Special Sauce for 2012

Maybe it's the New Year. Maybe it's because I've been recently inspired by a number of great professionals (like AT&T sharing what they are doing with their TSpace or hearing more about LinkedIn and Google+ from IABC and The Exchange). Maybe it's just my dumb optimism. But for sure, I am struck: 2012 is setting up to  be THE transformational year for business communicators. 

Why now? Why not 2010 or 2011 (when it seemed every month there was a new social tool to learn about?) because...

It's clear now a dozen social computing tools have hit their tipping point. Like blogging, wikis, polls, social networking, profile pages, blogs, RSS feeds, bookmarking, and or photo/ video share.  These are all now widely recognized (even by CEOs and HRs). Can you even remember the last time you had to explain what a blog was? 

Secondly, many large companies have deployed these tools, at least many that I have connected with... Sure, adoption can be low and in many cases people don't realize what they do and don't have available to them. But I think that's part of the opportunity for 2012.

Third in 2012 smart businesses are ready to evolve from the organic phase of exploration that has held us for the last two years.  In 2012, businesses need more maturity, more precision in how social tools should be applied.  The trick will be to do it well. 

Now its time for communicators and business analysts to get down to what we are good at: 

- understanding the business

- looking at how work happens through processes

- seeing where & how different stakeholders connect 

The opportunity for 2012 is in helping our businesses bravery redefine how work happens  so that it is more fun, more satisfying and produces better results by applying social media tools.