Grassroots movements become the compasses for the new ecology.

The story of Kristen Christian who declared  a “bank transfer day” and called her 500 Facebook friends to transfer their bank accounts, after Bank of American announced a 5$monthly fee for  shopping with their debit card, snowballed a bottom up movement and forced the bank to withdraw from its plan,  is yet another example how we can all be shakers and movers.

True for issues regarding corporate abuse, true for issues regarding government or policy abuse – Occupy Wall street is yet another example. Thomas Friedman’s analysis of the current grassroots movements in America and India against corruption and excessive greed show the common denominator – the striving for a constitutive change.

Current bottom up protests, commercial or civic, do not stem just from external circumstances. These are the last straws that ignite bottom up spontaneous acts that spiral because they strike many cords.It is happening now mainly because when corporates and governing institutions are losing their ruling grip, whereas the state of mind of individuals has shifted to demand a new level of ecology from their providers and officers and recognize the entitled place of the people they serve .

The Icentered mindset stems from a natural sense of self induced empowerment that changes the basic approach to the place of the organizations  we interact with. Once users, people, dictate the perspective where providers of goods and services actually work for us,  serve us and accommodate our needs, bosses and colleagues at work are our clients, and our governing officers were elected as our representatives and as such are replaceable upon failure or distrust –  grassroots movements and connected conversations will provide the compass for  the new zeitgeist.

The UN declared that the 7^th billionth person was born today in the Philippines. 7 billion people and very polarized life between those struggling for drinking water, a cup of rice a day and basic shelter, hygiene and medicines to ensure their very survivability while the ipad/smart phone western digital generation cherishes the pursuit after the latest, bigger, faster as defining traits.

These two modes of existence are not as detached as it may seem. Changes in  a westerner’s lifestyle may not directly affect the quality of life of struggling people in the third world, still we live in an interconnected global economy where the butterfly effect slowly and gradually carves its impact.

Things are rotten in our affluent global kingdom of Denmark. In many countries, a growing demand for dethroning corrupted systems is heard. In oppressed regimes, rioters demand freedom and a better life. In more democratic countries, frustrated from the failure of the prevailing economic systems, the calls are for an affordable and a more solidarity based future. The outrageous numbers of discrepancies in the distribution of wealth,  the economic inequality, greed and even financial corruption marked an era that is shaking the world’s well being all across.

What can we, the 99% , do in our daily life to make a difference?

Build new engines; develop disruptive life paradigms that will influence our social networks, environment and the axioms on which current crumbling paradigms are built.

Corporate responsibility according to the new zeitgeist should be measured by awareness not only to boardroom results but to the real value its products/services carry and its authentic engagement as trust building mechanisms that influence the corporate identity. These days solidarity accountability and social and environmental awareness gradually become a new measuring scale for a more aware,  just and politically correct existence for many organizations that up till now were led by profit goal seeking as the ultimate purpose.

At the same time we, users, have a responsibility as well.

We can, and should, harness our life style and usability patterns to stop the vicious circle that feeds and increasingly empowers the ruling 1%.

How?

Do we really need to consume all that we are consuming? Is more, newer, bigger the answer? Isn’t that the pipeline that feeds the suppliers of the closed club of the few monster companies that control everything.

The answer to the capitalist networks that financially own the world top down is a user centered state of mind that defeats it bottom up through non tangible weapons – deriving meaning from values and actions that do not require actual purchases, but give satisfaction by their very value – an internal sense of purpose and fulfillment that is not determined by others’ defined status symbols or social ladders.

User centered economy of the soul and social connectedness will replace hedonistic stimuli with soul fulfilling activities that carry with them a lasting meaning. It will be based on real social values of engagement, involvement, caring, solidarity has a much stronger communal and networked value than any financial or brand related bonds.

The social net will get a qualitative meaning as well, as we harness our social circles for challenging the practices that created the affluent society that translated happiness to external assets and very individualistic life style. It  will shift control back to us, users, and will force marketers to share a humbler less greedy spirit. Continuing in the same paths is bound to prove self destructive. On its simplest level, our palates will not suffer a loss if on supermarket shelves there will a choice of 4 yogurt flavors instead of 15 and our personalities will not be deprived if not wrapped in the latest brands. Modesty of settling for less can be as fulfilling as constantly looking for the next stimulus, which very quickly proves to be nothing more than quicksand demanding to be fed again and again to keep the thrill.

