I also gave this it’s own page so that it persists as a top level item…
The Enterprise 2.0 Manifesto (making the case for the open organization)
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The death of the mass-produced product for the mass-market is widely documented. The need for extraordinary customer service widely understood. We can make the kinds of organization and communication that work for individual’s passions, interests and convenience.
Changing how companies and individuals interact and work together has been talked about for years. The organization must stop being apart from customers and include customers and employees directly in business activity (also in strategy formation and product roadmaps).
Every customer should be able to engage however they want to, with whomever they want to, and so can every person in every company. Interactions are between individuals having honest conversation - there isn’t really room for the official party line and big pronouncements.
Big changes:
- Customers are the company
- Organizations do not communicate, people do
- Trust depends on an ongoing dialogue
- Customers are experts on themselves
- Engaging involves doing; it is more than just talking
- Sharing control is inevitable for the long term success of companies
- Procedures are less important than people (outside factories)
1. Customers are the company
Companies that work more closely with customers will have more relevant products and have greater success. The strong dividing line between company and customer will become less distinct.
Organizations and customers need to be jointly involved in the things that matter, like strategy, direction, operations, and future product development of the company (Is there anything else you do that customers should not be involved in? Why?)
Customers want to form long term relationships with several individuals inside the organization, and ensure that the company will continue to be relevant to them tomorrow, ensuring future benefits from existing investments.
We are not simply talking about an extranet with a blog, forums, and some online support, this goes to the core of operational attitude. A real-life honest communication between customers and employees about things that matter and the availability of tools that let customers get involved with decision making, the ability to question and to challenge, and directly influence the company.
What specifically happens:
- Customers and employees share the same information
- Customers and employees understand and directly impact company strategy
- Customers and employees have a direct say in products and features
- Customers and employees point out where a company is not walking the talk and it gets fixed quickly.
Customers need to be involved “in the flow” of every business, and to self-serve at every opportunity.
2. Organizations do not communicate, people do
Individuals want to communicate directly with the person that knows facts, and receive it unfiltered. Everybody should be able to communicate with the most relevant person to get the information that they need.
Connecting is straightforward - the company needs to get out the way of individual communication - and let people get on with doing it for themselves. The challenge is getting the communication into the core of activity, rather than just extra information outside of the flow.
Customers might like to…
- Have a guest post on your extranet,
- Start a forum.
- What about live chat… …directly with the developer who wrote the code?
- And access to my documents about my projects. even the ones that I wouldn’t normally see.
- How about letting customers directly update facts themselves?
- Add a comment to the official documentation for review, update some parts of it
- Have the same information as the person on the other end of the telephone, before calling
- Can I have an RSS feed of my updates please?
- Suggest a new product feature
- Tell you how they want to work with you next year
- Assist other customers with your product
- Tell you what they want to do that is not on the above list
Whatever the means of communication, it needs to happen. If you are not talking, you are not listening.
This extends beyond simple conversations into things that directly and materially affect products, services, and what the people in the company do on a daily basis. Information behind he firewall has less value than that shared with customers.
3. Trust depends on an ongoing dialogue
Ongoing open dialogue shifts allows for long term trust. New customers can see how you work with existing customers. Existing customers can share your successful history with new customers, and point out issues that get fixed quickly for everyone’s benefit.
Placing value in the long term relationship means that nobody is just this quarter’s sales target. It seems obvious, and you have to pay-it-forward. We can have a conversation based on who we are and our aspirations - what are we going to achieve.
Staff retention, and repeat custom are obvious benefits, as is having a soul. And a sense of humor and personality.
Beyond community and chatter there is a commitment to ongoing engagement in the core business activity. Building a reputation for reliably listening and doing is a matter of trust.
Companies should be able to say
- This is how we have paid attention to what customers wanted in the product
- This is a change we made to how we work to satisfy this customer,
- This is what we will do for you
4. Customers are experts on themselves
There is no “the market”. The market is a chaotic collection of customer organizations and employees all know what they want, individually. The skill of a company is delivering solutions that satisfy the highest number of wants by getting to the patterns, and making decisions that lead to satisfied individual customers.
We need to talk directly and honestly. Sure we also need the tools to find the patterns, aggregate, and prioritize (difficult, because prioritizing is deciding what to not do). Individual connection means that we work together to deliver more value.
Surveys and market research and aggregated data, and MIS, and analytics are all useful, though less than communicating directly. Providing the tools that allow customers to influence actions means that action can be based on real wants identified by experts.
Co-creating new products, improving existing products, tuning operations and sharing strategy with customers means less guessing, and more exact-fit.
5. Engaging involves doing; it is more than just talking
Adding substantial value involves introducing the appropriate tools, committing to take action on customer and employee wants, and being honest. We need a common understanding of things that people feel passionate about, the things that they will drive through, and tell their friends about, and help each other to use.
This is difficult, worthwhile work. We expect power distribution curves and adoption difficulties. We expect it to take a while, and we expect to continually modify our tools and methods until we get it right.
6. Sharing control is inevitable for the long term success of companies
Sharing control means giving more of a voice to customers, and then acting. Acting on customer wants using real information beats guesswork. A competitive advantage exists for every company that is able to communicate with customers better. Getting the right product to market quickly, and fewer wrong guesses.
This is shared control, and pushes inwardly as well towards employees as well as customers causing real direct change inside the business, towards honesty from command and control, as well as being open to the possibility that the crowd knows better. You could be wrong now rather than having to wait until later - you don’t have to wait for the results of the survey, or anything else.
This also means that everybody has to be available to serve the customer better. If the easiest way to get this change made is for Bob to do it, we need to get Bob involved now.
7. Procedures are less important than people
In many environments procedures are a straightjacket that constrain individuals from acting in the customers best interest (submit for approval, all documents go through marketing). Knowledge workers are hired for their brains. Let them be applied for better serving customer wants.
Factories and high volume activities demand processes to ensure consistency, and where they add value to the product and customer obviously assist. We need to trust employees and customers to point out where these processes can be improved. “That is just how we work” is usually an incorrect answer.
If we can do something better then we should. If it involves circumventing broken processes and is in the customer interest great, and better still is fixing the broken procedure.
Where a procedure exists it must be the easiest and best way of doing something, and not a stick or constraint, or guideline for reigning people in.
Summary
It is fashionable to put 2.0 at the end of everything where a greater level of individualism and conversation takes place. The concepts of empowerment, engagement and providing the tools for better working are key. We don’t really mind what you call it.
Open organizations, open innovation, Enterprise2.0 - the conclusion is the same:
Giving individuals the ability to engage easily in sharing passions and interests leads to better work environments, better products and service, and a better sense of being. The individual is at the centre of these new ways of working and that should be in the workplace as well as in our personal lives.
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