The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social

Chapter 1. Engineer a New Bedrock

successful adoption of a social web and participation strategy is rooted in business culture as much as it is business operations.

Your company culture consists of two key elements: your businesses' underlying intent and the people you bring together to carry it out. Together, the people and the purpose of your organization intertwine to make up the core of what you do.

Today, there are more windows into your company's culture than ever before. Your intent is seen, heard, and felt by employees, prospective employees, customers, prospective customers, media, competitors, and more. The rise of the Internet makes it possible for people to know your culture, or at least guess at it, based on a stream of clues emanating from your business and your people.

A trusting, open-minded culture is one of the key factors in embracing and harnessing the potential of the social web.

What You're Made Of: Harnessing Intent

Having a great business or product to sell is important. But if you've truly got something of value to offer, the how and why you go about doing that are every bit as critical as the what.

What's your motivation for creating this product in the first place? How do you want people to feel when they do business with you? Ze Frank, an exuberant and creative speaker and thinker about marketing and culture, defines a brand as "the emotional aftertaste that's conjured up by, but not necessarily dependent on, a series of experiences." It's a definition that ...