Being a social organization goes far beyond experimenting with social media technology tools such as Facebook and Twitter, according to Gartner, Inc. A social organization addresses significant business challenges and opportunities using social media platforms to enable mass collaboration—what Gartner predicts will be the next evolutionary pillar defining how work gets done around the world.

However, few executives and managers know how to turn opportunities for greater collaboration into meaningful business results.

“Deployed effectively, social media unleashes the collaborative power of employees at all levels and locations in your organization, customers and prospects, and partners anywhere in your company's value chain — while minimizing the constraints imposed by the specialization and compartmentalization that inevitably creep into businesses as they grow,” says Anthony Bradley, group vice-president at Gartner.

“Organizations can achieve unprecedented business results by using social media to effectively tap into the power of mass collaboration,” says Mark McDonald, group vice-president and head of research at Gartner Executive Programs. “New mass collaboration capabilities are irreversibly redefining what it means to be a highly productive organization.”

Bradley and McDonald identify a set of core disciplines that managers need to master to translate mass collaboration into results:

• Vision: defining a compelling vision of progress toward a highly collaborative organization.

• Strategy: taking community collaboration from risky and random success to measurable business value.

• Purpose: rallying people around a clear purpose, not just providing them with technology.

• Launch: creating a collaborative environment and convincing customers and employees to embrace it.

• Guide: participating in and influencing communities as they pursue their purpose, without stifling collaboration.

• Adapt: responding creatively to change by modifying the organizational context, in order to better support community collaboration


http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1824217