05.22.12
Facebook Occupies Wall Street
[Cartoon]
Last week Facebook was the topic of discussion on Wall Street. From seemingly out of nowhere, a social media company holds extremely high value. It made the founder a billionaire and those that had worked to make it successful millionaires.
Facebook is certainly a success story. It started small from an entrepreneur’s idea and has grown to an international organization. The name Facebook is known worldwide. It is used by individuals, families, friends, and businesses as a place to share information. From the perspective of every other business, having a Facebook account is a requirement to share with customers.
So just what is Facebook so successful at doing? They don’t produce anything. They have no supply chain. They have no stores. They appear to have no product to market. They give their services away for free. How could they garner so much value?
Some stated that Facebook is nothing but a fad with no real value. They believe that it will fade away as a dominant social media and be replaced by something newer and better. They believe that investors are wasting money to buy into something so lucrative.
In my opinion, the naysayers are not well informed or they are just plain jealous. They see economics in the form of production and transportation. They don’t understand the enormous value of information. If they do understand, they may be playing the “sour grapes” game. They may believe that the founder and colleagues of Facebook did not work hard enough to earn their phenomenal success. They may believe they just got lucky.
Facebook is a brand. Few educated people on the planet have not heard of Facebook. Most have an account. There is a trust in a brand that allows the organization to go on during good times and bad times. Customers are very forgiving of their favorite brands when they know that the mistakes were made as a result of trying to improve service. Facebook has a lasting brand that will change as the social networks change and endure because it is well known and trusted.
For those that still do not understand how Facebook brings value, they need only to look at the massive amount of aggregated information that Facebook has from its users. They literally have their finger on the pulse of the international economy. They have information that can help producers and transportation providers make better decisions. They have information that can uncover potential markets and uncover potential trends.
Now think of Facebook as a service for a fee that can give a business an opportunity to look into the crystal ball and see the future. It is no wonder Wall Street, which is always trying to predict the future, is so captivated by Facebook.
The Enterprise Architects can see what is coming and are already preparing. They know that this will be their time. Corporations will be able to completely focus on their business, and automation will be viewed as an agile enabler. Automation will finally become the self-service contributor that the Corporate Office has always wanted it to be. –Enterprise Architects Masters of the Unseen City
Closing the Business / IT gap.
