Openness can be seen in the world today on societal, organizational, and personal levels. We recently saw this on the world stage during the Arab Spring. We see it in organizations when global brands like TED decide to open up with TEDx. And at the individual level, we see it in social networks and blogging.

Where the industrial era is oriented around the institution and its ability to create scale, the Social Era is oriented around how to formulate value with and by connected humans.

But our current organizational constructs have been focused on scale at the cost of connection.

Social has never been a technology trend, as it is often depicted by the experts. Humans have always wanted to connect, organize, and create value. Back when there were tribes, people had community and naturally had relationships in the marketplace.

There are the things that we do. There are the things that we care about. And then there is the story we tell about it. When those things are in full alignment for individuals, we say they have integrity.

While the industrial era was about making a lot of stuff and convincing enough buyers to consume it, the Social Era is about the power of communities, of collaboration and co-creation.

The bottom line is that work is freed from jobs.

In psychological language, the key to adaptability and personal growth is resilience. In biology, the equivalent term is plasticity. In financial language, we use the word liquidity to measure how flexible we are, how able to withstand what happens to us. In organizational design, the term is flexibility. And that is what these levers I’ve just cov

How many companies have figured out how to shift from old-school “supply chain management” to the more modern idea of capturing insights and integrating them directly into product design, distribution, and delivery? Because that’s the point.