I am a glutton for punishment, apparently. Not only I have not learned from diving into Social CRM early on, but I am trying the same fate now with Enterprise 2.0.
Why? Convergence.
If you remember, this is one of my key topics for 2010. No, we will not witness convergence between Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 in 2010. However, the smart organizations will start their move towards it in 2010. And they will make inroads. This is a three-to-five year trend that will gain momentum between now and 2012. The road is long, and lots of changes await. The most traditional path to convergence is a two-to-three year phase just to lay the groundwork and the foundation for it.
How do I know?
Because we did it before — and we will do it again. Each time we have two “revolutionary” strategies deployed in the enterprise, seemingly in a collision course, they end up working together. Recent examples are knowledge management and content management, bricks-and-mortar commerce and ecommerce, and accounting systems and ERP. I am sure you can think of other examples from your organization.
Convergence is their future. I highlighted it in my Roadmap to SCRM series, and talked about it since then in other posts.
What is my entry into the world of Enterprise 2.0? Two events:
- I am doing a panel on Convergence of SCRM and Enteprise 2.0 this coming Tuesday at 6:30 PM in Mountain View. I will have some great panelists on stage, but people like Susan Scrupski, Nenshad Bardoliwalla (added 01/11/2010), and Sameer Patel thought-leaders for enterprise applications and members of the Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Council will be in the audience as well. An excellent opportunity to chat and interact with the top minds in SCRM and Enterprise 2.0 live. If you are in the area, just come on by!
- I submitted a proposal for a session on convergence for the Enterprise 2.0 in Boston in June. I am going to lay out the idea of convergence, a roadmap, and the issues to consider while en-route. I am collaborating with Mark Tamis who has a great deal of experience in Enterprise 2.0 topics and will keep me honest. I have a favor (well, shameless plug actually) to ask you. Yes, your vote (please vote) will count for sure (please vote) and I will appreciate it (please vote) — but beyond that, could you please let me know via the comments section in that site what your thoughts are? (please vote) What should we cover? What should we leave out? Are we on the right track? (please vote) Are we way off?
The next post here will be on Wednesday, following the panel, with my impressions and notes from the event. I want to use this platform to start the discussion on Convergence and get a sense of where to go next. Does it make sense?
Where should we head next to cover Convergence? I’d love your opinions and comments…
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Esteban,
First, I am looking forward to the conversation tonight. Since, I am still on EST, I should probably take a nap later today though :-). You know that I fully agree with this convergence, as I stated in my September 2009 post – http://bit.ly/e20_scrm_converge.
Second, I am with you, and it is about time we put the convergence front and center. Thanks for kicking off 2010 the right way!
What is really interesting, and something I will also add to Prem’s post about the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Social CRM, is the following:
The ability for any organization to move in the right direction on the CMM for Social CRM will require first a maturity with E20 adoption** and the acceptance of the convergence of Social CRM and e20.
There, I said it, so let’s iron out the details!
** I touched on the adoption issue in my post http://bit.ly/get_e20_inorder – as did Prem in his http://bit.ly/scrm_e20_fightortango
.-= mitch lieberman´s last blog ..mjayliebs: In Search of a CMM for Social CRM and Social Biz by @prem_k http://ow.ly/VA1t | a good start, now the work begins #scrm =-.
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Hi, Esteban, great post. Ive been thinking about impediments to the convergence you’re championing here, and the practical requirements transformation of from corporate silos to end-to-end customer responsiveness. My conclusion is that the typical hierarchal organization structure is simply not capable of the transitions you describe. I’m glad to see the examples of convergence you listed here, and it occurs to me that this kind of corporate evolution could be accelerated if accompanied by a conscious move away from hierarchical governance of the process. The URL I’ve provided here is not my own, but a group that has developed a different approach to organization operations. I’m not suggesting that Holacracy is the Messiah that will usher in the new age, but it is an example worth looking at in the context of convergence of transforming technologies.
Here’s their elevator speech:
“Holacracy is a comprehensive practice for governing and running our organizations – a new organizational operating system. With its transformative structure and processes, Holacracy integrates the collective wisdom of people throughout the company, while aligning the organization with its broader purpose and a more organic way of operating. The result is dramatically increased agility, transparency, innovation, and accountability. Holacracy takes the principles, ideas, and emerging mindset articulated by cutting-edge thought leaders, and instills them in the actual structures and processes of the organization. It grounds them in practice and brings them to life.”
It occurs to me that the inclusion of their approach (or another, similar one) as part of any SCRM pilot project might speed the transition to true customer-centricity that you’re championing.
I’d be very interested to know if anyone is away of a similar, new approach to corporate governance…
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Melissa,
This is very interesting (i was wondering what that link was since it is not your site). I am going to say that we are all aware, and a few or us more than others, of the need for governance… but we have not yet taken the necessary steps to incorporate it as a critical component… all in due time, which I hope will be soon.
Thanks for the link, very interesting indeed.
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