Only then a different solidarity based world culture may develop, that will hopefully find more compassion between all its 7 billion inhabitants.

In his article One country two revolutions, Thomas Friedman describes two opposing revolutions that occur simultaneously. On the one hand, the social revolution that rattles Wall Street and as contrast the hyper connectedness revolution that is transforming Silicon Valley.

While at its face value it may seem that those two revolutions are contrasting in nature, in fact they are the two sides of the same coin – the user/citizen at the center. Connecting the dots leads to the common denominator –two expressions of the same phenomenon – the voice of individuals shaping society bottom up, in a collective collaborative way.  In both new social is the order of the day. Social activism, social media, grassroots actions and collaborative crowdsourcing are the means. Both are expressions of the traits that characterize user centricity and citizen centricity–a free spirit, independent state of mind and a natural sense of entitlement.

In one revolution, citizens faced with economic concerns, unrest and distrust of the system, react in a bottom up participatory wave of voices. They refuse to continue and passively accept old orders. In the Wall Street Riots the movers and shakers are no longer distinct mavericks, but a collective of citizens that has become a mover aspiring to shake the paradigm that brought them to the abyss.People who fear fragile economies, feel exploited, abused and betrayed want to bring back the human factor into the equation. They call for a more moral, value based and socially aware governance. These riots ignite a communal call for a civic ecology that that places its people at the center of the system.

The Silicon valley transformation works itself up through a ubiquitous open ended individual empowerment, a user centered paradigm, and a social collaborative grid of bottom-up shared conversations and collaborative efforts to work on the best solutions.

  Both are poking the box , replacing top down hierarchal dictation, both reflect a paradigm shift, a new state of mind.

The glue that held together dynamic yet balanced relations between providers and users, citizens and states begins to disintegrate, as the rich providers, financiers  and states get richer and continue with business as usual, yet we, users get more frustrated and as citizens, get poorer and the middle class can no longer take countries on its back. One thing is clear – more of the same gluing mix will not push it back into place.

Very slippery.

Corporates and governing institutions are losing their ruling grip. When it’s about us , our values should be the blueprint of such systems created for us and around us.

A gap is forming, widening, and becoming unbridgeable both as consumers and citizens. Leaders and governors, asleep at the wheel, brought us downhill, sometimes  close to ditches, and now we can’t passively count on them anymore to take us up again.

We, people, can no longer be treated as means to ends.

Connecting the dots is moving from the serving parties who controlled the balances and gained power, to the users/citizens who claim what in their eyes is theirs to start with. The greater collective trail that encompasses us is populated by individuals with personal needs and hopes.

There is no clear destination point on which all agree. We are reaching a fork in the road where different paths are clearly formulated.  The corporate or the user – the state or the citizen – whose well being is to be served? Is it necessarily a dichotomy? What is the price to be paid?

Over 15 years ago I started to look into personalization in the then emerging digital world. At first it was about segmentation. In a world of mass marketing ruled by one fits all, adapting to specific needs of segmented populations was disruptive at first and then gradually became mainstream. With the maturity of CRM technologies, center stage segmentation became natural and personalization was gradually built as the next marketing promise. That, in turn, depends on its performance, that depends on the offering, and eventually on its relevance depended on us, users, and our willingness to accept it.

All that was led under a corporate world: the corporate’s existence depends first and foremost on the financial strength of the company. Fortifying that justifies marketing means.

Web 2.0 pushed us, users, more towards the center of the system. From user centricity as a marketing lip service we demanded more, full user centered personalization, equal partnership in the food chains created around us, transparency and active control over our data and privacy sharing.

In parallel our relations with our governing institutions changed.  In non democratic countries it was easier to detach the process. Autocrats can’t hold the power forever, build private fortunes and control state mechanisms as a means for their personal enrichment while their people have nothing to base a better future on.

The capitalistic democratic countries of the western world favored the state over the citizens. Let the free market throne and dethrone.  Once labor was replaced by financial schemes, the middle class was promised mirage economy based on shallow foundations. Pay day is here for the states that allowed it in the name of economic ideologies that are going bankrupt and deluded individuals who did not see the writing on the wall.

