Strategic Aggregation
Designs
Harnessing the Promise of
Social Networks for Business
Operations
Passageways PowWOW
Advanced User and Developer Conference
May 7-9, 2008
Presented by
Randy Karnes, CEO
Mutual Interests
 It was only natural that CU*Answers would seek
out a portal technology provider like Passageways
for a partner based on our own evolution and
current goals:
– Build business networks that create strategies, tactics,
and activities across organizational boundaries
– Leverage the talent of the resulting business network
for both our participating organizations and our
participating professionals
– Leverage the opportunities of the resulting business
network both as a solution provider and a vested
aggregator
Fancy words and high falutin’ ideas for simply
wanting to do more with our partners and
increase our relevance to their business plans
and to their customers
Building Business
Networks
Creating strategies, tactics,
and activities across
organizational boundaries
Improving On Standalone Concepts
 Organizations who network their capabilities can
gain a competitive advantage
 They need a network with 3 key components:
– A technical “highway” that coordinates transactions
and interactions
– Organized and rich content that is accessible and
actionable by all
– Sufficient aggregation to create a formidable market
presence
 It all starts with the idea that a business will
leverage its commonalities with partners for
everyone’s advantage
It’s simple: be more, do more, and
appear larger than you could as a
standalone player
Amplifying Commonalities
 The things that organizations share in common
provide the spark for pursuing alliances and
network solutions
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Common vision and beliefs
Common vendors
Common tools
Common customers
Common goals
 The relative importance of these commonalities to
the success of their business plans creates the
intensity and commitment to network solutions
Think about this User Group: you come together
around some shared practices, but do you execute
on those practices as a network,
or as standalone operators?
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
Point to Point
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
What is the
opportunity, and
where is it
focused?
Point to Point
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
A Hub
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
What is the
opportunity, and
where is it
focused?
A Hub
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
A Network
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
What is the
opportunity, and
where is it
focused?
A Network
Hubs and Nodes
Business Networks Around a Common Vendor or Platform
 Which is bigger?
The opportunity
of one, or the
opportunity of
all?
 A network
multiplies the
work of one into
an opportunity
for all of its
participants
Harnessing the Promise of Social Networks
Around Business Operations
 Ultimately, this network business design works
when the environment (eco-system) creates the
belief in the minds of its participants that their very
participation in the network gives them a
competitive advantage by
– Helping them harvest the benefits of scale that were
previously beyond their reach
– Surrounding them with accessible innovation that is
easily actioned at a lower cost
– Magnifying their opportunities and creating the
potential for positive (though unspecified) new
directions
Simply put: the business designer believes this is
the place to be...this is my connection to the crowd
that will take me to the next level
Leveraging Talent
CU*Talent:
Evolving on social
aggregation as a business
strategy for getting the most
out of human resources
Rethinking Human Resources
at the Organizational Level
 “How many people work for you?”
– What has changed that might influence how a CEO in 1988
would answer that question, compared to a CEO in 2008?
Networks and the mindset of employees who know how
to use them
 “How do you see the talents available to your
organization?”
– What has changed that might influence how a CEO in 1988
would answer that question, compared to a CEO in 2008?
Networks and the mindset of employees who know how
to use them
 So have networks and the mindset related to using
networks for access to talent and people changed
the way your organization thinks about human
resources strategies and tactics?
Think about your personal contacts...they might add up
to more talent than a large company in 1988
Rethinking Human Resources
at a Personal Level
 How will tomorrow’s employee react to classic
career challenges?
 They will bring their network to work with them
every day
– When the boss asks them to find a new solution to a
constant challenge...they will use their network
– When they need an edge to get that next
promotion...they will use their network
– When they need a new opportunity...they will use
their network
 So when employees bring their network to work
and truly understand the advantages they have at
being adept in using networks, will your business
plan leverage this new perspective?
Think about your personal contacts...you have an edge
on someone who still works like they did in 1988
Rethinking Human Resources
 Imagine the revolution in trying to get
organizations with top-down control thinking to
embrace social network concepts
–
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Open environment with little governance
Easy, quick communications
Rich user identities (personalization, vanity, etc.)
Reputation/ranking mechanisms
Cliques
New social network metrics (betweenness, closeness,
centrality, clustering coefficient, etc.)
 How can we translate these ideas into winning
business models?
