The Social Organization

Social media is something that everybody talks about but not many people can define.  A common definition would involve Facebook and Twitter, but really these are just technology platforms that allow social interactions to take place.  Mark Zuckerberg built the technology of Facebook, but he doesn't create social connections, just as Bill Gates helped to popularize what we know as Microsoft Word, but he did not write a novel that was written using it. Too often, organizations miss the social part of social media and forget what is really going on--people are connecting with other people, even though they are using technology to do it.

For some reason, we humans tend to focus on technology as a final solution rather than as a means to a solution.  When we do that, what we get is technology without a real solution, and in the process we may create more problems for ourselves and others.  Once again, there are echoes in the work of Jaron Lanier who argues against the confusing of the thing and the person in You Are Not and Gadget and Who Owns the Future?.

A practical focus on social capital rather than on technical capital is the main point of The Social Organization by Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald.  In other words, a truly effective organization cannot just be an organization that does social media in some department or office -- it must become a social organization.

That is a hard process for several reasons.  First, dealing with change in any organization is difficult.  Compounding this challenge, many of the real changes that the organization must make are not immediately visible and may not seem like problems at all.  Why change something that has worked?  To a certain extent, this is wise advice, but it is also important to note that the world is changing, and organizations must change with it.

This change must go beyond throwing money or staff at a problem.  It is all to easy for leaders to direct subordinates to take on social media challenges; it is much more difficult to affect real change.

The authors of The Social Organization do a great job of breaking down the process of how an organization can become social.  This is crucial because the process involves all of the steps the authors outline, including the following:

1. Forming a vision for community collaboration
2. Developing a strategic approach to community collaboration
3. Refining purpose by building purpose roadmaps
4. Launching the community
5. Guiding from the middle, including the community's purpose
6. Adapting the organization

These steps are not easy in most cases because they involve diving underneath the surface and getting the individuals in the organization to engage.  But the payoff is huge, as shown in the examples the authors give, and hopefully as will be shown in the work of Isabella County Restoration House and Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association.