Tuesday Buzz: A Push for Responsive Work Environments

Let’s say you’ve created a product that has reinvented the work environment for millions of people. What’s your next move?

If you’re Yammer cofounder Adam Pisoni, you go and do it again.

Pisoni, along with Undercurrent CEO Aaron Dignan and other business leaders, recently announced the launch of a new community called Responsive.org  (opens in a new tab), which aims to change the mindset around work.

“Most organizations rely on a way of working that was built (almost 100 years ago) for the challenges and opportunities of the industrial age,” the group noted in a recent press release  (opens in a new tab). “Team structures support routine and static jobs. Hierarchical systems of command and control enable senior leadership to drive efficiency and predictability at the expense of free information flow, rapid learning, and adaptability.”

The basic idea is that businesses need to respond more quickly to changes in the world and to their customers’ needs. And this can’t be done simply by relying on software that provides customer data, Pisoni determined.

“It became really clear that to get the most out of a social tool like Yammer you had to change your business practices,” Pisoni told CMSWire  (opens in a new tab). “The technology wasn’t the hard part of it. We identified the No. 1 problem that organizations are facing is that they are failing to keep up with their own customers. The reason they are failing to keep up with their own customers is specifically around the pace of information.”

The community is off to a strong start, with an active Facebook group  (opens in a new tab) and a Twitter hashtag that’s getting a lot of activity  (opens in a new tab).

If you’re interested in learning more, be sure to check out the organization’s manifesto  (opens in a new tab). It might just inspire you.

Vending Advice

https://vimeo.com/123446077

Carla Balakgie, CAE, knows a thing or two about representing an industry that’s due for an update. As the CEO of the National Automatic Merchandising Association  (opens in a new tab), she is working to give the association, and the industry, a refresh. In a CEO Update interview with George Washington University professor David Rehr, Balakgie explains how she’s doing just that.

A big part of it, she notes, is to make sure you’re devoting the right amount of attention to revamping your message. “It’s an endless commitment that requires endless resources, but it doesn’t mean that it’s all you do,” she notes.

Other Links of Note

Wanna learn a little HTML? The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is offering a free course  (opens in a new tab) for those who want to beef up their skills.

What do you get when you combine a conference and an exhibition? A new word, according to Event Manager Blog. Read on to learn more about the “confibition.”  (opens in a new tab)

Make your event spending go further. Harvard Business Review contributors Frank V. Cespedes and Pankaj Prasad explain how to stretch your marketing dollars  (opens in a new tab).

(iStock/Thinkstock)