Big day today, something important has happened in the online/digital services sector. I’ve been involved in it for the best part of 15 years now and periodically something happens close to me that I believe will have an important and potentially significant impact.
My pals at Headshift have announced today that they are becoming part of the Dachis group. In the emerging field of social business design, this is really big news. As Lee and Livio, the founders of Headshift, have compellingly demonstrated over the last six years, collaborative tools, enterprise 2.0, social media and a whole host of other related emergent activities, such as user-centred and network-centric design, agile programming and project management methods – all innovative ingredients, are generating new design and service frameworks that are now legitimate. To me, they’re at the forefront of a business movement that is as they say moving beyond early stage experimentation.
What I’ve experienced first-hand and continue to admire about Headshift is their commitment to principles and practices that are congruent and represent a vision. Headshift’s readme.doc from 2003 continues to resonate. It’s not often easy engaging in pioneering activity and committing to innovation is something that’s vital for most businesses in order to evolve, but few have the bravery and long-term vision to embrace in my experience to date.
There’s lots more to do to realise the group’s vision of smarter, simpler, social businesses but that’s the whole point. Social Business Design as Headshift and Dachis group call it, sums up the learnings and the potential – from the early stages of the journey, from the birth of the accessible internet, through it’s recent social awakening, to how this continues to evolve into the everyday system and lifeworld.
