I spent the morning in meetings today – first with Colin Kennedy and Sue reviewing our PR & Marketing strategy for NZ and starting to think about next year and then with Fiona Powell who is putting together our first Social Media strategy for BNI NZ for 2010. What came out of these two meetings was something of an ‘Aha Moment’ for me.
As the BNI membership transitions from being predominantly ‘Baby Boomers’ to ‘Generation X’ over the next few years – we are looking to introduce changes here in NZ to ensure that we continue to meet the requirements and expectations of our clients (our members). Accordingly we are currently investigating ‘on line’ training and mentoring, ‘on line application forms’, commissioning a high quality video to add to the website and introducing new member trainings etc. In terms of Social Networking – not only do we need to cater to the expectations of our ‘younger’ members – we also have a responsibility to help to coach our existing ‘baby boomer’ members to get up to speed with these changes – so that they don’t get left behind! We intend to introduce a state of the art Ning platform for BNI in NZ and to look at ways of up-skilling our existing members as to how to be part of this change – we will literally be “Changing the Way the World Does Business!”
The ‘Aha Moment’ for me was the realisation that as the world goes forwards from here, that businesses that remain vested in the ‘old school’ style of hierarchical management are going to start to break down. It is not so much that the Generation X’s and Y’s are going to be challenging them – their downfall is going to be that they will simply cease to be relevant. Unless business provides this new generation with what they want – I believe that they are simply going to walk on by and will not bother to engage. They will look – once – at what is on offer and if they don’t like what they see – it will simply be a case of –‘Whatever!’
The times they are a changing and the writing is on the wall. As we move forwards businesses are either going to be seen as being ‘green and growing’ or ‘ripe and rotting!’
Hierarchy is finally on the way out and I say “Not before Time!”
3 comments
Thanks Graham
I totally agree : not only will word of mouth also then have a prominent place in business and profit, it will become THE way advertising is done and create “CONSUMOTERS” (consumer-promoters) and every business, not just network and referral marketing companies, will employ this method, and the ensuing WIN-WIN will similarly revolutionise the way we do business.
Finally I am a great advocate and active in ‘social entrepreneurship’ and not just ‘doing more good from the proceeds of my income activity : rather MAKING my business activity and profit generation means, THE way to create more for more people and direct projects : Friends of the World is one such living example
Thanks Martin –
And good luck with Friends of the World –
http://www.friendsoftheworld.co.nz
Graham
Hi Graham
Picked up an interesting comment on the NZ Herald website which adds momentum to your blog about hierarchies and whatever.
It’s about writing, but talks about the ‘whatever’ attitude too…
Moreover, the capacity for rigorous sentence construction, of the kind explored by Don DeLillo, is being replaced in online communication by a lazy and hasty “whateverism”, where nothing has to adhere to the rationalities of syntax or argument, and where no time is given to clarifying thought.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10616414
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