Umair Haque had a rallying post today, challenging organizations to move away from pushy messaging and corporate-speak and do some good.

And what great timing. It’s becoming clear to me that most organizations have put to rest the “newness” notion of social media. It involves people, it involves tools, and it’s a two-way street. Got it.

What’s more important as I explained to a business partner recently, is seeking out projects and work that make a difference. I don’t want to help companies that are just consumed with moving more widgets.

Let’s talk about what you’re doing to change things or for my community and for my family. Haque described that a while back as scaling ambition rather than things.  And I’m not trying to be a moral highbrow, it’s just time social strategy started to impact things besides making big companies bigger. I’ll let Umair cap it off below.

It fits most organizations to a T — from Wall Street to Detroit to Big Pharma to Big Food to Big Energy. Our research suggests that 95% of organizations are unable to offer socially useful stuff that creates meaningful value for people, communities, and tomorrow’s generations.

Yet, most "social media" strategies have one or more of three goals: to "push product," "build buzz," or "engage consumers." None of these lives up to the Internet’s promise of meaning. They’re just slightly cleverer ways to sell more of the same old junk. But the great challenge of the 21st century is making stuff radically better in the first place — stuff that creates what I’ve been calling thicker value.

Organizations don’t need "social media" strategies. They need social strategies: strategies that turn antisocial behavior on its head to maximize meaning. The right end of social tools is to help organizations stop being antisocial. In fact, it’s the key to advantage in the 2010s and beyond.

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If some of us would just put forth the extra effort, I think we’d all find things like this could spark our personal creativity and — dare I say — be fun.

"One of the main principles of permaculture is that ‘the problem is the solution.’

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Dev Patnik’s thoughts on spurring along innovation made me think of what’s happening inside organizations with aggressive innovation agendas.

Here’s three of his four thoughts:

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———————————————————-

Of course to move innovation forward, companies need to have their internal practices polished and primed for collaboration inside and outside the firewall.

I’ve spoken to a number of clients recently that head innovation practices and the obvious push is around better ways of sharing information. In other words, what’s the fastest way to facilitate innovation discussions. And beyond that, how do I take the byproducts of those conversations and turn them into actionable intelligence. It’s that intelligence that ultimately moves the needle.

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