Ann Holman Lectures 2011

“The Case For Building A Business Community.

Why We Are Where We Are?

• Communities & common purpose disappeared, self interest

• Profit before people

• Transactional and selfish

• Current economic problems the symptom

• Bought and sold, shout and tell

• Short term rather than long term

Douglas Rushkoff (2010)

“ We surrended true participation for the myth of consumer choice

or, even more pathetically, that of shareholder rights.”

And then it changed…

• Television isolated people, web connects

• Relationships with devices• Hierarchical to hyperlink• Connection, conversation, collaboration• Expression not information load• Marketing to community• Being organised to self organised

“These changes are affecting relations between people, shifting the landscape of

human connection.”

Richard H.R Harper (2010)

What is a business community?

“A business community is a group of people that congregate either online,

offline or both around a common affinity and purpose; a brand. They will often

share similar values, want to engage and participate in development and will,

almost certainly want to share information and build things together.”

Ann Holman (2011)

Several Implications:

• Diminishing customers as they seek meaningful relationships elsewhere.

• Declining quality of employees as they respond to brands offering intimate relationships rather than invasive and controlling ones.

• Lower profitability as a result of little innovation and not being distinctive enough.

• Increased costs in recruiting new bad profit customers and average employees.

• Limited availability of customers in a crowded middle market place.

What look like?

• They are open not closed• They create value• They develop things together• They connect people• They enable conversations• They build things• They are both on and offline• They amplify what we do

Clay Shirky (2008)

“Whenever you improve a group’s ability to communicate internally,

you change the things it is capable of. “

They behave differently

• Are people led not system led

• Create via co creation and crowdsourcing

• They ebb and flow, change shape

• Strongly supported by influencers

• They have the power not the brand

• The role of the business changes

Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff (2008)

“Simply put, the groundswell is a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things

they need from each other instead of from companies. If you’re in a company, this is a challenge.”

Why we need to make change?• Cheap money is a distant memory and spending that

money to stay ahead is not sustainable.• We cannot afford all the expertise we will need in the

future. • People are replacing products as the competitive

advantage.• What was scarce is now abundant and what we thought

was abundant is actually scarce.• The kinds of connections people can build and how those

are all interrelated. Messages can spread very quickly.• Competition is not about efficiencies its about constant

innovation.• Culture is changing at an unprecedented level. • Technology is enabling us to be human again. We are

living back in a people to people environment.• Companies will collaborate rather than be predatory.

“These new forms of connection and communication are shifting the

social structure and the business models of our organisations no

matter what size.”

The Future

• Community

• Collaboration

• Self organisation

• Influence

Database to Community

Database

(transaction)

Database

(transaction)

Relationship

(engage)

Relationship

(engage)

Community

(participate)

Community

(participate)

Create value

Create value

Share value

Share value

CollaborateCollaborate

Database Community

Transactional to Natural

Robotic to Personal

Invasive to Intimate

1 way to 2, 3, 4 & 100 way

Broadcast to Social

Done to to Done with

Automation to Intelligent

System first to Conversation first

Passive/dormant to Engaged

Charles Leadbeater (2009)

“The most exciting organisation models of the future will mix collaboration and commerce, community

and corporation.”

Conclusion

• Custodian of the brand

• Social approach to the problems

• Nothing without its participants

• Leading is about enable & facilitate

• People to people environment

• No more graceless shoving

“We are in a gentle jog towards the socialisation

of business.”Ann Holman (2010)

Questions…if you want a copy of

the ‘paper’ that accompanies this

lecture, email: ann@annholman.co.uk