IBM Social Media Jam Aims to Build Social Business

IBM has published a paper on social media and where it believes it is going. While IBM (news, site) might not normally be associated with social media, the paper is the result of what is described as a web jam with over 2,700 participants over three days and from over 80 countries.

A web jam, IBM says, is an online conversation with the purpose of discussing a particular issue — in this case social media — and drawing conclusions that can be brought into the future with a particular goal.

While the goals of this jam are not completely clear except that it falls into Big Blue's wider "Smarter Planet strategy," there does appear to be an implied suggestion that participants should look at their social media strategies and see where IBM technologies fit into it all.

Though not providing a clear roadmap of IBMs social media strategy per se, it does point in the direction that IBM will be going to address the concerns raised over the course of the online conversation.

Why an Adaptive Social Business Model is Needed ?

The trouble with many social business models today is that they don't allow room for adaptation and manipulation; they put organizations into a box and expect them to move in a linear way to get to their goal, not being able to move forward until each preceding step is completed.

Problem is, every organization has different needs in different areas. The point of developing something like this is to address and show the common elements among organizations that are investing in social business while allowing the flexibility of every organization to focus on the necessary areas.

How This Can Help Your Organization

Some organizations might have a rock solid organizational culture, a solid process, and a great technology stack but might be weak in the goals and objectives and governance areas. This framework is designed to let organizations look at and understand the key components that make up each sphere.

Your organization might be great at one of the five areas, whereas another organization might be solid at three of the five.

Organizations can maneuver through this framework to improve on areas where they are weak or perhaps not as strong as they would like to be. It's adaptive because it doesn't force organizations down a single path – yet addresses the key areas for social business.

Every organization can determine which areas they need to work on and which ones are solid.

While the framework uses the term "social" the reality is that many of the concepts are built around traditional approaches to business but in this case slightly adapted specifically to organizations interested in emergent social software. As Gil Yehuda has said, "it's very healthy to view a social initiative as a business initiative."
source: http://goo.gl/sVGnx