social business

Corporate Reporting Just Got a Whole Lot More Compelling

by Stephen on June 29, 2011 · 0 comments

in Blog,Homepage,News,Press Release

June 28, 2011 – Freeworld Media announced today the publication of the report titled Corporate Storytelling and Your CSR Strategy.

The report is co-authored by Jesse Mayhew, founder of CSRcopy, and Sean Wood, founder and CEO of Freeworld Media. The report is their shared response to the most common questions and concerns they hear from their respective clients.

“Today, the number of corporations revising their criteria of values and their definitions of success is truly beginning to snowball,” said Jesse Mayhew. “Each year more and more organizations are adding to their CSR and Sustainability communications efforts to help prove and measure their commitment to the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.”

“This is happening at the same time that corporations are beginning to adapt new marketing methods more suited to digital media.” added Freeworld CEO Sean Wood. “Often companies are failing to combine their new media and social responsibility efforts, despite the fact that the two could be greatly beneficial to one another.”

Throughout Corporate Storytelling and your CSR Strategy, Mayhew and Wood share many of their trade secrets and best practices. Report topics include Keys to Effective CSR Storytelling, Common CSR Plots, and Creating Shared Value Through Storytelling. In addition the report gives solid advice as to how CSR and sustainability stories can achieve massive popularity, as well as how organisations can keep track of their reputation via social media. This report will aid organizations in bringing the full force of their creativity to bear into their cause marketing strategies. The report is available entirely free of charge at FreeworldMedia.com.

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Ford talks about Social Responsibility plans

by Sean Wood on March 3, 2011 · 0 comments

in Blog

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Photo Credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED

Yesterday at TED 2011, Bill Ford gave an excellent talk about how his company plans to adapt to our rapidly changing world.  Ford has identified sustainability as a long-term priority and makes a clear business case for reducing resources and creating more innovative products and technologies.  At TED, he spoke about a ”Global Gridlock” expected to grow as the global population increases with more of the world’s population moves to major urban areas and people in developing countries experience increased income levels.  This means that as people buy more cars, we can expect an increase in traffic and parking issues.  Having the foresight to adjust the business strategy to the changing times, Ford is looking at the future of transportation and I commend their foresight.

Keep in mind that Ford was the only major American car maker that didn’t take a government bailout package during the recession.

Doing Good and Social Media Success

There is a connection between social responsibility and social media success.  Recently at the SoCon11 Conference in Atlanta, Ford Product Marketing Manager, Sam De La Garza talked about Ford’s social media success with the Ford Fiesta Movement.  Ford has experienced growth in troubled times by paying attention to environmental and social concerns and they have also shot past their competition in terms of social media success.  But why?

We’ve found that socially responsible companies that care about their customers, their employees and their impact on the world are more open to adopting social technology as a driver for success.

(TED Photo used under Creative Commons license)

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Responsible Social Business

by Sean Wood on February 18, 2011 · 0 comments

in Blog

Sean Wood at SoCon11

Sean Wood speaking at SoCon11

At the recent SoCon conference, I talked about why Socially Responsible businesses have an advantage in Social Media.  My presentation, called “Responsible Social Business“ was inspired by Freeworld’s digital and social media work with our consumer brand clients.

We’ve found that when companies have evolved to a point where they realize their corporate responsibility, they are quicker to understand the power that social technology can add to their business.

So ultimately, socially responsible companies do well in social media because they better understand the “social” part of business.  Leaders that recognize how their company impacts society are able to make deeper connections with their customers.






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Sean to speak at SoCon 2011

by Sean Wood on January 31, 2011 · 0 comments

in Blog

SoCon 2011I’ll be speaking at SoCon 2011 this Saturday – Februrary 5th about how social business can be optimized beyond technology for more humanized business.

This event will be highly interactive so if you plan on attending, please check out the Google Moderator area where you can ask questions and take a poll before the conference. Here’s what I’ll be yapping about…

Why Socially Conscious Corporations See Better Results in Social Media: Improving Social Business by Doing Good

Sean Wood, Founder and CEO of Freeworld Media
Recently, we’ve all seen how companies can lose public trust and employee morale with just a few missteps. Find out why doing business in the 21st century requires a greater social responsibility than ever before and how the social web is accelerating this shift.

Beyond the technology side of the social web is the human component that needs to be better understood. Socially conscious companies benefit by creating a people-centric culture that listens, communicates and empathizes. Learn how companies can increase their bottom line by connecting with their customers, investors, employees and communities to inspire greater shared value and encourage trust.

In this breakout we will discuss:

  • Respect for consumers power
  • Creating a people-centric culture
  • Having a purpose beyond profit
  • Taking a sustainable approach to business

Here is the list of other speakers at the event and the agenda.

