Gartner Author Reveals the Next Chapter in Modern Business Management: The Social Organization

Being a social organization goes far beyond experimenting with social media technology tools such as Facebook and Twitter, according to Gartner, Inc. A social organization addresses significant business challenges and opportunities using social media platforms to enable mass collaboration — what Gartner predicts will be the next pillar defining how work gets done around the world.

Speaking at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on the Gold Coast today, group vice president and Gartner Fellow Mark P. McDonald explained how mass collaboration extends beyond social media to enable employees, customers, suppliers and all other stakeholders to participate directly in the creation of value. However, few executives and managers know how to turn opportunities for greater collaboration into meaningful business results.

"Organizations can achieve unprecedented business results by using social media to effectively tap into the power of mass collaboration," said Mr. McDonald. "New mass collaboration capabilities are irreversibly redefining what it means to be a highly productive organization."

In "The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers and Employees" (published by Harvard Business Review Press, October 2011, distributed in Australia and New Zealand by McGraw-Hill, A$44.95, NZ$59.00), co-authors Anthony J. Bradley, group vice president at Gartner, and Mark P. McDonald, reveal how executives from CEOs to managers can make mass collaboration a source of enduring competitive advantage in their enterprise.

"Deployed effectively, social media unleashes the collaborative power of employees at all levels and locations in your organization, customers and prospects, and partners anywhere in your company's value chain — while minimizing the constraints imposed by the specialization and compartmentalization that inevitably creep into businesses as they grow," Mr. Bradley said.

In the book, Mr. Bradley and Mr. McDonald share insights from their study of more than 400 organizations around the world that have used social technologies toward these ends. They identify a set of disciplines that managers need to master to translate mass collaboration into results:

         Vision: defining a compelling vision of progress toward a highly collaborative organization

         Strategy: taking community collaboration from risky and random success to measurable business value

         Purpose: rallying people around a clear purpose, not just providing them with technology

         Launch: creating a collaborative environment and convincing customers and employees to embrace it

         Guide: participating in and influencing communities as they pursue their purpose, without stifling collaboration

         Adapt: responding creatively to change by modifying the organizational context, in order to better support community collaboration

"The Social Organization"highlights the benefits and challenges of using social technology to tap the power of collective effort. Packed with practical advice and compelling examples, this new book reveals how leaders can make collaboration a management imperative to help guide and nurture employee communities and in turn, create social organizations.

Mr. McDonald is presenting a session at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on the Gold Coast this morning titled, "The Social Organization: How to Build a Corporate Competency in Social Media" at 8.30pm this morning, and will sign copies of the book following the session

Additional comments from are available on the Gartner YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hrc70vc8ow and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmKEi3teGr4.

Copies of the book "The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers and Employees" are available at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo and from leading business booksellers. For more information, please visit http://gartner.com/thesocialorganization.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpoGartner Symposium/ITxpo is the industry's largest and most important annual gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world's leading IT research and advisory organisation, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees' annual planning efforts. They rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organisations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.

More content will be available on Gartner's SymLive site at www.gartner.com/au/symposium.

Follow Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Follow news, photos and video coming from Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/GartnerSym, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc and using #GartnerSym, on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/27772229@N07/.

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,500 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, and has 4,500 associates, including 1,250 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.