yee-haa! frank's on the path to becoming a certified WorldBlu Democratic Organization in 2012. pretty cool! and pretty heady company to hang with and learn from: Zappos, Hulu, Davita, Groupon, WD-40 (yes, WD-40!) and many others are all WorldBlu-certified. (See the 2011 list here.)

WorldBlu helps create "freedom at work" that drives employee engagement and many other business benefits. frank works to "create brands that shine from the inside out," powered by people who are respected, aligned and connected to their leaders, colleagues and customers through social collaboration technologies.

Peering into 2012 for business-building ideas for our clients and for frank, we found it fascinating that democratic organizations are so well-positioned to harness the natural energy of their people and new collaborative technologies. We've often said that you can't build a 2.0 business with a 1.0 mindset. Guess the updated version of that is you can't succeed as a social business with a non-democratic culture.

The business of democracy is social.

The business of the future is social.

Let's look at some powerful business trends shaping up for 2012 – through the lens of five of WorldBlu's 10 Principles of Organizational Democracy:

TRANSPARENCY: Senior-level business leaders will get hit with a social surge of new strategies, sites and apps this year. With about 80% of one of the strongest voting blocs – people from age 18 to 40 – using SMS, and about 50% of those users are on smartphones, mobile social media will tell the real story and influence voters in this year's presidential election. That's pretty much the same deal in corporate America. Transparency is here to stay: how you handle its so-10-seconds-ago speed inside & outside of your organization will determine your fate. (What if the 2012 Election was decided on FB & Twitter? Today's results here!)

DIALOGUE + LISTENING: They're two essential strategies of a successful social business. Sad news is, most decision-makers still don't fully understand that social media is about listening, not just broadcasting. (Maybe that's why we're all suffering from "social exhaustion" as @LanceUlanoff describes it: too much content!) But @jowyang sees an opportunity: he believes more companies will leverage some of these social media management systems to "turn to their employees to help listen and triage the right information to the right teams." (Man, that approach alone pretty much embraces all 10 of WorldBlu's prinicples!)

INDIVIDUAL + COLLECTIVE: Hey, we're all quirky human-beings. Democratic organizations enjoy celebrating and channeling those idiosyncrasies into distinctive business value, often by pairing individuals within the company with customers, clients and value-chain members who have the same nuances, shall we say. Sure Facebook will hit one billion members in early 2012, but emerging niche social networks are gaining real traction. Pinterest, Instagram (definitely moving beyond the iPhone in 2012, I hear), Svpply, Polyvore – oh, my three daughters adore Poly! – blend the power of social media with our personal passions. Could be the perfect algorithm for helping us do more and be more of what we love.

DECENTRALIZATION: No question that successful democratic organizations put more power into the hands of more people. Harnessing the collective intelligence is a natural benefit of social enterprises. frank specializes in change communications for ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) implementations, which involves the overhaul of back-bone legacy systems that calls for a ton of personal transformation in the process. The end game is a cleaner, singular technology system that empowers more inter-connected employees, generates more visibility across transactions, relationships and financials and delivers relevant, real-time business intelligence. More open, agile, social, cloud-based ERP implementations are showing up to accelerate all of the above. SAP-SuccessFactors' $3.4 billion deal foreshadows it. Forrester's prediction of a $6.4 billion enterprise collaboration technology market quantifies it.

REFLECTION + EVALUATION: "Untangle." Chris Brogran picked it as one of his 3 words for 2012 and I think it's the perfect word to start the year with – maybe keep it near & dear throughout. Agonizing over content-overload again, I like how @mike_stelzner puts it: "Replace the 'be everywhere' mantra with 'be where it matters to your business.'" Yes, getting there does take time, patience, conversation and discipline to stay the course. Then again, those attributes are often second nature to democratic, social and successful businesses.

Even after getting to this point writing this post, I'm struck by how business success in 2012 – at any point in time, really – is never about trends, sexy tech or other tools promising to be a silver bullet. It's about the fundamentals of knowing your core, connecting with others who have similar beliefs, values and aspirations, then putting it all into play in a mutually respectful, mutually beneficial way – for people inside and outside of your organization. (I am talking about a competitive business strategy here, though it sounds very personal doesn't it? Absolutely!)

I'm grateful that frank's in partnership with so many clients committed to that direction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts ... especially on how you see the other 5 democratic priniciples stoking social business. (So many other exciting 2012 trends to discuss: gamification, location, crowdsourcing, social clout, content curation, blue-collar blogging and social gifting, for example.) This is an important conversation. Let's keep it going!

In the meantime, here's wishing you, your community and your business a prosperous 2012 – a year filled with rich learnings that will sustain your success for a very long time.

- john4frank