The rise of social decision-making

The Vanity Fair magazine article in August this year pointed out that due to the failure of Microsoft's system design, it missed e-reading and passed on with social networks.

This is not the loss of a Microsoft company, but the collective loss of technology companies. Similar signs have emerged from companies such as Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, and Sharp. The reason is that the leap-forward development of cloud computing, social media, and mobile Internet has profoundly changed the way people understand and communicate. These tech companies still follow traditional rules and actions. As everyone knows, the future of the world depends not on the natural sciences, but on the understanding and communication between our humans.

The "Rule of 150" has been broken. According to the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, human intelligence allows humans to have a relatively stable social network of about 150 people. The development of mobile Internet and social media has revolutionized social networks in terms of breadth, depth, and speed. This infinitely expanded social network not only brings more extensive cooperation among employees, customers, supply chains and even competing partners, but also brings more transparent information and explosive growth of information.

The "self-fulfilling prophecy" effect manifests itself. The sociologist Robert Merton believes that a prophecy that appears to have no basis of facts, once spread in social networks in the form of rumors and rumors, will inevitably arouse the resonance of the public and the response of opinion leaders, thus inciting the public to take action. In the age of the Internet economy characterized by cooperation, social networks, and technical labor, this effect has emerged in an endless stream.

"Micro power, big influence" has become a reality. The tax threshold has been raised from 2,000 yuan to 3,500 yuan, allowing more than 60 million people to no longer pay personal income tax. Netizens submitted more than 230,000 amendment opinions, setting a record for individual legislation soliciting opinions. This is also true in the business area. The “Drain Project” of the Qidong Oji Paper Enterprise in Jiangsu announced “permanent stoppage”, which reflects the influence of Weibo’s power on corporate decision-making. Some companies encounter public relations crisis. Most of them come from the fact that the big rivals are guarded against the reality, and they ignore the "small rivals" in the social media. The dissatisfied customers, the disgruntled employees, their sporadic remarks, and the use of social media platforms have aroused widespread resonance, ultimately damaging the company’s reputation and affecting the company’s decision-making.

The rise of social media has created necessary conditions for social decision-making, and the maturity of some IT companies' big data technologies and services has provided technical means for social decision-making. It can be predicted that strategic decisions led by business elites, relying on experience and intuition, and top-down will come to an end, reflecting the will of the public, using social computing methods, and bottom-up social decision-making. Some multinational corporations have set up chief data officer posts in management, and the Obama administration's implementation of the "big data research and development plan" is a sign of conforming to the trend of social decision-making, and it is also an important choice for transnational technology companies to change their strategic thinking and to rejuvenate.