Reinventing The Wheel
A lot of topics I write about as a freelancer concerns the banking industry. Recently I did a spate of articles on Social Banking, how banks are embracing social media to reinvent their business. And it’s not just social media websites but many of the Web 2.0 tools that banks are using to open up communication channels with customers.
One thing I’ve learned during this economic crisis is that American business has drifted away from creating innovative products people want to buy to creating ways to make more money for the company with less effort. In an article in Business Week a former Harvard Business school professor tackles the problems on Wall Street by having them redirect attention to serving the needs of the customer and instead of serving the needs of the shareholder. Trust is at an all time low for American businesses and the consumer has become empowered int he digital age. This makes for a dire situation for businesses who look to keep the status quo rather than go with the flow. In the article the Harvard Professor, Shoshana Zuboff, proposes that company managers unlearn what they learned in her classroom over the years and embrace the space where individuals actually live, what she calls the I-space.
It’s a good read and a wake-up call for the way we build and run businesses in America as we approach the second decade of the 21st Century. Click to read the article, “The Old Solutions Have Become the New Problems.”