CU*Talent
 At CU*Answers, we are anticipating using our
business network design to enhance both our
participating organizations and their employees’
situations by leveraging a new mindset about HR
and the collective talents of a network
 Goals for CU*Talent
–
–
–
–
–
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–
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Connecting people
Creating opportunity
Sharing knowledge
Source of intellectual capital
Collaboration, collective exchange of ideas
Alternative resource allocation
Individualized career development
Potential for reduced people expenses
CU*Talent
 We need to design a network that can capture the
power of talent—no matter where it is in our
network—to innovate, execute, and earn beyond
anything we’ve ever seen
 Build an expectation of leveraging both employees
and their peers and contacts
 Our Passageways partnership gives us the potential
to design a unique environment for credit union
professionals that will be compelling, contagious,
and a place where they will want to do business
We plan to leverage the power of a single Intranet
against the Intranets of a hundred organizations and let
3,000 employees be visible to each other
CU*Talent Network
CU*Talent Network
CU*Talent Network
CU*Talent Network
 Ideally, the community servers create an
environment where employees inside a credit union
are partnered with employees anywhere in the
network
 The community server represents a common
environment, set of tools, and business concept that
facilitate a shared activity – a ready-made ecosystem to facilitate a new shared business
– It will start with CU*Answers at the center of new
business initiatives
– It will come to fruition when any participant feels
empowered to go into business or sell their talents
throughout the network
Is your business read to extend services to your
peers? Are you digitally defined, connected, and
ready to bring on your first client?
CU*Talent Network:
Peer to Peer Connectivity
Harnessing the Promise of Social Networks
Around People and Their Talents
 Ultimately, this network business design works
when the environment (eco-system) creates the
belief in the minds of its participants that their very
participation in the network gives them a
competitive advantage by
– Helping them harvest the benefits of scale that were
previously beyond their reach
– Surrounding them with accessible innovation that is
easily actioned at a lower cost
– Magnifying their opportunities and creating the
potential for positive (though unspecified) new
directions
Simply put: employees and leaders believe this is
the place to be...this is their connection to the
crowd that will take them to the next level
Leveraging Opportunity
Leveraging classic
investments
for new gains
We All Have the Same Problem
 Every business designer builds networks within
their organization (node) with the following focuses
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Servicing the corporation
Servicing the employees
Servicing the customer
Servicing the partner
 Classically, we’re taught to build these
environments for ourselves, standalone and selfcontained
 If we are to take advantage of strategic aggregation
designs, our organizations need to be ready to plug
and play with network resources
By design, you must be seen by the market as a
network-ready talent – a business ready to be at the
center of collaboration in this new marketplace
Are You Relevant to the
Network’s Needs?
 What role might you play in these classic network
needs for potential partners?
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Servicing the corporation
Servicing the employees
Servicing the customer
Servicing the partner
 Do you have ideas to contribute? Process designs
to contribute? Talent to contribute? Customer
opportunity? Excess capacity? Connectivity?
 Are you building a business ready to earn through
network contribution and interaction?
We believe our partnership with Passageways and
our projects related to business networks and
CU*Talent are designed around completing our
resumé as a network catalyst
Building Rich IT Environments
Servicing the
Corporation
Digitized corporate
intelligence and business
process content
Various software
applications, but major
component is the
intranet
Servicing the
Employees
Coordinating talent,
administrative
interactions, and a social
culture
Various software
applications, but major
component is the
intranet
Servicing the
Customer
Communicating value,
completing transactions,
and interacting with the
consumer marketplace
Dominated by core
processing solutions
and Internet
connections to the
marketplace
Developing node-to-hub
connectivity resources
and creating an insideout/ outside-in focus
Starts with an open
business mindset and a
toolbox full of XML,
TCP/IP and other
network-ready
components
Servicing the
Partner
Building Rich IT Environments
Servicing the
Corporation
Digitized corporate
intelligence and business
process content
CU*Answers and
Passageways
Servicing the
Employees
Coordinating talent,
administrative
interactions, and a social
culture
CU*Answers and
Passageways
Servicing the
Customer
Communicating value,
completing transactions,
and interacting with the
consumer marketplace
CU*Answers and
It’s Me 247 online
banking
Servicing the
Partner
Developing node-to-hub
connectivity resources
and creating an insideout/ outside-in focus
The inspired business
architect...YOU
CU*Answers
Conclusion
 We’re happy to be part of this new network –
advanced users of Passageways
 It is the next step in our working to harvest the
potential of networks for CU*Answers and our
partners
 It’s easy to see the potential in collaboration; it’s
easy to feel good about cooperation; it’s to see that
something is going on with social networks and
aggregation sites on the Internet
 What can be hard is translating something that
appears to be so easy into a competitive advantage
for our industry
 That takes work – and we’re dedicated to the effort