Instead of being told what to do, you already know. When people know the purpose of an organization, they don’t need to ask questions of swamped managers before taking the next step; they can just do it.

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.

What we reward in the Social Era is being connected to customer insights and acting with relevance in what we produce and deliver.

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.

Onlyness is fundamentally about honoring each person, first as we view ourselves and second as we are valued.

In 2005, some 30 percent of the US workforce participated in the freelance economy, and some measures suggest it could be as high as 50 percent in 2012, accelerated, in part, by the recession. Some would argue—myself among them—that this number would be larger if portable health care existed.

Power has shifted from a company-centered worldview where it was responsible for figuring out what to create and telling the consumer (loudly and often if it had money to do so) what to buy, to a time when consumers can co-create with one another and with brands.

by the 1980s, buyers became customers with cynicism, opinions, and expectations, and by the 1990s, the old approach was starting to show the strain. Then in the early twenty-first century, so-called “customers” began to exert co-creative tendencies.

Instead of perfection and getting it right the first time, innovation can be continuous, and core rather than episodic.