A close family member, I recently observed, walks around with their eyes strained on the floor in front of them. They rarely look up, occasionally converse and mainly keep their head down. Its okay we’ve talked about it. Their reasoning (which is fine and practical) is that they don’t want to trip over.

Business is a lot like that. We walk around with our heads down focused on the thing immediately in front of us, scared to trip over or run into something. But observation is important. Seeing what’s around us is critical. Being aware of the differences, what people are doing, how things happen and, dare I say it, tripping over is okay too! Sometimes, bumping into something or someone can have interesting outcomes.

James Thurber (American Writer, 1894-1961) is quoted as saying “Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” Staring out of the side window, looking at the total view and taking in the depth of experience is one of the key, hard skills of any business leader. Connection to people is important but so is connecting and participating in the world around us. Navel gazing as we go about our business leads to stuffy thinking.

Taking the time to notice is, I know, sometimes hard to do. I urge you to get out of the office, factory, classroom today, go for a walk and look up and around. If you trip up at least you know you’re still awake!

I fear for social media at the moment. As the masses start their reserved adoption of social media and the ROI agenda heightens, are we not going to lose the original intent of social media? That is to engage, connect, participate and converse. Something the early adopters have found so exciting. Seriously, why is there a gripped frenzy to make money out of social media?

In the early adoption phase, the playing field tipped to an almost horizontal level as genuine and sincere conversations were abundant. I’m feeling an unnerving tilting towards money making activity now with broadcasting running through its veins now that the masses have sat up and noticed. People de sensitive to fun, human, people to people and social activity who are keen to exploit the economics of social media rather than its ecology.

For every ‘community’ with common purpose in social media, there is an opposite, someone striving to make cash. The next two years are going to be far more interesting than the last, revealing more about our society and how we have been conditioned to operate. The tension between making money and having an impact will be a ’see saw’ battle. In an ideal world the two should be able to co exist but I’m not so sure whether we’ll see a polarisation. We have a fascination in our culture with ownership. Who owns social media? The participants and content creators or the corporates? A question Facebook will need to answer soon enough.

Perhaps, unusually I’m being cynical, or perhaps realistic? But as soon as spaces, places, people, individuals and content are seen as property, where the main value is money, will be the moment we potentially lose the true sense of social media and centralised, corporate behaviour will ensue.

I’ve been privileged to be part of the beginning of the phenomenon and will continue to engage through social media with some fascinating people and inspiring content. I’ll avoid the money making pirates who will start to steal the bounty that is people to people connectivity. I’ll remain motivated by its sincerity and occasionally buy because of peer to peer discussion. But what I’ll repulse against is the broadcast, money, de connectivity of the activity we will see more and more of as the masses stick their head above the parapet and indulge themselves in something they have been underrating for a while now.

My purpose in social media is to connect and converse, the masses had better make sure they don’t start to shout, control and broadcast to me! I’m on the ‘making an impact’ end of the continuum not the ‘making money.’ Just wanted to be clear about that!

Guns don’t kill people, people do. Computers don’t throw out crap, people do. Spreadsheets don’t truly measure success, people do. Bill posters don’t grab peoples attention, people do. Marketing doesn’t sell more, people do. Products don’t sell themselves, people do. Systems don’t get more out of people, people do. Connections don’t happen on their own, people initiate and develop them. Relationships don’t happen all by their self, people make them happen!

People make bad decisions, they make great decisions. People miff and they motivate. It’s all about people, its all about being social, its all about respect, its all about true connections. Always has been, always will be. Blaming the system is a naive, unintelligent way to go. The way we do things now in business and the communities we live in was created by people, is endorsed through behaviour by people and continues because of people.

We know the system is broken, we know it needs replacing, we know it needs to change but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it, not the masses anyway. We are so conditioned and scared. Well the more scared you are of something, the more you should embrace it. Otherwise, you are perhaps just leading an existence!

Been listening to Sting’s “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” on repeat recently, coupled with reading Douglas Rushkoff’s latest offering “Life Inc.” Faith is ‘reliance, trust, belief in, loyalty, sincerity.’ A definition according to The Oxford Dictionary.

Beginning to believe we have lost faith in each other so we have been buying from brands instead. In fact, perhaps we have allowed brands to define us rather than the feelings and values we hold true to each other. This is why business became transaction and to some extent de humanised, especially in corporate organisations. That’s why small business will have a future advantage. Its still comfortable with having a trusting relationship!

Lose faith in governments, the media, professions, brands, products, religion, all replaceable. When we lose faith in each other, our connections and our intentions are questioned and we decide not to trust, then we are in trouble. These are not replaceable. When we lose faith in relationships, whatever their dynamic, what have we got left?

A level playing field| People rather than products| Gifts| Air of excitement| Nervous trepidation| Unorthodox thinking| Too much coffee| Not enough change| Screen time| Insomnia stimulating inspiration| Inert organisations| Flair| Straight jacket actions| Google| Creative remixing| Bags of ideas| Little impact| Trouble at the mill| Going slow fast| The miracles of innovation| The stupidity of arrogance| Making noise quietly| Fields of turnips| The lack of grace| Twitter| Inconvenient trouble| Broken promises| Plaster solutions| Launch and learn| Perfection is subjective| Ecosystems| Absurdity of naivety| The shape of business| Exploitation| The futility of resistance| Connection not networking| The significance of difference| Facebook| False profits| Fragile trust| Community not brand| A mass of individuals| So its all about intent| Linkedin| The same thing on repeat| Profit rather than being human| Initiating history| Art| The abundance of the phony| Vulnerability| Foursquare| Deep down feeling it more| Ironic expression of indviduality| Frozen relationships| Nudge advocacy| Non financial influence| The future of conversation|

Not much unless you have one leg! The phone wouldn’t have got far if there had only been one and neither would the computer. Being connected and having connections was always important but more so nowadays as we operate equally online and offline.

