Open Dialogue

‘We are on the threshold of the “Next Economy” – an economy characterized by a huge withdrawal of customer spending, an exponential increase in demand for service, and a consequent shift in business priorities from satisfying shareholders to delighting customers.’ – Elliot Ettenberg

As the IMF recently said, we are in uncharted waters. The question is – do we attempt to forge a new way forward or retreat to what we know to be environmentally and economically unsustainable and socially inequitable?

I think it would be fair to comment that something’s gone fundamentally wrong with the way we operate many aspects of our society, and digital technology gives us an opportunity to fix some of these.

What we see emerging is a new landscape of ‘social business design’; where new technologies and a closely related culture of collaboration present radical new models for enterprise – within a backdrop of economic downturn that can often inspire extraordinary innovation. A shift as we move toward a new networked future in which there is a genuine sense of change, driven by the need to live more economically and responsibly in a world whose population is growing but whose resources are diminishing.

The way we live and work is changing rapidly, offering an enormous competitive advantage to those who embrace the new tools that enable contextual, agile and simplified information exchange and collaboration to distributed workforces, networks and customers.

We think – video.

Innovations in both marketing and technology are currently changing the way in which customers are contacted, served and retained. Conventional marketing is expensive and increasingly impotent and a new approach is needed. Today, effective marketing depends on the way a product and organisation behaves; the moment of interaction matters as much as the strategy or big communications ‘idea’. This calls for a more granular marketing approach and humble attitude.

Social media is having a profound effect on the way organisations and brands engage with their customers, clients and audiences. We are learning to become more open, engaging and conversational rather than treat treating customers as a mass market to be saturated with ‘broadcast’ messaging and marketing.

A focus on conversations rather than messages which ultimately improve customer satisfaction and thus enhance company profitability.

At Open we believe as a core value that design is a business tool; an effective investment which delivers more profit. Digital communication is key to this approach and if applied sensitively can make each moment matter, surprise and delight customers and give real competitive advantage. It’s a response to understanding what consumers want and need, understanding their problems and coming up with solutions to make life better.

But this evolution is not just about technology.

The blurring of the boundaries between business and consumers, citizen and state, depends a new sense of transparency, openness and trust.

Smart businesses are creating new structures, processes and value chains based on social networking, sharing, easy group forming and collaboration to improve operations across the board.

Rather than hiding behind impersonal PR and corporate relations, companies are increasingly embracing the idea that the people they’ve hired for their knowledge, experience and creativity can and should be allowed to take the lead in debates about potentially difficult issues such as product quality, environmental concerns and employee relations. By engaging openly and honesty – and with an authentic human voice – they gain credibility with customers and stakeholders.

It is time to develop a new economic model based on openness, sharing, networks and harnessing the power of ‘crowds’. Open systems, open innovation, and open source – an ‘Open dialogue’.

Companies that emerge from this period as leaders will be more agile, network-centric and people-powered, with far lower internal cost structures. Outside the firewall, the rise of the social web has taught us a lot about how we can dramatically reduce the costs of collaboration and co-ordination, and it has demonstrated the power of iterative, evolutionary processes driven by real-time data and user feedback.