The weekly round up:

  • Musing about sharing and social in business – confused of calcutta – "Businesses exist to create customers" (Drucker). "They are organised into firms in order to reduce transaction costs" (Coase).
    JP explores the potential of social media to reduce business transaction costs within the trust frameworks found in social networks, and adds some substance to the arguments that networks are increasingly the "business structure" that will be most effective in a cognition rich working environment.
  • Australia: Get Real! | winehero – Some interesting points from Paul, formerly head of Wine Australia, specifically aimed at wine marketers, but probably applicable more generally. Couple of things I particularly liked: "value" is determined by the customer, not the producer (and it's not directly related to price); and "over-deliver" probably means you have failed to position and price your product appropriately …
  • Driving Change: Eight Learnings. | Reinventing – For all that we preach the necessity of change, we usually sugar-coat the process. But change is messy, scary and uncomfortable, so how we approach it has to acknowledge those things, and is critical to effecting change.
  • You Have the Power to Choose Prosperity – Next time you buy a Big Mac, think about the future you're creating, and the past you're squandering. We make our future with the small decisions we make every hour of every day – maybe it's time we thought just a little harder about them.
  • Implementing Social: don't use the C-word – In which Martijn sounds off about the "silver bullet" nature of most of the current crop of "Social Business" advocates, and the distinct aroma of wagon-jumping hanging around them. I'm a little less cynical than Martijn about social business, but agree there's a lot of snake oil being sold, and a lot of baseless promises made.