About a month back, I caught via Twitter a blog post by a former Twitter employee, Alex Payne. He shared his thoughts about the #newtwitter, the site's role changing in users' lives and that it would be his last post about Twitter. Great read, but what really caught my attention were two quotes about decentralization.
"Twitter needs to decentralize or it will die. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even in a decade, but it was (and, I think, remains) my belief that all communications media will inevitably be decentralized"
"Decentralization isn’t just a better architecture, it’s an architecture that resists censorship and the corrupting influences of capital and marketing."
Both statements may be a little foreboding, but they are grounded in aspects of reality. While Alex was focusing on the decentralization of Twitter as a business versus a medium, the centralization versus decentralization argument has been going on within organizations for decades. In my world, the debate has been within the marketing function of a business.
A centrally shared services group allows for collaboration and consistency. They can streamline messaging and branding. The group can identify and leverage best practices, maximize efficiencies in operations and resources, and minimize any duplication of communication efforts and service purchases.
The decentralized units hold the knowledge and expertise for their respective business and most understand their audience. They are product experts and market specialists. They truly own the content and marketing programs that can deliver on meeting business goals.
I've been in marketing organizations that have been centralized and in ones that have been decentralized; and in an organization that has been both at different times. You can find success in either, but the ideal organizational structure is a hybrid model. It can provide the benefits of each without many of the cons. This is where I have seen the best of both worlds come together.
It is difficult to deliver on though. Much of it depends on the culture and the people within the organization. Both need to be collaborative. If successful, a hybrid of centralized and decentralized services leads to a coordinated, yet empowered organization. It will be the structure of which most organizations will need to be to succeed in the near future.
No comments:
Post a Comment