Business communication models are a product of the company's size, vision and growth expectations.

A small business has the luxury of face-to-face conversation between all levels of the organization. Business growth necessitates the need for systems, processes, protocol and infrastructure to manage a mass of information sharing.

The mid-90s saw a fast adoption of e-mail services for business. Denial, avoidance and fear quickly turned to “try,” acceptance and reliance. E-mail changed how businesses communicate. We displaced the fax machine. We increased the speed of conversation.

Times change.

Like many large corporations, Best Buy installed systems, processes and protocols during its growth to manage the flow of information, questions and comments from 1,000 stores and 150,000+ field employees to the small group of corporate leaders and departments that make decisions based on what they learn from the field. In like manner, there are systems and protocols for corporate employees to connect with stores.

Such protocols and systems are imperfect. It can be difficult to know “WHO” to talk to. The Game of Telephone comes into play. Messages get lost. Questions get garbled, misunderstood and sometimes lost. When messages do make it up and down the chain, the lag time can be oppressive.

Today, the speed and path of communication has a chance to change at Best Buy. With the help of many others on a team, I will be kicking off a test for connecting teams of employees whose roles are connected to one another but, until now, separated by the hierarchy. The test will leverage the microsharing platform built by Headmix.

Businesses like Best Buy have relied on a hierarchical communication path because that IS what was needed. Perhaps the hierarchy can be set aside. Peers can rely on peers and the protocols can be set aside in the interest of fast, direct contact – unfiltered.

There is every chance that this experiment could fall flat on it's face for any number of reasons: political, internal stigmas, unforeseen barriers. It is a fact that this test is being pressed forward during the most tumultuous economic times of our lives and during a period of major unrest within the ranks of the organization as it is on the eve of pending lay-offs. Yet, company leaders have pressed us to move forward with haste.

Negatives aside – the potential for learning and the impact on the communications model of a large, multi-location corporation is groundbreaking. The implications are broad reaching. Positive learning from this test could help to rewrite how organizations manage the flow of conversation. The hierarchy could be replaced by a network. Leaders can participate and reengage with all levels of the organization. Capacity for innovation and idea vetting can be opened by reducing the need for valuable staff to act as gatekeepers and conversation shepherds.

In reality, the learning that will be gained from this test cannot disprove that networked communications can work to displace the status quo. This test is a first attempt. Networked communications models are coming to enterprise.  

I am excited to see what happens next.  

(I wrote what happens next...)