New Rules of Engagement

(Reposted from OneFeather article – Jan 7, 2014) 

The modern phenomena of engaging your ‘Crowd’ – no matter the size or demographic or source – has become an important paradigm for understanding how an organization creates content for the their online (or digital) presence and manages its engagement through its application design (from mobile phones to website to social media)…all with the hope that its efforts will coalesce in to a collective intelligence that will improve the organizations reach and depth and results.  The challenge though is that the rules of engagement are changing.

It used to be that strategy was King…plan, plan and plan.  Then plan some more…and then execute.  Today more and more successful companies allow tactics to drive strategy – which is a complete reversal of the past ‘best practices’.  Because the modern world digital engagement is shifting so rapidly…and because the new rules of engagement are being made up as the Digital Renaissance rapidly evolves…DO something and then learn from it.  Demonstrate your willingness and ability to be part of the renaissance and your crowd will tell you exactly what you need to know to build a better organization, widget or whatever the case may be.

Some planning is important – obviously…but waiting until the plan is perfect is a recipe for failure – no matter the activity or strategy.  Better to plan just enough to test your assumptions about the strategy…often the very first tactic you execute changes your entire plan because you learned something you didn’t know before (or chose to ignore).  These are dangerous times for companies and organizations who ‘think they got it all figured out’ or even worse figure they will just ‘wait this one out’…do so at your own peril.  Ask the executives from Kodak Inc how that worked out for them.

The more import lesson in my view is that by taking action…launching your tactics and actually doing something…allows us to fail.  Anything worthwhile is worth suffering over, and toiling over…because in the final analysis – this is where we find revelation and discovery.  This is the place where an organization not only becomes inspirational and precious to us individually…it can also change the world.  It’s also the place where stories and lore are created…and in today’s world, if you don’t have a story worth listening too then your enterprise is probably over before it’s even started.

AND that’s another one of the new rules of engagement in the modern digital world!

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Lawrence Lewis
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”
-Thomas A. Edison