How the Internet helps us include each other

Reading this posting by Gary Hamel I noticed, not least, this part:

"The Web has already engendered a dramatic shift in bargaining power from producers to consumers.  What’s coming next is an equally dramatic and irreversible shift in power from institutions to individuals. BYOD is just the beginning. If your organization is going to attract and engage the most creative individuals in the world, then as a CIO you have to think about how you might help facilitate SYOG - Set your own goals, DYOJ - Design your own job, PYOC - Pick your own colleagues, AYOE - Approve your own expenses, or CYOB - Choose your own boss."

Reflecting on this, I came to think about how, during the past decade or so, the Internet - including social media - as well as mobile electronic devices have had a tremendous effect / impact on our business lives and personal lives. As a matter of fact, I find it quite amazing to reflect upon what role electronic devices and the Internet played in my life at the beginning of 2000s - and what role electronic devices and the Internet play in my life today. It's fair to say that the change has, indeed, been significant. That, for example, the way organization is done, the way people are paid, the way meetings are done, and the way education is done will continue to change quite significantly seems a natural consequence of the technological revolution that is taking place in these weeks / months / years right in front of our eyes.

What I, not least, find particularly noteworthy is how the many crowdsourcing technologies and crowdfunding solutions, that have been developed and launched in recent years, are helping people and companies get help from outside / from external people. In his book Udefra, Jacob Bøtter gives several interesting examples of this. Here are a few more examples. And reading the book Accelerate: Building strategic agility for a faster-moving world, I learned that we need to get better at involving external people to help with innovation initiatives - not least because an inward focus that is a consequence of managerial processes, which tend to focus people's attention inward, means a lower probability of seeing external strategic opportunities or threats. From the book UNBOSS, I took out a similar lesson: Next to the importance of discovering your purpose, it is of strong importance to also work on involving external people - for example in innovation work. The company Swiss Re has showed that it is possible: Using, for example, events and various media such as the Open Minds dialogue platform, Twitter and LinkedIn, external people have, to a relatively large degree, been able to participate in ongoing development.

Over the past years, I have learnt that whether people choose to exclude or include people, for example regarding innovation initiatives, has a lot to do with values, we have. In this regard, I find the book Winning from within: How to create lasting change in your leadership and your life very useful. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend that you do.