The social business

The boon of the internet brought with it the bane of censorship. Organizations withdrew into this shell of security which prevented its employees from accessing the outside world. No email, no chat and no access to any other sites on the internet. The internet stood defeated in the very purpose for which it was created-unlimited information.

The last decade has however seen the emergence of a new paradigm, the Social Media. Social Media works on the concept of the world society. The entire world can be your neighbor. It does not matter where you are from and what you do, who you are and what your status is. All that matters is how much you share. The more you share, the more popular you are. Social Media brought with it the power of collaboration. People across the globe coming together to help you solve your problems. And it does not matter if you payback. All that matters is you shared. So what if they were just problems.

If Yahoo chat changed the way people defined friends, Facebook changed the definition all together. Imagine the quantum of knowledge created by the collaborative effort of the entire world; behold the power of the Wikipedia. Wikipedia is now almost synonymous to answering a question. You have a question; simply search it on the Wiki. The whole world was now working together, meeting through wires and optical fibers, collaborating on research, writing code, improving skills and even falling in love. Jet engines failed to bring the world as close together as Social Media did. You did not have to be together to be really “together”, you could simply logon to Second Life.

 Social Media is perhaps the biggest innovation since the birth of the internet. It has helped man evolve from me to us. The power of one is now the power of everyone.

And when the individual was evolving, organizations were busy ignoring. Who has time to collaborate when there is business to be done? Executives still travel business class and spend millions of dollars arranging meetings. Any attempt of the Social Media to reach out to them was thwarted by the power of censorship. Web filters and firewalls prevented employees getting smarter in the office. Security audits were put into place to ensure no one cheated. If you wanted to learn something, you had to go down to the library. A simple question which could have been answered within a minute on the internet would take hours of research by the flustered employees. And the organizations felt gratified by the fact that employees were now putting in more work.

 A few organizations however, were able to gauge the exact power of this new framework. This new media was not only a great advertising medium but the brand equity unlocked by it was absolutely huge. For example, Facebook can be great medium for popularizing a brand. It can also be used for the launch of a new product and to get insightful user feedback. Twitter can be used to send out regular updates about a product or the company. These organizations were able to unlock the power of Social Media to get their products to the top.

Employees are supposed to work 9 hours a day without any breaks? Is that even remotely possible? “Close to 12.5% of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing Social networking sites during office hours,” industry body Assocham said in a survey. But my dear sir, do you know how Facebook works? Do you sit there and write code? You just put in a status or reply to a message. How much time does that take? A couple of minutes? But managements will never allow that. You could sit on your seat and stare out of the window the whole day, but Facebook and Orkut is a strict no-no.

 It’s for the organizations to realize that censorship does not ensure the employees work nonstop during their stipulated hours. Employees need their breaks and they will have it, this way or that.

Social Media can convert regular brands into powerhouses. It is up to the organizations how they leverage this power. Instead of clamping down on employees, they can set up collaborative sites and let employees subscribe to updates. New events and road shows can be announced on the organization’s Social Media page. The company’s employees can be encouraged to connect to clients to create enduring bonds and better relationships. The options are almost limitless.

 The Social Media revolution cannot and will not die down with censorship. Organizations banned the internet at work when it was still in the nascent stages, they banned portable music player and now they want to ban Social Media. Just as they were unsuccessful with their other attempts at stifling technology, they will have to accept defeat with this latest revolution. The easiest way to escape unscathed is to embrace this new paradigm

 The future of Social Media is still blurred. What next seems to be the most asked about question? But the possibility of people connecting and sharing over the internet seems remote. As Social Media spreads to the mobile platform, getting it out of the system seems even more unattainable. Wondering about the future of Social Media will not bring up any answers since the future itself, belongs to this medium.