About Us
Founded in 2008, The Societal Web is an organisation that helps SMEs to collaborate using social media tools. The company provides consultancy and advice for businesses on how to get involved with the exploding social media scene. This has become increasingly important as the web becomes a place where communities interact and engage, as opposed to being simply a read-only medium.
Based in Chepstow, South Wales, The Societal Web is headed up by managing director William Buist and associate director Sue Wardle.
Prior to setting up The Societal Web, William had a 22 year career in Insurance, serving as the Head of Business Risk Management and Chief Underwriter for Lloyds TSB Insurance.
Since then, he has also developed an expertise in using social media to collaborate with customers, suppliers and partners. He has a wide online network which he has effectively harnessed to benefit his own business and helps others to do the same.
William is no stranger to the public arena, and regularly speaks at events and conferences and a guest speaker at corporate events.
Sue Wardle joined the business in 2009. Her previous experience includes developing business, marketing and operations strategies for Lloyds TSB. After 13 years in the financial services industry she has since worked with clients including Lloyds TSB, artgallery.co.uk and was a guest lecturer on the UWIC MBA programme.
The Societal Web
The ‘societal web’ is beginning to emerge. Businesses are moving from telling to listening, from informing opinion to facilitating collaborative insight, from one to many and from mono-media to infinite-media. The challenge for us all during this transition will be on how we can continue to maintain our income streams and on how we can adapt to the changing world.
When the web first appeared it was ‘Read Only’ and businesses presented their products and services for people to browse. Gradually we’ve introduced interaction and conversation to the web, and we are all learning the language (it’s not quite the same as our spoken languages).
Socialising, through social networks and similar sites, has become common. What we see now is meaning being incorporated into the way the web works functionally, some are calling this the Semantic Web, but wisdom will be derived when people harness those semantic additions to the web.
In our opinion we are heading to the development of sharing as a way of working, of collaborating, in a community environment, by all, for the benefit of that community. It’s an environment where providing the knowledge, the means of understanding it (the semantic descriptions), and the facility to manipulate and re-present it enables the community to gain new insights and grow and develop as a society, as a community. Those who gather around your ideas and subject matter become your society, your community, but they set the context and the culture, it’s no longer defined by the owner of the infrastructure.
This is the Societal Web.
