I don’t think we are under any illusions here. Moving from a pre dominant offline marketing strategy to an online one is going to be tough. Not least because we have to go back to the drawing board and start again, forgetting almost everything we have been taught about marketing.

That’s not a bad idea though is it? Structurally things are shifting and essentially we have to move from a transactional relationship with our customers to one of engagement. In 2007, Forrester offered the definition of ‘engagement’ which included four elements; involvement, interaction, initimacy and influence. Now there’s a start. For me ‘influence’ is probably the most significant and exciting. Scott Gould has posted a fab article that’s a must read on influencers and translators. Catch it here at http://scottgould.me/influencers-and-translators/

There are three challenges here. Design a strategy that incorporates the four elements and embeds them in the culture of the organisation. Secondly, that those elements are implemented at every stage of the customer process and, thirdly, that you measure them to ensure it translates into meaning for you and your customers.

Lets get rid of one myth, you can’t manage people. Desks, chairs, IT systems, websites, databases yes but people, a resounding no. That’s where it’s all gone wrong. It’s why so many people in ‘jobs’ are bored and why so many people set their own businesses up.

Talented people want meaningful work first and then the monetary rewards as a result of doing something that makes a difference. If you think, or people tell you otherwise, they are so buried in conditioning that they haven’t gasped for air in years!

Just a few predictions:

1. Talented people (that’s all you can afford to recruit now) will want to express themselves, have their own voice, and not seek permission but consultation before they make a decision. They will want more responsibility, accountability and ownership of the business than ever before.

2. They will expect the work to be meaningful. They won’t give a damn you’re the boss unless you constantly demonstrate your credibility and reputation, the same way you expect them to.

3. Great people will only work for companies that are innovative, flexible, open and honest. They will expect authentic leadership and true relationships with their colleagues and customers

4. They will know what they are worth in terms of added value. They will be precise about what skills they bring to the party. They will be confident about their ability. Oh, and it won’t be BS. They will know.

5. Because they are good they will expect the relationship to be on an equal basis. You may as well throw out the hierarchy and organisational chart now. They will not want distance between you and them. If there is, they will see it as a distrust and disrespect.

6. They will deliver more than you ever imagined.

7. Finally, they won’t want you to throw your ego, position and control around but bountiful amounts of inspiration and motivation.

Some of these are no different to now, but perhaps with the war for talent, you have to create the conducive environment now in order to develop a competitive advantage for the future. People are replacing products.

I’ve never queued to get into a business event before, but last Friday at http://alikeminds.org/ I did, fueled by coffee and good conversation beforehand. Whoa…what an event! What a crowd! What fantastic content! And what fabulous debate! If you missed this landmark event, truly self scold by slapping yourself with a wet fish. You really missed a treat.

The line up was to die for and a special thanks to all the presenters and contributors. The key messages and constant chatter, buzz and conversation can be read here #likeminds There is video, discussion and peoples view all there to capture the key messages both, those who attended, and those you didn’t. It was all the more fascinating by the constant and immediate discussions enabled by Twitterfall. Yes distracting, but a welcome attribute all the same.

We still don’t fully understand the impact of social media on our economy and culture which renders ROI very hard to measure and the event opened up more questions than answers, which was its intention. This is all very new, very new indeed, I’m just glad I’m on the train albeit in standard class.

Seth Godin has said that by 2011, 90% of our marketing budgets will be spent on social media and word of mouth. I urge you to book your February diaries out in anticipation of the next one when we have been promised more. You’d be absolutely crazy to miss it!

Who would have thought it 20 years ago? There were inclinations of what was about to happen 10 years ago, The Cluetrain Manifesto more than hinted at it. Now that it’s upon us why do some people still not get it? The world is a changing and we better get to grips with it as soon as possible. If you are not already, you need to be understanding social media and crowdsourcing like there is no tomorrow.

People from around the world are gathering in places to converse on subjects they are commonly interested in. They share information, collaborate on projects and trade knowledge for little or no money. They will probably never meet face to face but trust, respect and a genuine relationship is formed sincerely.

