There's No App for Culture

I had the pleasure of attending the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston this week. It was a 3-day geekapalooza centered around the future of social business (and yes, I think by the end there was some consensus that "social business" is the new term for "Enterprise 2.0"). There were lots of smart people and lots of smart thinking, and one thing was clear:

The way work gets done is changing and the change is so profound that no one is really sure what it will ultimately look like - or how best to get there. 

But here's what we DO know: People are at the center of this revolution, not technology. 

Author and big thinker John Hagel III kicked off the festivities with a keynote centered on the importance of catalyzing passion among employees.  My favorite of his quotes was:

"If you're interested in performance, then you have to be interested in passion." 

It was a theme echoed throughout the conference. Social technology is not pervasive because it's cool (although that helps). It's pervasive because it taps into a human need to form relationships. It allows people with similar passions to find each other, connect and form their own communities, which then go on to create new/bigger/better ideas that likely elicit even more passion. 

Going forward, an organization's ability to harness that passion will determine its ability to compete. 

The technology will facilitate connections. It will allow us to funnel and filter and illuminate and measure. Yes. 

But a trusting, open and passionate culture is what will actually change business as we know it. A culture in which employees are empowered to do the right thing. To share ideas. To ask for help. To fall down and get back up again. To relate to each other as humans.  

It's up to leadership to create this culture. It's up to IT to support it.