Yesterday was another great responsive coffee event in Sydney. The event began with my short talk about creating value with social business and working out loud. I shared some insights from the Enterprise Social Collaboration Value Maturity Model as a framework for developing a more responsive culture in an organisation. Then the group dived into a vibrant conversation sharing challenges and opportunities as people work to make their organisations more responsive.
One question I am often asked is ‘what is the value of a Responsivecoffee event?’ Here’s my response:
Connection matters:
People working in change can feel isolated. Simply meeting others doing similar work can make it feel more possible. Connection is the foundation of community. After the session yesterday there were all sorts of new connections established that will support people to do more work faster.
Connection is also important because of the diversity of Responsive Organisation challenges. People attending the event were considering the Responsive organisation approaches from the mindsets of consulting, communications, learning, knowledge management, technology, change, property management and many more functional areas. The connections cut across the boundaries of organisations, products, industries, roles, functions and ambitions of the organisations. All those diverse connects help expand the range of possibilities and enable clients to implement change faster.
Sharing Matters:
The conversation was a treasure trove of insights and shared experiences. That sharing encourages people and enables fast change. Many people are just starting out in the journey of being more responsive and more social. Hearing the stories others shared have them confidence to start and a sense of the possibilities and challenges ahead.
Problem Solving Matters:
Many people brought a practical problem to the table and over coffee leveraged the collective insights of the group to move forward and move faster.
Innovation Matters
Responsive coffee remains an agile experiment in value creation. The formats change to create value for those who are attending from session to session.
We are even seeing new intercompany collaborations and experiments being spun off these events. Participants are going away to work together to create new products and services to help accelerate change and address challenges shared. If you don’t bring people together to explore what might be possible you will never see the next horizon.
The Value of Responsive Coffee is Accelerated Maturity
The benefits of Responsive Coffee reflect that of the Value Maturity Model because a purposeful cup of coffee with other change agents is an act of social collaboration. We need more and richer connection to accelerate change in our organisations and the adoption of new ways of working for value. Value occurs in the rich conversations of social collaboration.
Long live #responsivecoffee.
Image credits:
Coffee: http://pixabay.com/en/coffee-cup-time-meditation-talk-14662/
Photo of Responsive Coffee: Luke Grange
