In reality, the technology of social business isn’t much of an obstacle, at least once you get beyond the internecine platform battles that are common in many large organizations. No, the problem is a human one, which is ironic because social is all about people. Yet businesses are also a kind of organism in their own way. And like a living organism, they have a defense mechanism in place that acts like an immune system to anything that would disrupt the status quo. This corporate immune system, as you might have guessed, is known as company culture. It’s a shared set of norms, practices, customs, expectations, and habits that have formed around and perpetuate how a company works and operates. While company culture is great at making the business function as expected and helps foster continuity and order, it’s also astonishingly good at killing off attempted changes to the system; undesirable and desirable both. It’s one reason why the entire industry of change management has emerged, so that companies can keep up with the our era’s ever increasing rate of change, of which technology itself is the most disruptive and high-velocity example. Adapting Company Culture For Social Business My industry colleague Dave Gray notes that we are now aware of much better ways of structuring and managing our businesses in a post-industrial era. We can move from hierarchical to networked models (what he calls podular) that are far more dynamic, efficient, and productive ways of working. Another of my industry colleagues, the always insightful Rawn Shah, has been suggesting that for companies to modernize, they will have to reinvent the company model, throw away the current (and broken) advertising model, and move away from the outdated industrial company model. From Getting to Effective Social Business Results: Applying Culture Change | Collaboratory See Also Looking to the Frontiers of Social Business | Dachis Group Collaboratory Social Business = Social Bonding | MIT Sloan Management Review The Operations of a Social Business | Collaboratory Moving Beyond Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement | Collaboratory Six Strategies to Optimize Your Social Business Efforts | Collaboratory Choose Your Social Business Strategy Before Your Tools | InformationWeek How Smart Organizations Reorganize For Social | InformationWeek Enterprises grapple with social engagement | ZDNet The Intersection of Digital Strategy, Social Business, and Smart Mobility | Flickr The Social Business Index | Dachis Group Social Business By Design | Amazon Hardcover (John Wiley & Sons, 2012)