11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era - Merchant (2012)

Nilofer Merchant has served as a CEO and then a board member of a NASDAQ-traded company.  She has also consulted with numerous Fortune 500 companies including HP, Nokia, Adobe, Symantec and Yahoo!  She is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review and has written a previous book entitled, The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy.  She lectures on innovation and marketing at Stanford University.

11 Rules begins with an obituary for "Traditional Strategy."  This clever personification of the business model taught in business schools throughout the nation prizes marketing data, stability, control and scale.  The Traditional Strategy decides what it wants to produce and then sets about convincing the consumer that they want or need it.

Merchant contends that we have moved into a new "Social Era" where consumers expect to be co-creators of products. They require businesses to be agile and responsive to their wants and needs.  Businesses run using the Traditional Strategy are ill-equipped to meet these new demands.

Merchant states that "the Social Era is about connecting things, people and ideas." Hierarchical controls, large inventories and huge payrolls, typical of successful companies using the Traditional Strategy, serve as barriers to success in this new era.

As in much of the literature on motivation and innovation today, Merchant stresses the need to establish shared purpose among workers.   She states that purpose is a much more powerful motivator than money.  When shared purpose is coupled with shared power, people will self-organize to reach a goal.

The Rules

1. Connections create value.
2. Power in community.
3. Collaboration > controle.
4. Celebrate Onlyness.
5. Allow all talent.
6. Consumers become co-creators.
7. Mistakes can build trust.
8. Learn. Unlearn. (Repeat).
9. Bank on openess.
10. Social purpose unleashes ownership.
11. There are no answers.