A very thoughtful blog posting by Nigel Fenwick. Here are a few quotes I found in particular interesting. This is one every business leader should read, who tries to prohibit social communication tools in the workplace. You were not able to stop phone, fax, email, you will not be able to stop the new channels. Do these new channels always make life easier, no, but used in thoughtful way they can bring benefits:
Communications continue to evolve. Consider how humans have transformed communications over the centuries: signal fires; semaphore; Morse code; the telegraph; the telephone; telex; fax; email; SMS; Facebook; and Twitter. I have no doubt that this evolution will continue in 2013 and beyond. ... Regardless of where you are in your personal communications evolution, the undeniable truth is that over the past decade we have significantly changed how people communicate; we are no longer dependent upon email. But social tools and 24/7 mobile access have not removed the complexity or decreased the volume of information we must process. Time remains our most precious resource and we’ll always seek ways to use it more effectively — ...
Nigel writes about a new communications paradigm. Well, I don't believe this is new. The amount of information and communication just accelerates further. The challenge was there before.
And he calls out the year of Digital Business, where in particular social and mobile technologies drive customer experience:
In the coming year organizations will continue to evolve social layers that allow employees and customers to collaborate more effectively. Early adopters of social technologies are already moving toward social business ecosystems, combining mobile technologies with social apps in ways which save customers time and make the customer experience more enjoyable (or less frustrating). ...
As mobile, social, cloud, and big data come together we see the emergence of digital business strategy: the ability to leverage digital technologies to transform the customer value equation and drive competitive advantage.
Last but not least some wishful thinking?
Certainly the digital revolution will continue into 2013 and beyond — that’s easy to predict. But perhaps 2013 will also be the year we realize that the world will not come to an end if we don’t reply to that Facebook post today, or we don’t respond to that email this minute, or we don’t read every tweet and blog post. And so for some of us at least, 2013 may be a year in which we learn to enjoy the physical world we live in more than the virtual world we create on our electronic devices.
Happy new year! All the best to you.