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,