I’ve mentioned it before; hierarchy within companies something of the past rather than a sustainable structure for the future. I’ve seen companies struggle with structure when social media made its way into peoples lives, changing the way we connect to one another. Changing the way we can express thoughts, our ideas, our knowledge through these new networks of likeminded and interconnected individuals. The old structure of enterprises is not fit to handle this new socially structured, real-time communication.

In the same way I see companies struggle with the concepts of innovation and creation. To be able to compete with these well connected individuals and smaller startups that dominate the new social networks and platforms, innovation and creation becomes a must have rather than just focus on scale and cost reduction. Their very structure block the ability to create and foster an environement for innovation; an open platform like structure rather than an heavily layered hierarchy.

The social hubs and innovation teams that that are formed within the existing structures, often autonomous teams of connected individuals of different expertise are the first small step to a totally changed and much needed new structure rather than the current deeply layered hierarchy that companies still are. Although many companies are still not seeing the need to change the entire inner culture and structure, these first steps in creating social hubs and innovation labs in order to survive they are the onset to radical and much needed change in the way enterprises function now. No more silos and long chains of command; the connectes individual thrives in an environment with direct connections and cross organizational teams that can make decisions ( up to a certain level) on their own and take responsibility of their own.

Marina Gorbis spoke at The Next Web about how she sees the way people are connected changing; this is affecting not only our social structure and interaction but also education, the government and companies.