I recall when I did a lot of research on when companies innovate. It follows a bell curve. Basically, companies that are in their infancy are entrepreneurial and thriving with innovative ideas and experimenting with their company’s culture. Then the company’s innovation plateaus.

Innovation surges again near the death of a company, often when it is too late or the company becomes a shell of what they used to be. They get truly innovative when they can no longer coast on what made them strong to begin with so they fight to survive.

Being a ‘social business’ is a radical change and one customers are coming to expect more and more. Though to be fair social media’s impact on business is still small, but it is growing and consumers are more and more getting online to engage with companies on many levels. Smart companies will innovate in a way you outlined above. Expecting them all to become Zappos or some other hot company who has adapted social business is as you say very hard.

Anyway great post.

intereastingly i sense it amplifies in 2 distinct ways
- activates megaphone — (aka reminds me i have a voice (megaphone shifted from mass communication methods to me))
- increases range of megaphone to anyone+anywhere+anytime

for me, my thinking is currently, the channel is COMMUNITY
and that typically happens offline
so community is not profit driven
its about being human, living, sharing, growing and helping
instrinic qualities.

—
brands are external things
external constructs
a tool ‘to be cool’
if cool matters to you

—
so I’m with “Nick Taylor” who replied first to this post
“being authentic”, being genuine is KING.
no more faking it.
enough is really enough.

the power of word of mouth — power of community
is resurging

Nike’s comment was:
“A race against time then… maybe… because coming the other way, is this possibility that “brands” are utterly meaningless constructs.

Brands are just stories about companies that don’t actually do what they say they do. They want to be “transparent”… they need to be, to have any degree of authenticity… but they outsource production, they outsource design, they outsource marketing… all they’re really doing is borrowing money and running a spreadsheet.

Brands? Brands are fake. Brands suck. Nobody cares about brands.
“

the impact of “possibility exist/not” on the “influence” dynamic, increases at an exponential rate the more the individual becomes self-aware. e.g. own their own thinking, understanding how they think, what causes thinking, understands paradigms, can be observer versus ABSORBER of life… blah blah blah…

so I sense … shifting the focus a little bit back… before the “influencer of purchase”…. will bring greater results