Everyone now has a vehicle to explore their latent talent. That same vehicle can provide an audience for that skill whether it be creative, specialised knowledge innovative new products or a craft. The barriers to entry are almost non existent.

And, what that brings is the ability for people to find their own voices again, often for the first time in a work environment. Without the constraint of corporate speak and culture, people are conversing with all sorts of people. Barriers are breaking down. Language is losing its spin.

The web, social media and the crowd doesn’t care what qualifications you have, whether you went to Harvard or Cambridge or Exeter. It couldn’t give a damn the colour of your skin, where you were brought up or what gender you are. The traditional pre conditions of working with certain people is evapourating except, of course, quality.

People in old school company structures are bored. Sick of being suffocated in a contradictory world of systems and procedures where the work is about money and position. People are banging on the door of their prison, sorry office and asking to be let out. To be free to contribute and do something meaningful and different.

These tools, some newer than others do not, in fact isolate us, far from it. It does the opposite by allowing us to share and colloborate on levels and in numbers never seen before and, hell, this is just the beginning. It means huge changes for every business, and I mean every business. Old, traditional models don’t need scrapping overnight but they will need to be very soon.

It has huge implications. There is a new meaning to outsourcing, competition, teams, the way you use talent, intellectual property, business models, innovation, marketing, customer service, leadership, motivation, inspiration the list goes on. We are not talking about little changes in practice here but significant, huge shoves. Burying your head in the sand won’t make it go away.

No I’m not about to start a critique on the Charles Dickens novel! As entrepreneurs and people who run our own businesses, we live in a world of little expectation. At start up, we may have had great expectations but, quickly, reality kicks in via its many experiential forms and you learn not to expect too much from other people.

Whether that’s because you didn’t get paid, you have had lots of deferred/cancelled orders, or you expected more people to turn up at your event. Reality can be painful. For some this becomes a depressing place to be. We’ve all met them.

When you have little expectation, perhaps you are freer. Your world isn’t consumed by worrying whether something’s going to happen, if someone is going to let you down. It gives you space to breathe, an ability to consume more learning, adapt and absorb what’s really going on. In fact, it gives you chance to listen.

In having great expectations you then put in place controls whether physical and/or mental. These controls ensure you feel comfortable, secure and reinforce (you think) that people won’t get let down. You see it everyday both internally and externally in business.

Having little expectation of other people can ensure you have great expectations of yourself. You become independent, you control the right thing; you and not the wrong thing, other people. It diverts attention to yourself and you become more self-aware.

People with great expectations focus on other people and what they are doing and what they are not and then the awful struggle with blame enters the frame. We start blaming others for not meeting our expectations and in turn we try to control them even more.

It becomes an ever-decreasing circle, a whirlpool of trouble. Even a depressing array of emotions. Having little expectation of other people doesn’t make you pessimistic, in fact, it truly embeds optimism when you concentrate on managing the great expectations of yourself first, before you flirt with other peoples.

I’m becoming increasingly frustrated with people who say ‘I don’t get the social media thing.’ My reply is always the same ‘none of us do.’ Dumb questions are not my favourite topic but when people comment ‘what’s the point in doing Twitter if you’re never going to make money out of it Ann,’ I have to admit to biting my tongue hard and presume they lost the plot a long time ago.

Not that there is a plot anymore. The thing about Twitter and other social media activity is, that like a baby, it still has most of it’s living to do. You can’t predict it’s future because it will actually be what we social media participants make it. Like the origins of the web, it wasn’t essentially made for business, it was created to enable us to connect, converse and share.

People who can’t quite get the social media wave are those very people who find it hard to shift their mindsets. Principally, those who find it difficult when definitive answers are replaced with a shrug of the shoulders and where the answers certainly don’t lie with them anymore. The power has been restored to the streets.

We’ve been here before. The same discussions were taking place in the mid 90’s about the web. Laughable now, but the smirk was wiped very quickly off the faces of those predictably staid managers who thought it was just another fad. You have been warned!

