Social Sector Shows Business How it's Done :: BC Business Mag

I was interviewed about 3 months ago for a case study to be published in BC Business Magazine. The authour, Tony Wanless, is a smart guy who does his own corporate consulting in addition to writing a regular column and being a prolific blogger on business issues and trends.

While BC Business is focused on a business minded audience, Tony felt that the social sector was onto something and thus had something to teach traditional business people about how to reach, engage, and activate constituents. And in particular the innovation and results that we are seeing with groups who are embracing the new participative, 2-way web.

It's a short piece and I've learned a lot about what it takes to really succeed in the Web 2.0 world since the interview, but overall I think he nailed it fairly well. I particularly liked his 3 "lessons" at the bottom of the article:

Lessons:

• It's about community. Every organization today, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, centres around a community of the interested. This is much easier to do with new Web-based community-building tools.
• It's about collaboration. The new participative Web has destroyed the traditional command-and-control or direct-distribution system. Learn how to talk with people instead of to them.
• It's about change. Like many small businesses, member-based organizations can be very nimble and quick to embrace change. In fact, because they're usually fuelled by passion, they are often quicker.

Check it out and let me know if you agree.