The World Wide Web is the network and the organization. It is not your website which is important, reaching your customers is.
Organizations came into being because for certain issues that people related to and organized themselves in groups. Generally, groups are more effective than individuals on their own. A key feature of a traditional organization is that it has the use of buildings and other tools of organization.
The very basic tool is simple the boardroom where the board can meet and discuss their issues. There is also the availability to use other meeting rooms and it has offices where employees can do their work. Also within this physical structure are other tools of the organization such as phone/fax system, filling system (including filing cabinets) and many more. These tools where created to keep the organizational transfer information clearly and consistently, and keeping records of such activity and communications easily accessible.
The Web makes the tools of organization cheap and widely available. This is a major revolution and a huge power shifts. It was not that long ago that the ability to have a conference call with a group of people was only available if you worked with or within a large organization. Now you can do it for free online using Skype.
Now even the general public has the ability to create their own organizations, online, and that’s what they are doing with their websites, on FaceBook and on MySpace. Now they can even tweet about it on twitter.
Traditional organizations are not used to this and they don’t like it. They are used to organizing. Governments are used to coming up with policies and procedures which citizens are then supposed to adhere to. Citizens are supposed to learn government language and how government works.
If your product and/or service are being discussed in the blogosphere, you must be there, listening and contributing. If your organization has particular words for describing your product and/or service, and those are not the words your customers search with, you must change your words and make them more within their search.
On the Web, we need to think beyond the organization. We need to address these important questions:
What is success?
Is it that having a website?
Or is it getting people to act in a certain way?
What matters are the results of what you organize, not the organization you created or where you created it.