The New Face of Networking –OR- Building Business Value Networks (BVNs) in a Social Environment

Traditional business networking generally flows from the premise of working your way up, in support of organizational or personal goals. With the ultimate purpose of building a collection of valuable resources that help an organization or person, build Business Value Networks BVNs.  So simple, like chess and golf are simple games.

Most networking efforts are designed to work our way up to something better or more; a better job, more business, a higher status or ranking within a group, more perks or money.   Regardless of what the specific goal may be, the general and acknowledged purpose of networking traditionally has been to progress in a sort of direct linear upward direction towards a goal, essentially to metaphorically climb “the” ladder.

And now we find ourselves and our organizations falling through the looking glass into this strange and new socialized operating environment, or Social Biosphere. This new environment seems destined to eclipse our every business function and in the process throw so many of our tried and true, overly ordered business processes into complete chaos, or so goes the perception, judging by the fear and loathing many clients feel towards social media. 

In a socialized environment each and every stakeholder has the potential to derail all our careful planning and investments in information flow should they choose to and manage to hijack the information once solely the province of our organizations.  It’s sort of like quantum physics; each and every photon (stakeholder) has the potential, though not the likelihood, to completely reset both our organizational and communications agendas.

How do we build BVNs in a socialized environment where every stakeholder is also a potential information and business terrorist and threat to our organizations?  Networking up no longer satisfies our BVN needs in the socialized environment.

Often and, generally fondly, referred to as “The Democratization of Media and Information” by those who study these things and make such pronouncements, this new media-driven cultural paradigm really upsets our collective organizational apple carts or, in techno-business-speak; represents a disruptive threat and challenge to traditional businesses and communications models.

In all our collective organizational memories businesses have relied on a one-way asymmetrical communications model, as outlined by one of communications’ founding fathers, James Grunig.

Sure we make forays into and pay lip service to more inclusive communications and business models by reaching out to influencers and incorporating various stakeholders’ into our Business Value Networks and content creation and business planning processes but, we always knew we ultimately controlled the information content and flow.  From corporate social responsibility campaigns through product announcements and reviews to crises planning we have always maintained ultimate control to both access and the content and timing of information we released to stakeholders through BVN and other communications channels.

For example in a recent discussion on information operations with a group of colleagues, I posed the following question.  Imagine President Kennedy’s assassination took place in today’s Social Biosphere.  Rather than a single Zaprudar 8mm film, we would have hundreds of videos and thousands of pictures of both the murder and the crowd.  Further complicating the ability to control the information content and flow,  these films and pictures would be relayed to the rest of the Biosphere in real-time and be accompanied  by commentary via Twitter from thousands of sources.  

I cannot say how the outcome would be different but, I can say with absolute certainty the Warren Commission could never have sold America and the World the report it did. It could not have relied on tightly controlled BVNs for predictable information flow.

What does any of this have to do with networking in a socialized environment?  It a fair question. In the Biosphere we need to rethink how we engage with stakeholders and one the primary methods for organizing these engagements has been through BVNs.  We fed information to our networks knowing how the information would flow and what direction it follows through the networks.

In a socialized environment we need to rethink how we use BVNs and our very ability to create and control these networks.  It makes much more sense to view BVNs as collections of matrixed groups organized around various intersecting points of interest. That’s not really a new idea but, the ability of these groups to exchange information and build their own BVNs has most assuredly changed.

It’s no longer enough for organizations or individuals to build liner networks aimed at climbing to the next level.  It is essential we look to join existing BVNs and help form the connective tissues that bring BVNs together and this is how we can bring real value from our networking activities in a socialized environment.

After all the junior person or small business we ignore today, may well be a member or the custodian of a massive business value network that can have serious repercussions on our business futures.