Sep
15
Global innovation vs. mass production
Filed Under Community, Digital Engagement, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Mobile | Leave a Comment
“We are what we share” or so Charles Leadbeater would have us believe. His new book WE-THINK shows us how radically the internet is changing the way we work.
Human beings have networked since our species emerged, but suddenly there is now a device that can redefine ‘the network’ and how we interact with each other - right across the planet. We are still at the early stages of working this all out, but it is clear that the new culture is all about using the internet to collaborate, to think of ideas together, to share information and knowledge and to do that in a way that enables us to create things - such as an open encyclopaedia e.g. Wikipedia, open source software e.g. Linux, or citizen generated news services e.g. OhmyNews in Korea.
Charles predicts disruption ahead as large command and control hierarchical organisations clash with those growing up with the networked lateral economy, where people are used to looking to each other to get information and share openly. He sees we are moving out of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s consumer world of ‘I want: I want’ into a new ‘I can: We can’ culture, based on the web’s everyone can participate and have a go ethic. Good stuff eh?
Perhaps most importantly, he sees the imminent explosion of the mobile internet across developing countries as a real sign of hope, predicting radical new forms of organisation emerging as creative people and communities harness the new technologies to help solve their problems in undreamed of ways.