Social media is allowing people to be free. Free from control, free to choose, free to talk to anyone, free to share information with the bang of a key or the use of the thumb. Social media is creating a resurgence  of business familiar to our ancestors. Real conversations, real communities driven by real people who generally don’t have a subversive motive to control something that actually belongs to everyone participating.

It’s as if people involved in social media have drawn a line in the sand and stepped over it. And a new line means a new way of approaching business.

Some of the most important challenges for all organisations, not just small business will be the conversion to conversation. For scores of years, if not a couple of centuries now, individuals, when at work, have been made to feel uncomfortable to converse, some have even had policies to prevent it happening.

Senior managers and directors have encouraged connections through rules, projects, deadlines, contracts, appraisals, meetings and management practices but they are just a camouflage for control. We can no more control a human being as we can the weather!

Conversations happen amongst equals. If you just asked your production manager why waste has increased by 5% last year, that’s not a conversation. That’s communication. Conversations are not forced, they are natural, (or that’s what was intended) they are open, honest and genuine. Each person contributes equally and it’s certainly not a power base.

There is no control, you can be wrong and all parties involved have a desire to learn and create new ideas together. It’s an exchange not a ‘telling’ show. Communication tends to use position, politics, spin, control and ego as it’s tactics, conversation displays humility and understanding.

Conversation is no longer a distraction from work, its at the heart and centre of it.

Small businesses once they start to grow can begin to adopt ‘corporate’ tactics. Rather like when we get older we start saying the same things our parents say!! It’s easy to fall through the trap door of building organisational structures, implementing systems and creating job descriptions in the belief it provides us with control. Actually it can do the complete opposite.

As we grow we fear making the wrong decisions, expect no mistakes from our employees and build a structure that defends us from being human and imperfect. We create defined roles and responsibilities that constrain a persons ability to be innovate and then silos emerge. Teams fragment and become protective, fearful of looking stupid and pointing out the obvious. People start saying the ‘right’ things to directors and, finally, managers start using their positional authority by trying to control the uncontrollable, people. Low and behold anyone dare to expose their fallibility.

Everyone starts feeling crushed and accept this is the ‘way things are done round here.’ It’s no wonder that after an initial spurt of growth, small businesses begin to plateau and growth slows dramatically. We just sucked the life out of our business. As owners we tend to focus on growth being measured exclusively by the figures when it’s actually about the employees growth. In the past we recognised and praised their initiative, now afraid of loosing control, we stifle it.

For once, forget job descriptions, get rid of structure, deliberately allow teams to work together on joint problems to prevent silos and ditch those job titles. It’s not about keeping control that you need to be worried about, it’s the growing inertia business expansion can bring.

Each generation has it’s opportunity to improve things for the better. Each generation has it’s challenges when it comes to terrorism and war. Each generation has to face the inevitable changes that affect business lives. Each generation has to understand that change isn’t necessarily for the worse.

There is no denying that the web and technology has provided us with shifting sands and there are some things that have died; destructive competition. Broadcasting and shouting. Sales pitches, safe, mundane relationships with customers and employees. Being in control and managing people. The traditional way of making a profit. Copyright and patronising conversations. Silence. Corporate speak and organisational structures. Them and us. Marketing in the traditional sense. The memo and email. Egotistical management and scarcity. Information on a need to know basis.

I could go on. Unlike leg warmers, pogo sticks and lego, they are not going to make a come back, no matter how retro they may look in the future!

Down on the ground things are happening. Stuff is going on whether its in the factory, studio or office. And, of course, your customers are changing too! Bosses, high flying graduates, sales people and account managers can easily become remote, absent and distant.

By being conspicuous by your absence you’re effectively saying I’m not interested and too busy spinning plates even if this isn’t your intention and you have an ‘open door’ policy. That absence can stick out like a sore thumb.

It doesn’t take much effort for us to get off our asses and rectify it. Get out onto the factory floor this afternoon, ring that key client you haven’t spoken to in ages and find out what’s happening. Be conspicuous by your presence not your absence!