As you are undoubtedly aware (unless you live under a big old slimy rock), there’s an important, big-time transformation taking place, that impacts every person and organization.

It unifies and leverages the collective knowledge, talents and capabilities of employees, customers and partners. It drives, generates and delivers more effective collaboration, engagement and productivity. And it’s loaded with a boatload of benefits, opportunities and challenges.

It’s the transformation to —

Be Mobile & Work Social

First, here are some interesting facts:

• 75% define a “mobile/social business” as one that uses mobile and social technologies to foster better collaboration among customers, employees and partners. But only 20% believe their organization is acting “mobile and/or social.”
• 91% of us wake up and reach for our mobile devices
• 70% of U.S. workers are not or are actively disengaged at work
• By the year 2020, it’s estimated that …
  • 40%+ of workforce will be contractors
  • 70%+ of current senior leadership will be retired
  • 70%+ of knowledge workers will be Millenials
  • 28 billion+ “things” connected to the Internet

Do you know what it takes to build, manage and grow as a mobile & social business? Mobile & Social Leaders.

But what exactly is a mobile & social business leader, and why should we care from both a personal and professional perspective?

In a nutshell, a mobile and social business is when organizations leverage social media along with their traditional information technology (aka legacy systems) through mobile technologies and over the cloud.  Moreover — they leverage and incorporate a “Be Mobile, Work Social” mindset, operation and culture.

Special Event Opportunity

While the #BeMobileWorkSocial Amp It Up! Tour is on a summer hiatus, a very special “Hoosier” Amp It Up! meetup is happening this Thursday at Eleven Fifty Academy (aka the home of Scott Jones).

#BeMobileWorkSocial Amp It Up! Tour
Thursday, July 23, 5:15 – 7:30 p.m.

For details and registration, go to www.bemobileworksocial.com today!

By fusing effective mobile and social strategies, technologies and operations across the entire enterprise (internal and external) — you can establish, facilitate and leverage “Systems of Engagement.”

If done right systems of engagement will generate a multitude of qualitative and quantitative benefits-to-revenues, including a more cohesive, collaborative and engaged community of employees, customers and partners, all working in a more accessible, transparent, and enjoyable way than traditional, stodgy, stuck-in-the-mud, “non-social” enterprises. Be Mobile, Work Social will also grow sales, profits and happiness for less hassle, time and costs.

Now, from a mobile and social leadership standpoint, it’s pretty much the same as how it works for a mobile and social business and systems of engagement, except it’s applied in an individual, self-directed way.

In other words, mobile and social leaders use systems of engagement and mobile and social technologies, strategies and mindsets to get their people inspired about their company, job, work and life.

Mobile and social leaders help to produce better performing people, teams and organizations. After all, don’t you want to follow an energizing, transparent mobile and social leader who gets you motivated across all channels of communication (both digital and physical)?

Sure you do.

As far as the top benefits of being a great mobile/social business, those include:

• Leverages Assets
• Encourages Sharing
• Captures Knowledge
• Enables Action
• Incorporates Culture
• Operational Alignment

As far as the top requirements for being a great mobile/social business, those are:

• Define a meaningful purpose
• Establish goals & expectations
• Have an executive sponsor
• Ensure a great user experience
• Make it a team/group sport
• Don’t overanalyze guidelines
• Provide education and training
• Measure adoption and returns
• Recognize achievements
• Embrace it, and have fun

The good news is that those benefits and requirements aren’t new or uncommon are they? Frankly, they’re pretty old-school — been around for many decades. Indeed, they’re not some funky, new-fangled, pie-in-the-sky, born-on-the-web, only applicable to mobile and social business and leadership qualities that “older folks” (aka non Millennials) can’t get their heads around.

Nope.

Which is why everyone (especially those in leadership roles) can rally on being a mobile and social business leader.  If you think about it, all you really have to do is take your physical leadership capabilities, (assuming you have some of those already), and digitally sync them with your personal mobile and social media, and enterprise systems of engagement.

And do it now, if you’re not already.

Unless of course, you like to live with a bag over your head. Or worse, give your people solutions that make them feel like this:

Seriously, start now. Get going. Do what you can. With what you have.

Because after all, you just can’t keep doing “business-as-usual” or worse, wait it out and hope this whole “mobile and social thing” just goes away. You have heard about the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Heck, that’s like waiting for Godot, and you know what happened there (hint: he never showed).

Mobile & Social Business Leaders Are Good.

Scott Abbott is the Managing Partner of Straticos, an Indianapolis-based strategy, operations, business development and leadership support firm. Over the course of his 20+ year career, Scott has successfully consulted, partnered with, and implemented solutions for hundreds of early-stage, midsize and Fortune 1000 companies. He’s also started, purchased and sold several software and services companies, and raised over $10M in venture capital. Scott is the creator and host of the #BeMobileWorkSocial Amp It Up! Tour. Connect with Scott on LinkedIn & Twitter @scottabbottabc.