Back in June I blogged about how trends in social media and user generated content are changing how companies are portrayed in the media, and implications for the future.
In brief – and based on the referenced NYT Thomas Friedman column (which in turn was heavily influenced by Dov Seidman’s book “How“) quite literally, the hows – how we behave, how we turn out products, how we comport ourselves in our markets and on our local, national and international stages – are becoming more important than the incidental details that are easy to imitate, like product specs, height, weight, eye color, etc.
Then I ran across this article from Sunday NY Times business section, The Unsung Heroes who Move Product Forward, which describes the role of the uncelebrated art of business process innovation in high profile successes like Google, Apple and Intel.
It seems to me that, since the “Hows” are becoming more important (it is hard to argue with Seidman’s and Friedman’s logic), and the spotlight shines more on the “hows” over the “whats,” BPI will become increasingly important, and should spell good things for vendors that deliver related technologies and consulting services, e.g. business process re-engineering, and rules management suites.
We are yet to fully understand how the aforementioned technological advancements could help us in the longer run, and until we do, it is best that we learn more about the processes and leave it to time.
