Change or Die: How web tech is killing organizations

Many dino­saurs roam the organ­iz­a­tional land­scape, com­pla­cent in their daily routine, unaware of a new threat to their exist­ence, one that will wipe them out if they don’t fig­ure out a way to evolve and adapt to embrace it.

Hyper­bole aside, I’m talk­ing about social media, new media, com­munit­ies, or even Web 2.0, whatever you want to call it.

Three recent items caught my atten­tion and touched on this idea:

“Take Your Power­Point And” — Busi­nes­s­Week
“Uncon­fer­ences turn the plod­ding, pre­dict­able busi­ness gath­er­ing inside out. They’re a hybrid of a teach-in and a jam ses­sion, with a little show-and-tell mixed in, and they are attract­ing hundreds…”

“Craigslist Founder: People Who Run Print­ing Presses ‘Screwed’”  — Editor & Pub­lisher
New­mark told an all-too-knowing audi­ence that this is a time of “cre­at­ive destruc­tion” and that he has a “great deal of sym­pathy for people who run the print­ing presses. They are screwed.”

Fre­quent recent dis­cus­sion in For Imme­di­ate Release pod­cast — Neville Hob­son & Shel Holtz
Dis­cus­sion about pro­fes­sional organ­iz­a­tions, and the devel­op­ment of free com­munit­ies (MyRagan.com, Face­book, LinkedIn, etc) as net­work­ing alternatives.

So what I see here is three examples of organ­iz­a­tions that serve a par­tic­u­lar audi­ence. Three groups that are being chal­lenged by one external force, the rapid adop­tion of easy-to-use social media tools. Web 2.0 if you will.

It makes sense, to me as a user. Heck, why would I pay thou­sands of dol­lars to attend an edu­ca­tional / net­work­ing / pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment con­fer­ence when I can attend an ‘uncon­fer­ence’ for free? Would you? Why join a pro­fes­sional net­work when you can get much of the same value, again, for free?

I’m look­ing at this and think­ing that the value provided by these tools and events com­pete with any value delivered pre­vi­ously by tra­di­tional organ­iz­a­tions and communities.

This is a logical evol­u­tion. Online ser­vices have already changed the shape of many brick-and-mortar busines­ness, and inven­ted many new busi­ness mod­els too! I had my last set of busi­ness cards prin­ted by moo.com. I visit book­shops and music stores less as I order more from online sources, and am con­tinu­ing my edu­ca­tion by tak­ing online courses through an accred­ited uni­ver­sity. Phys­ical pres­ence is not neces­sary to meet my needs.

But that’s old hat now. What is new is the devel­op­ment of online com­munit­ies and ser­vices that lever­age the power of the crowd. Some people call this ‘crowd­sourcing’.

I think of it as act­ive com­munit­ies of com­mit­ted people, cre­at­ing new value in a way that dis­rupts the tra­di­tional model that organ­iz­a­tions have used to provide value to their members.

This dimin­ish­ing value will res­ult in declin­ing mem­ber­ships (I may not be join­ing some organ­iz­a­tions), unless these organ­iz­a­tions recog­nize that someone has moved their cheese.

To quote from that esteemed tome on change man­age­ment, Who Moved My Cheese:

Change Hap­pens

They Keep Mov­ing The Cheese

Anti­cip­ate Change

Get Ready For The Cheese To Move

Mon­itor Change

Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Get­ting Old

Adapt To Change Quickly

The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese

Change

Move With The Cheese

Enjoy Change!

Savor The Adven­ture And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!

Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again & Again

They Keep Mov­ing The Cheese.

So, these organ­iz­a­tions will have to fig­ure out how to change to remain rel­ev­ant to their audi­ences or mem­bers. Or they risk becom­ing extinct.

They must change, and that’s where the grand adven­ture lies. Explor­ing the facets of change, dis­cov­er­ing the new ways an organ­iz­a­tion can serve its publics.

There lies the chal­lenge, and the fun. Yes there are risks, but they can be man­aged with due diligence.

Given that, how would a news­pa­per make itself rel­ev­ant in this new age of cit­izen journ­al­ism, where stor­ies are developed by cit­izens with a blog, and no tra­di­tional journ­al­istic cre­den­tials. What hap­pens when pho­to­graphs are freely avail­able with Cre­at­ive Com­mons Attri­bu­tion licenses on flickr, what hap­pens to the staff pho­to­grapher and his trade asso­ci­ation? Do they lose relevance?

What about other organ­iz­a­tions, what about yours? Do you work for a Dinosaur?

** Update **

Just saw this lovely Diesel Sweeties car­toon that elo­quently sums up.

Tech­nor­ati Tags: Change, Change Man­age­ment, Social Media, New Media, Blog, Cit­izen Journ­al­ism, Who Moved My Cheese, Crowd­sourcing,

Related posts:

1. Change or Die: The video
2. Link­list — July 26, 2007
3. Online Photo Albums made easy — Video
4. Start­ing an online com­munity? Here’s a great list of things to consider.
5. Social Media / Social Networks?