The power of community
About a week ago, I started a series of pieces on human potential and your vision for the future of the Internet. I received some wonderful comments from Ben Kepes and Brian Hayes, and the following day I put forward my own perspective on human potential and the role of search:
Humanity has the power to be a complete and healthy system, which understands its own interconnectivity.
That might sound a bit “hippie” (I’m making quote marks in the air here with my fingers); a bit “airy-fairy”; a bit “New Age”. The truth is, it’s not—not in any way.
It’s actually like buying a new car and then seeing them everywhere… once you begin to notice this thing about complete systems, you’ll be amazed at how pervasive it is.
Let’s take a look at a sampling of recent headlines that have arrived MarketingProfs over the past week:
- Eight Things to Do Right Now to Get More out of LinkedIn
- Business Aikido: Gaining Strategic Advantage through Leverage
- Wiki Your Way to More Search Engine Real Estate
- Selling Professional Services? It’s All About Leverage
Every one of these pieces is about harnessing the power of the community for the benefit of the business.
In the book Wikinomics, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams explore “how mass collaboration changes everything”:
These changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time n our history—a world where value creation will be fast, fluid, and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will survive. A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: Harness the new collaboration or perish.* Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolated—cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value.
*This phrase sounds remarkably similar to Charles Knight’s exhortation to alternative search engines: “Collaborate or perish,” which, in turn, he read on an in-house newsletter in a hospital: yet another example of the concept becoming utterly pervasive.
Take a look around. Where have you seen this concept lately? Where has it appeared in your own industry, business, or blog? Have you made attempts to tap into the power of community, and have they been successful?
