My work explores the context of the Social Age: it holds that technology has delivered us an evolved sociology, or way of being, and that this itself provides a new social context for work. In fact, not just for work: it indicates (for me at least) that there is a need for a wholesale re imagination of how our Organisations are designed, and are effective. Or how they work.
I would typically define the Social Age not as one thing, but many related ones: our radical connectivity, rebalancing of power, diverse ecosystems of technology, rise of community and so on. Together they provide a holistic view of a different world – one where our senses of belonging, engagement, belief, ownership, agency, and trust, as well as mechanisms of productivity and purpose are evolved.
My work on the Socially Dynamic Organisation attempts to ground this into principles of Organisational Design, and my work on Social Leadership looks at how we should lead in this new context and hence reality.
But overall there is a diversification of space more so than a nullification. We still have structural needs and hence structural Organisations. Some things are just better done through system and process, and the application of direct power. But not everything. Probably it’s a dynamic system – structural and social – in a dance.
#WorkingOutLoud on the Social Age.
julianstodd
Julian Stodd's Learning Blog 