Connect. Engage. Become a social business.

Social Business. People don`t do business with companies. People do business with people. Here is why and how to become a Social Business.

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The world now spends more than 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites per month. This equates to 22 percent of all time online - or one in every 4.5 minutes¹.

Just ten years ago, there was another significant shift in the way people interacted with each other: the Web came to the workplace. From e-commerce and peer-to-to peer file sharing to the emergence of web-based solutions for financial, accounting, and supply chain systems, the web has become a serious business tool for organisations and industries of every kind. And the evolution continues.

Now social networking services are on track to replace email as the primary communications method for many business users in the next few years. It's a concept IBM social computing evangelist Luis Suarez (link resides outside of ibm.com) has advocated for several years. But this new paradigm impacts more than the inbox. As each company looks to incorporate social networking technologies, it is, in fact, becoming what IBM calls a Social Business.

This approach shifts the focus from static content and other temporary artifacts to the source of the energy, creativity, and decision making that moves the business forward: people. As a result, people not only find what they need, but also discover valuable expertise and information they weren't even looking for that might solve a problem in a new way.

60 second snapshots of real Social Businesses at work

Red Funnel saves customers time

A 60 second social story about how the Red Funnel ferry service saves customers time.
Watch the video (00:01:14)

Accessibility improvements in collaboration

A 60 second social story about how IBM improved accessibility in social software.
Watch the video (00:01:10)

DARPA and the Red Weather Balloon Challenge

A 60 second social story about how a group from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used social networking to respond to the DARPA challenge to find hidden weather balloons, demonstrating the power of social networking to solve problems.
Watch the video (00:01:14)

Galaxy Zoo and NASA

A 60 second social story about how Galaxy Zoo harnessed the brain power of 250,000 volunteers to classify the shape of hundreds of thousands of galaxies captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Watch the video (00:01:27)

Ushahidi and the earthquake in Haiti

A 60 second social story about how an open source mobile participation platform was used to crowd source information and analysis to assist with crisis management in the response to the earthquake in Haiti.
Watch the video (00:01:11)

Many Eyes

A 60 second social story about developing and refining ideas, gaining insight and sharing through community; all based on the premise that many sets of eyes are better than one!
Watch the video (00:01:22)

Cars.com

A 60 second social story about harnessing the power of social tools to help customers make informed purchase decisions.
Watch the video (00:01:18)

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Red Funnel saves customers time

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Accessibility improvements in collaboration

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DARPA and the Red Weather Balloon Challenge

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Galaxy Zoo and NASA

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Ushahidi and the earthquake in Haiti

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Many Eyes

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Cars.com

¹Nielsen News, "Social Networks/Blogs Now Account for One in Every Four and a Half Minutes Online." June 15, 2010.

Social business: advent of a new age

The successful integration of social computing into business represents the next frontier for today’s enterprise. The era of the 'social business' has began.