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Business Value through Social Intelligence

by Sean Wood on April 28, 2010 · 0 comments

in Blog

When most companies get started with social media, they make it the responsibility of marketing, PR, or even customer service. To achieve maximum business results, new social processes need be implemented across the entire organization.

The web has given a voice to consumers and the tables are turning in real-time.  Recently, we have witnessed industries collapse (energy, financial, auto, real estate and even government) at a time when the public’s voice has become more powerful.  Freeworld Media is taking a new approach in answering these evolving complexities.

“We need to close the gap between what science knows and what business does.” – Daniel Pink

Change is happening and the problems aren’t going to be solved by doing things the way they’ve always been done. So here comes social media… it’s fun and easy to use, but most important to the enterprise is the knowledge found through the social web. By tapping into these open data streams of information, we can better understand how to adopt to the new reality. Ultimately, success will come to those organizations that integrate humanized technology as part of their culture — to engage customers, employees, and stay ahead of the competition.

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” -Peter Drucker

New Organization Models

Recently at the Social Business Summit, leaders from social media gathered to explore the topic of “social business design”.  The Dachis Group describes social business design as “the intentional creation of dynamic and socially calibrated systems, process, and culture.”

Managing Complexity through Systems Thinking

Successful organizations need a way to adapt to an increasingly changing and moving world.  As we look for a more strategic approach to understanding the nature of system constraints and interactions, we look to Complex Adaptive Systems.  Wikipedia describes these complex systems as “diverse and made up of multiple interconnected elements (and so a part of network science) and adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience.”  Systems thinking requires a new set of leadership skills to manage the challenges of a complex adaptive system.

“We are shifting from a world where the key source of strategic advantage was in protecting and extracting value from a given set of knowledge stocks — into a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledge flows, which are constantly being renewed.”- Thomas Friedman

Networked Organization Benefits

• Becoming more responsive and adaptive.
• Leveraging the crowd through open data streams.
• Serving the customer through rapid communication and response.
• Expanding the collective knowledge of the enterprise by tapping into the network.
• Preventing disruption by understanding the impact of failing pieces and how to minimize those risks.

Holistic Approach

Complex adaptive system is the study of natural systems – how they interact, adapt, and survive over time.  Organizational responsiveness to adaptive change is both multidisciplinary and strategic in nature.  By understanding how social, political and cultural landscapes affect the complex adaptive system, the enterprise can extend their capacity to plan, implement and create results.   Look to social network intelligence technology to radically transform business in the 21st century.

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Pure Imagination

by Sean Wood on April 21, 2010 · 1 comment

in Blog

AT&T just launched a massive re-branding effort called “Rethink Possible” that delivers an optimistic response to the economic downturn.  It’s been a rough ride lately and most people are re-evaluating what’s really important to them… both professionally and personally. This AT&T spot reminds you to wake up your inner-dreamer and imagine things with a fresh perspective. It also helps that they pull on the heartstrings of an entire generation by using the Willy Wonka song (sung by Gene Wilder).

“Too big for its britches”

It’s not that big business is a bad thing, it just needs to be adjusted to become more humanized.  There’s a great idea from Seth Godin called “small is the new big.” What we’re seeing now is the pendulum swinging from a broken corporate world back to a more traditional way of doing business.   Personalized customer service is now possible through the social web.  Think about the connections our grandparents’ generation had with their local businesses.   They knew the people at the market and the drugstore and it was those connections that strengthened the community and kept business honest. You couldn’t cheat your neighbor and still see them at church on Sunday. This doesn’t mean we’re all going back to the farm (although we certainly need to support our local farmers) but it’s possible to achieve intimacy at scale through technology.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle

Somewhere between over-sized corporate greed and the nonprofit world, we will find the definition of sustainable social business. Keep in mind, the corporation wasn’t given to us by God or anything… it was made up by some guys a hundred something years ago during the Industrial Age.  Now it’s our responsibility to fix what’s broken.

The good news

Through social technology, we can create the kind of world we want to live in. Already we keep in touch with our friends’ lives better than we have in years because of Facebook…. Your business colleague in Europe that just sent you the YouTube clip of his kid’s first steps?   That old friend from high school?…your Mom?

The Business Opportunity

We are witnessing a historic shift unfold in real-time as business becomes more humanized.  Using open data streams, the intelligent enterprise will be able to scale globally by customizing their product for local populations.  It may sound impossible, but this a new reality for the progressive technology-enabled business.   And ultimately, companies will achieve the greatest success by the providing positive social value to local communities.

By the way, AT&T…
I’m still optimistic you’ll stop dropping my calls.

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