11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era

Each of these on its own is interesting but not the central idea; each on its own is only an example of how value is created with others, allowing seemingly disparate individuals to create value in a way that once only centralized organizations could.

In psychological language, the key to adaptability and personal growth is resilience. In biology, the equivalent term is plasticity. In financial language, we use the word liquidity to measure how flexible we are, how able to withstand what happens to us. In organizational design, the term is flexibility. And that is what these levers I’ve just cov

Unlocking talent is not the frosting on the cupcake as it was in the industrial era. In the Social Era, it’s the key ingredient in how we make the cupcake itself, and whether the cake is viable.

My point is that every business model has already been done in some form already—sponsorship, advertising, free, rental—in the traditional era and the Web era. The question is really what could any business look like when all the business levers are socially oriented; what could happen next?

In a world where we increasingly outsource or mechanize repetitive work, in which we’ve unlocked the free flow of information and built teams of highly educated millennium-generation talent that demands a seat at the table, we need to shift our approach from telling the strategy to co-creating it, so

It may have a “shared” purpose (within its walls), but it surely doesn’t have a “social” one.

Power has shifted from a company-centered worldview where it was responsible for figuring out what to create and telling the consumer (loudly and often if it had money to do so) what to buy, to a time when consumers can co-create with one another and with brands.

Too many still see social as the purview of two functions: marketing and service. It’s either “Like us on Facebook!” or “We’re so sorry you’re having a problem.” While a few have figured out that they can use social to listen to the market—sort of like putting a stethoscope to the market heartbeat—there is more to this social thing.

When customers are central to all we do, they are not easily controlled and they are not predictable. But remember, it is making mistakes—and the ensuing forgiveness—that gives relationships their resilience. This connection might take longer to forge than a transactional exchange, but its outcomes will last longer. Any vulnerability we feel along