illuminati and vendors. And you have a moderate movement lead by the enterprise buyers (and supported by traditional enterprise vendors who are now moving toward this social business direction). The moderate movement is asking for incremental improvements to enterprise collaboration that still honors the pillars of their existing infrastructure. Will this be successful? It’s worth discussing.
Kuhn argues that you cannot understand new thinking if you interpret it using the old paradigms. So maybe he’d support the radical movement and the polemic marketing. But when you are crossing the chasm from the early adopters and taking this radical view into the mainstream segment, consider what a more moderate packaging of this message would look like, and if you would agree with it.
@Gil
This blog is Go Big Always– I’ve never packaged things moderately. The graphic at the top might feel polemic to you but the toothpaste is out of the tube as it applies to Social Business. The market has over-invested in process management and existing applications and overstretched them to solve problems they weren’t designed to solve. More, there’s been massive idea-bankruptcy in enterprise applications for at least 15 years. The graphic doesn’t mean to depict there’s no place for business process.
I’d argue that this big change in the way people want to work isn’t being led by illuminati or vendors, it’s being led by a generation of people who are used to getting shit done on the web in 2 seconds that takes 2 months inside of companies. They just want that level of productivity at work and they can’t do it with the dog poop that’s been sitting around for 15 years.
There are companies spending million of dollars on Social Business Software. They’re not doing it for incremental improvements to their old, dusty applications. They’re doing it because this is critical and they want massive results.
Many thanks for your thoughtful post.
Great visual Sam. The real value of it lies in something I think the majority of people and companies don’t see fully. That would be the fine line between your “Business Process” and “Social Business” sides.
In my career I’ve consulted numerous companies on the business value of information technology. I started out with mapping business processes both in the IT departments and the lines of business producing a “gap analysis” of process disconnects between them. The companies thought this was amazing which quite frankly, I thought was amazing.
Here’s where the real mojo came in though – I then went and performed a “social business gap analysis” between IT and business sides. I took a look at how the two sides interacted with each other, what their perceptions were of themselves and the “other side”, and what the expectations were of themselves and the “other side”.
It was fantastic watching the light bulb go off in peoples minds from the CEO on down. They realized that no matter how refined their business processes were (how much technology/steps they threw at it)it didn’t matter as long as their “Social Business” was in a disconnective state.
I love how you “visualize” complex problems and use graphics as a catalyst for thought and discussion.
I think your graphic illustrates some very important points:
* Technologies and processes are enablers
* Individual interactions affect those processes profoundly
* If companies want to thrive and produce revenue AND profit – they need
to break down the walls and integrate processes with how people interact
naturally.
Thanks and glad to see you back!
nice pic!
Question is: who wins the head to head?
you probably need a 3′rd central column with a hybrid breed that context switches between both modes you depicted. That 3rd hybrid breed is probably the winner
Cheers,
I like toys.
[...] with your own ideas). This is true for social media too. The enterprise social media team will not always map to the enterprise org chart but it will exists. No one can do it all and the brand’s voice [...]
[...] posted a comment on Sam Lawrence’s blog about the mindset shift. In that comment I suggested that enterprises are starting from their [...]
Sam is a freelance value generator and known for going big. Most recently, he was CEO of Blackbox Republic, CMO for Jive Software, SVP at McCann Erickson, VP for CNET, VP for 3Com, Director at Dell, and has nearly 20 years experience creating breakthroughs.
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