Connections bind communities and strengthen relationships, but it simply doesn’t work if you only have one or two! Its not enough. We need online as well as offline connections, deeper connections, reciprocal connections, non profitable connections, challenging connections, global connections, local connections, diverse connections, dynamic connections and super hot connections.

Not thousands, consider Dunbar’s theory of 150. 150 deep connections that are polarised and everything in between. These connections bring different things to your party, sorry business. They add value in differing ways, add vitality and inspiration that is distinctive from other and its vice versa too. Connecting is a two way thing1

It’s very rewarding doing a head count of your 150, identifying what they bring and then developing a way of engaging, participating and co creating with them. It’s changed, be a connector rather than a networker, the two are very different.

We’re going on a treasure hunt today. The prize is finding the beauty in our business. Beauty is everywhere. That building across the street, in the walk you have just been on. The book you have just read, in the lunch you have just eaten, or the photo you just took. Perhaps even in the person you have just met for the first time who blew your mind! Yet we rarely seek it out in business.

You might discover it in design, a product, even in the new customer process you just implemented that works like a dream. It could be in that revolution you are creating. Sometimes you can’t even imagine it until you see it. Then its that WOW moment, it has impact, it distinguishes itself and life isn’t quite the same again. Not in true beauty anyway.

When beauty is present, it makes you think deeper, it raises emotions perhaps long buried and it definitely makes you think differently. Beauty usually leads us to be more explorative, because once you find it, you just want more. It can often push you to another paradigm.

In business, we need to give close attention to those things that extol beauty in our business. Once we do that, it changes. You set the rhythm, you convey elegance, even charm. Believe me its there. Your business is doing something really beautiful right now! Once we know where it is, what it is and why, we can learn about how to do it more.

As Evelyn Underhill said “For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us everyday.”

The groundswell of change is leading to some seismic shifts in the next five particularly for leadership, jobs won’t change much but the emphasis in your company will:

1. There will always be indispensible people required, except you’ll need a lot more in your company tomorrow. These people will be ‘world class,’ passionate, fully engaged, online, followed, creative, leaders, organising discussion groups via Linkedin, people orientated, trusting, respectful and have high expectations.

2. There will always be reliable people unless you motivate them more intrinsically. They get paid to turn up, love silos and blame cultures. Low engagement, low communication, follow the rules, have conservative expectations. Believe in authority, hide creativity, follow but are not followed. They won’t blow your mind but will deliver a great days work to their job description.

3. There will always be low paid people. High turnover, little or low motivation, low in respect. They rock up and then go home with some shuffling in between. Expectations will be low.

You are what you do and what impact you have. In the future our businesses will need to be full of the number ones because its that distinctive element that will make us competitive as our products become increasingly much the same. The future business Seth Godin says “consists of well organised linchpins doing their thing in concert, creating more value than any factory could.”

Remember the old saying “going to borrow a cup of sugar” Referred to as the best way of getting to meet or know your neighbour. Just occurred to me, that perhaps we should do this more often in business.

Today is a lot about connections and relationships. We need to get out and about more and visit that company over the road or next door and say hello. Borrow a cup of sugar virtually from that person who has just followed you on Twitter who looks interesting. Better still what about the last person to visit your website or post a comment on your blog. Or, even the customer you haven’t talked to in ages.

We’ve a lot to learn by looking back at how our forefathers built relationships and its a great excuse to use a coffee break productively too!

Word provided by Scott Gould – www.scottgould.me

If you help, what I contribute will be better. Value, in the future for a lot of people, will be whether and how they participate in the businesses we run. They will be particularly motivated by group effort. Participation has almost become risk free because the cost of failure has dropped so we can mass innovate. The tools are there and the hierarchy removed to allow us to all to really take part.

Humans have always had a desire to make meaningful contributions. We lost that. Businesses deliberately organised themselves to control the participating. However, the case studies of Wikipedia and Linux have altered how close the horizon is. Participation is changing the way companies use resources and it’s bridged the gap between the amateur and professional. Amateurs are collecting data on behalf of wildlife trusts, we can transmit news items to the media, and astronomers are listening for other life forms for governments.

The passive consumer is evaporating. We want to participate in the generation of new products and services. We no longer want to just wait for it down the line to be delivered. Charles Leadbeater talks about “mass production to mass innovation.” He has missed a process or two out of the equation. It’s more like this:

Mass production – Mass participation – Mass collaboration – Mass innovation

It’s just a thought. As companies we have misunderstood that it’s the non-financial, intrinsic factors that motivate people like participation more than the financial ones. We are always talking about the difficulties of getting customers and employees to understand what we do and the advantages of our product. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts “Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I might remember, involve me and I will understand.” Powerful stuff. Maybe participation gets rid of that communication problem we have been having?

We have no excuses anymore. All business can allow its customers and employees to participate. I’m not talking about amateurs doing brain surgery, not a great idea, I agree. But I am talking about using the social tools we have now to enable the impossible to be achieved. If we involve people in the process, they take ownership. From that they will easily become part of our community, which is where we need them to be in the future.