Now this fluctuating balance is being thrown against the wall on all fronts. User or provided centricity? State or citizen centricity? Whose thriving are we to serve? People’s or institutions’? What is the tipping point from which new ideologies will gain mass acceptance? Are all parties concerned aware of the dangers of populism and appeasing commitments that states can’t stand behind?

The feeling of betrayal is strong. Both as users and as citizens, we have been abused. Well financed companies used us as means in their private fights over market hegemony. A crooked and corrupt financial system robbed us of the welfare contracts that democratic states seemingly had with us, their citizens. The financial credits of the middle class have gone down the drain, sweeping with them dreams of an affordable future and sustainable personal growth and with them was flushed the credit we gave our leaders.

The concepts of the state as a paternal entity, taking care of its citizens’ welfare is severely damaged.  The system, the democratic system has been abused, the debts of sovereign states, together with the soaring poverty lines of citizens is a Tsunami that will shake everybody on the personal level. No one can predict the future and the global ramifications of the financial geo political fracture rattles the foundations of the contract between state and citizen. The economic insecurity and the flourishing social unrest take many faces, and threaten political stability, as protestors climb over the closed gates of corporates and governors.

The infrastructure for the existence of a functional democracy that ensures economic security and freedom to its citizens is dramatically shaken when people fear that there is no affordable future, social security and housing menace.

It needs rewriting.  Attempts are starting all over. For whom will it be too little and too late?

The current debates on can capitalism and a welfare state co-exist demanding going back to socialist values that empowered coexistence and welfare, not out of Marxist ideology but because of an urge to reclaim citizen centricity as a major driving force in societies where capitalism, privatization and speculative economics have shaken the social foundations of states, putting the welfare of the citizens as a secondary consideration to neo liberal ideologies.

Citizen centricity is about putting the human factor, the citizen, back at the center of the equation.

Connecting the dots to rebuild this balance is a mutual and reciprocal process. Citizens alone, rioting and claiming populist solutions out of frustration can lead to throwing out  the baby with the bath water. WE should all opt for gradual and mutual constructiveness where all work together based on open dialogs, pragmatism and  citizen centered recovery proposals instead of clashing ideologies.

User centricity is primarily associated with marketing disciplines that put the user at the center. A cliché, cynicists may claim, devised by corporates to appease clients. A more evolved approach to user centricity truly makes the user a primary partner. As citizens we are users of systems created first and foremost to cater to our needs. Governing systems, just like commercial ones, need to be attentive to their users for their survivability and adapt accordingly.

In our life as citizens, user centricity is not always taken for granted as a primary consideration, and at times, not catered for at all. In many countries, very significant political, economic and social changes are fermenting or openly taking place at this very moment.

In non democratic regimes, such as the Arab states in the Middle East like Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia,  regimes, up to very recently, were  fear based. Till a moment came when the masses felt  they had nothing to lose.  A bottom up citizen based ripple effect swept the area and the people rebelled aggressively, no longer accepting the ruling dynasty paradigms of their dictators.

In the democratic western world – it’s fermenting in other ways. In some countries aggressive riots sprang – e.g Uk,  in others – non violent  protests, like in Israel, (where I come from), but not less powerful. All across Europe unrest is fermenting, as people, frustrated by the  economic unrest and the feeling  their current governing parties, delegates of the people, elected by the people and for the people, no longer attentively  cater for the interests of the people as their primarily consideration.

All are threatened by shifts and the unrest from the growing feeling of misuse of the credit and trust with which the prevailing parties were endowed. It’s already here or lurking behind the corner, and not just as a build up towards election day. The masses are losing faith in the thin closed circle  that brings time after time the same players in varied constellations and perpetuates solutions the citizens no longer trust.

All this unrest has a common denominator – the voice of the citizen. User centricity is not just about consumerism – it is about engagement, influencing and shaping the systems that serve us. Same goes for our identity as citizens, and our prerogative, or duty, if you wish, to  call out to put us, citizens, in our rightful place – as the center of the systems built by and for us.

