IR4: Here There Be Dragons

From his vantage point, in the future more and more people can get involved in making things they really enjoy and can connect with others who share their passions and their products. These connections, he claims, are creating a new Industrial Revolution.

 

 

The Internet is a bit like Sid Meier's Civilization - a digital world mapped on top of the physical one with new realms to explore and other cultures to encounter.  There will be conflicts, competition and the e-equivalents of Guns, Germs and Steel.

But that won't be the whole story. 
 

This age of digital exploration will be both led and funded by a broader swath of individuals and groups than led the great Age of Exploration.  People's passions aren't just for conquest or products - there's a desire for meaningful contribution, as well. 

These explorers aren't just men seeking glory and fortune - they are people of varied gender and a multiplicity of backgrounds that are only possible in our increasingly blended world.  We just don't call them explorers anymore - today, they're called Social Entrepreneurs.

 

Their patrons aren't only governments bent on territories to conquest, financiers looking for new resources to exploit or churches looking for converts.  There are NGOs, Angel Investors and Conscious Capitalists who care more about leaving behind a positive legacy than what they can take for themselves.

 

In the Knowledge Economy, it's ideas we look to harness - not just the intellectual property that's out there right now and ripe for the picking, but the ideas that lie in the heads of innovators that can be extracted through incentive rather than force.  As we revisit the shrunken cultures of minorities devastated by Western expansion, we can look to the resources we missed when we focused on tree, wood, gold and labour - culture, myth, world views. 

 

There still be dragons in the blank spaces on our digital map - this time, they're not dangers to be feared, but opportunities to be harnessed.

 

The Apple Bites Back: Gay Marriage, the Free Market and Social Evolution

Apple is among 60 companies filing a brief with the US Supreme Court in support of gay marriage nationwide. The iPhone maker will argue that gay marriage bans in 41 states are a detriment to workplace morale, harm employees and undermine recruiting, according to Bloomberg.

 

 

Workplace morale, of course, impacts productivity and innovation.  So do does diversity - the more perspectives you can bring to the table, the more ideas you'll have to make magic with.  You don't attract diverse recruits by stigmatizing entire demographics - in the war for talent, brogrammers will be the losers. 

Of course, there will be those who argue that letting gays into the institution of marriage will reduce the morale of those who are there now.  It's the same argument, essentially, that was given to keep women from voting and to keep black folk at the back of the bus. 

There are always those who wish to conserve traditions in social stasis - on the Rogers Adoption Bell Curve, these folk are known as laggards.  They don't understand why we aren't investing in more horses and bayonets, deny the demise of the longsheet and feel a sense of nostalgia for the horse and buggy.

Of course, you can't stop the tides of time from flowing - progress is inevitable and to survive, one must adapt.  You might prefer the typewriter, but your kids are digital natives.  Similarly, you might take issue with your kid dating someone of a different ethnicity, but they won't have that problem.  I suppose you could isolate yourself and your family behind a firewall; the Ottoman Empire tried to, as did feudal Japan.  There's a lesson in that.

 

 

The best part is, the supposed bastions of traditionalists conservatives - the free market, free speech, etc - are actually speeding up the trend.  Marketing is all about turning wants into needs and endearing one's product to customers - forward-thinking companies like Target are always trying to expand into new markets. 

If you are national in your scope, you don't mind upsetting a vocally conservative minority who will boycott your iProduct because you support gays - everyone else will buy even more of your stuff in support of your noble purpose AND quality of your product. 

Do conservative movements precede periods of inclusive social change, increased diversity and all that hopey changey stuff?  Call it societal brushfire - or better yet, creative destruction.

If history teaches anything, perhaps it's this: once you take a bite out of the Apple, there's simply no going back - you can only move forward, together.

 

 

 UPDATE DEC 31 2013:  Rumours abound that George Clooney is gay.  He's not going to deny such rumours, coming out with false horror at the accusation - why should he?  To shout out "those are lies!" will only fuel the speculation and offend some of his audience.  Instead, he uses such rumours as opportunities to address the fallacy of homophobia.  The intrigue (and attention) keeps coming and he endears himself to a broader audience.

Social justice as brand-building.  That's smart.