This is definitely worth a read.
Lee Bryant and Livio Hughes – the two founders of Headshift, the company that more than a decade ago was looking at the potential for social technologies in business and was sold back in 2009 to Dachis Group – are moving on to start something new. These guys are ahead of the curve in social business, something which is reflected in the name of their new venture: Post*Shift. Their feeling is that the headshift required and reflected by their old company’s name has now happened, so what they’re interested in now is what comes next.
I’d argue that the shift in mentality has yet to take place in most businesses, and it seems that in many ways they agree (or Lee does at least!):
“…we have been banging our heads against the brick walls of corporate structures, culture and politics for too long, trying to change them from the inside, network by network, node by node, when their very structures (HR, IT, Operations, Finance, Marketing) act as a barrier to change. Some are changing, however, and some will change; but many will not and in an ideal world, they will be disrupted or replaced by companies that are – as we used to say – ‘smarter, simpler, social’.”
As you can imagine, as someone who’s been using the phrase ‘socially native businesses’ for a little while now, I was also pleased to see Lee write, “…what if we step back and try to understand how to create new companies – the corporations of the Twenty-First Century – as natively social, digital, human structures right from the start?”
Like I say, these guys are ahead of the curve and it’ll be really interesting to see what comes out of Head*Shift over the coming months and years. I’ve no doubt that they’ll create something as equally ‘sellable’ as Headshift was!
Best of luck guys.
Once more, with meaning 