Transforming reality through corporate vision

Transforming reality through corporate vision

People are born and eventually come of age and pass away. This is not necessarily the case with corporate entities. Those strange forms of life may survive through one main aspect: the vision located at the core of their heart; one could say that the corporate vision is the soul of a corporation, the principle governing its behavior pattern adopted through various roles and situations.

A strong corporate vision is not based exclusively on reality: it transforms, creates reality... It may not care – or want to care... - that you perceive it as being disconnected from "facts on the ground"; acknowledging a perception that would differ from the corporate vision may be undesirable, since it may then prevent the corporate vision from becoming a reality. Hence a too strong focus or obsession with reality may not help a vision take shape and subsequently materialize. On the contrary, being "open" to a perception that is compatible with the corporate vision could help it become a reality; thus adopting a particular attitude of desiring to conform to the corporate vision can contribute in transforming the "real world". And then, the corporate vision will become real: "facts on the ground" will be aligned with said vision and will thus be perceived as more true/natural and less as an artificial perception based on a distorted viewpoint.

This process, which could be akin in some aspects to an organized form of systemic brainwash/propaganda, is not necessarily negative in its inherent nature, though: it strives to achieve perennity of the corporation through dissemination of its vision, i.e. "business culture", in order to convert, dominate, gain strength. Ethics of behavior is not particularly relevant in the case of a corporate entity (other than for image-building purposes) since its primary will is to never cease to exist; it will then take actions required to assure its ultimate sustainability and survival; the moral aspect of activities undertaken to this effect is a human element while corporations are not human, even though they are created and managed/controlled by humans (like, for example, an animal being directed by a human does not make said animal become a human itself). It could then be assumed that corporations are governed through different sets of rules than individuals.

A corporate entity that would never fail to regenerate and propagate its core vision could, in theory, "never die" and survive eternally.

Participation & Collaboration IS 2.0

I hear a lot about the technical aspects of upgrading an individual or an organization to a 2.0 level/state, etc. There are lots of features on social media tools, and how to use them for business purposes to strengthen a brand, etc. 

We are beginning to see more and more ads in main social networks and this trend does not show any signs of losing steam. What I fear is that a couple years ago we had intranets of a private nature, now social media is generally open to the public, and if the marketing aspect becomes too strong, perhaps individuals and organizations will go back to private networks and isolate their information stream from the general public in order to cut themselves from the "spamming", i.e. automation of "user-generated" content. 

That will be a blow to the internet in its inherent nature: transparent and free. But some would say the the Web is becoming more and more like TV: more ads & control, less freedom.

What I would like to see is the focus remaining on what seems like the most important aspects of social media: participation & collaboration. The interactive nature of social networks is best when genuine; let's not spoil that through automated content-generation processes and programmed functions. Or can it be done while keeping control over content quality? Interesting topic...

Managing Human Capital in the 2.0 Era

Managing Human Capital in the 2.0 Era

This is a great presentation about how 2.0 practices can transform your organization and make it sustainable in the current, 2.0 context.

Even in 2012, many businesses seem to forget that the social business in about the people not about the products. Human capital needs to understand what is a social business before you become a social business because chances are they won't follow the change. And what happens then? Well, your business can and will fail, after investing thousands of dollars to become a ''social business''. Saying that social business is business as usual is wrong. Social business asks for organizational change. Changing the patterns of doing business, of managing your people and the way your are treating your partners and customers. 

For more details on social business you can read this great article by Haydn Shaughnessy (Forbes) :

Why Social Business Will Fail (And How to Save It) http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/03/02/why-social-business-will-fail-and-how-to-save-it/