Strive Notes

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Everyone’s a little bit Irish today. I know the Brits will largely ignore the occasion, the Yanks may raise a green beer or two at lunch, the Canadians have taken the day off and are already propping up some bar.  We, in the Isle of Man, plan to join in on festivities too.  It’s our first St. Pat’s on the Island.  I’m unsure how it will go, but as we are geographically close to the Motherland (you can see Ireland from the top of Snaefell), I am confident we’ll find a party somewhere.

But before we all head off, I wanted to give you some food for thought over the weekend.  The whole point of public relations is using communication to build relationships with the people we depend upon. But with the Internet, communication channels have morphed and this is causing fundamental organisational change. 

Forresters’ recent report, “Social Computing:  How Networks Erode Institutional Power, And What To Do About It” explains these this hugely-important metamorphosis within our clients’ organisations.

This report takes a hard look at how social computing is shifting innovation from top-down to bottom-up; value from ownership to experience and power from the institutions to communities.  The report isn’t free, but Charlene Li gives it a good overview on her blog, and this is followed by an excellent discussion of the issues. 

Steve Rubel has blogged about it a couple of times. In yesterday’s blog he implores people to do the necessary reading to get to grips with the changes and also includes a very good diagram from the report.

“Change or die,” states Steve.  I think he’s right on the money. We all must make an effort to learn about social computing or risk ending up on the scrap heap. 

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