Description
Culture has long been considered marginal to the functional areas of business, but in the digital age culture is the new corporate interface. This article addresses common misconceptions about culture and suggests that we view it as information, while assuming that information makes and destroys communities. Firms must devise cultural strategies that allow them to deal with the communities that make up their ecosystem and take advantage of the digital age. Culture and trade have always gone hand in hand, and firms like Google, Facebook and Amazon have anticipated and capitalized on changes that have turned culture — information that affects our behaviour — into the most decisive asset for business. Nowadays many human activities occur almost entirely in digital format. Google, Facebook and Amazon all share the capacity to create communities where people make payments within a closed, secure environment. To successfully transition into a culture-oriented company, firms should remember that culture is a company’s interface with stakeholders that must be dealt with in terms of information and behaviours. Firms must focus both on individuals that produce and consume information, and also community members who share information and respond to a flock dynamic. Converting relevant business data into meta-information about the behaviour of individuals and groups is fundamental to aligning the organization with its objectives and processes.