The Social Organisation Manifesto

Triggered by a conversation on Twitter between Christopher Carfi and David Armano, the former of who is joining the latter at Edelman, I was led to a blog post of Jon Lebkowsky which finally led me to David's post on the Social Business Manifesto

There. I read it, commented, and am now writing this - because it's still gnawing at me
Here's David's text:

• We will no longer view you as "consumers". Instead, you are co-creators, participants, and advocates
• We will actively listen, and participate authentically because we know you demand nothing less
• We will meet you on your terms, not ours
• We will provide value, not noise
• We will evolve our workforce to meet the changing demands of a networked economy
• We will focus on your needs vs. our messages
• We will build relationships that connect us in ways where we all benefit
• We will act ethically and transparently, because it's no longer a choice
• We will respond to changes quickly—we will adapt
• We will move forward with you, not without you, because you are our future

(I couldn't resist the urge the remove the periods at the end of each line. Sorry)

My comment on this:

I love it - and very much dislike it at the same time.
The focus on the customer is great, but who is the 'we' you are talking about all the time?
It is your company. And your company consists of employees, all of them. Who are described as the 'workforce' that will be 'evolved'
Not-so-social if you ask me, but I might still read this with the eyes of a consultant in a 100+K employees company - although I recently decided to become self-employed
Turning objections into improvements though, I'll try to make a Social Organisation Manifesto out of this, if you don't mind - the combined Three might form the pillars for the future #evilplans

So, here goes: The Social Organisation Manifesto

• We will no longer view you as "employees". Instead, you are co-creators, participants, and ambassadors of our customers for our company, and vice versa
• We will actively listen, and participate authentically because we know you offer great value
• We will meet you on the verge of where your terms meet ours - because they differ but also do overlap
• We will provide value, not noise - while you shower us with positive criticism
• We will have one management layer for every power of ten people to meet the changing demands of a hiveminded organisation
• We will focus on facilitating you in your making our customers happy
• We will engage in relationships that connect us in ways where we all equally benefit
• We will act ethically and transparently because we respect eachother and are all humans
• We will respond to changes quickly - we will adapt
• We will move forward with you, not without you, because you are closest to the customer

And let's be honest, you are in the majority outweighing us hugely. Were did we ever get the arrogance to think that we might be superior to you?

We're sorry, could we start again please?