The need for a new pact between the governing parties and their constituents is fermenting bottom – up. It’s a call for bringing back the human factor into the center of the equation. Sovereignty should be based on trust, Trust is enhanced by transparency. Both are  rare goods these days.

Citizen centered, Wecentered,  in the face of political, financial and corruption turmoil all across the world, is a paradigm that will  redefine the balance between politicians and us, citizens.

In a citizen centered state of mind it is not the governors who have an unlimited mandate because presumably they know best what the people should have and therefore a totally free hand to prioritize and dictate their worldview with blind oblivion to what we, the citizens, feel we should have.

Holding on to attitudes of   “though the dog may bark,  the caravan moves on”, blind to the growing and the shifting  power of  citizens,  blinds leaders from reading the writing on the wall. A state is a human grid. We are citizens and in democracies, the elected delegates should represent their citizens’ interests.

Citizen centered paradigms grow in dynamic movements through bottom up open systems, where citizens call for freedom,  better living conditions, hope, and in more affluent and democratic countries  a more just allocation of resources, and an affordable future.

The citizen centered paradigm demands a new lens for the relations  between the state and the citizens, for focusing on the citizens  and their well being. A state’s ecology is manifested by its social conscious, considering the human aspects of its officials’ operations and not losing the human touch in executing its policies.  The new citizen centered paradigm calls for transparency, culture and conduct that cater for the good of all, considers the well being of the citizens and exercises a reciprocal authentic pact with them.

I have just returned from over 2 months of extensive travelling, which explains why I have not written for a while.

In resuming writing the icentered blog I will add another dimension to the icentered paradigm – that of citizen centricity, or Wecentered, as another lens of Icentricity.

To date citizen aspects of user centricity evolved primarily around digital relations between citizens and governing institutions, aiming to facilitate interaction and make processes and information more accessible to citizens, within the framework of existing paradigms.

However, the political, financial and social turmoil taking place around the world make us all part of a changing paradigm. User centricity is not confined to web based digital life. The internet  and user centered web culture are among the main powers igniting and feeding  many of the tectonic shifts that are taking place. As citizens we are users of systems created primarily to cater to our needs. Governing systems, just like commercial ones, need to be attentive to their users for their survivability and adapt accordingly.

As we are proclaiming our rightful place in our relations with our institutions and states, user centricity exceeds by far preserving the relations between us and our governing offices. The earth is shaking in some countries, others are in the process of very significant shifts and others will follow if leaders fail to read the writings on the wall. We, citizens, in many countries, in many different ways, are claiming an affordable human centered life, demanding new orders, values and regulations that adhere to the people’s voice and needs in new pacts tailored around us and for us.

The next series of posts will be dedicated to citizen centered or Wecentered as part of a shifting paradigm in the relations between states, institutions and us, in view of the changing cultures, values and structures.

How can I track down old information about me that floats out there in the digital Ether? Whether I’m just  privacy sensitive and don’t want scraps of data around me dispersed all over without my knowing or control, wish to minimize places I registered to but did not deactivate, hate to think that companies out there manipulate my data, feel abused by the goldmine of my data that makes marketers and advertisers happy but leaves me out of the food chains, or wish to make old hunchbacks  that can be dug by search engines,  fade away – I can now have a personal privacy cleaner at my disposal.

A  US privacy company, Abine, launched DeleteMe - a “delete button for the Internet.”   It  tracks down, on users’ behalf,  traces of personal identity and information from data, passwords, profiles, and up to search results that make people unhappy, and erases them. Price is between 10$-100$, depending on  how much one wants to remove and from where.

I haven’t tried it, so I have no way of telling how thorough and efficient it is, and maybe in the distributed internet there can’t be a seal proof guarantee.

Regardless, the initiative deserves  praise for several grounds:

To start with – it’s a universal service that exceeds the boundaries of specific siloed sites. As such it takes a harmonized approach for my digital residues from a holistic point of view and caters for my privacy needs all across.

In the current state of web related privacy policies, where as a user I’m helpless in front of opaque data gathering in sites, can’t really keep track or notice data manipulation and have to deal with a plethora of privacy policies, it’s good to have a privacy policeman directly protecting my side, working on my behalf.

The business plan based on profit generated from direct provisioning for my privacy demands, is a trust enhancer because it assures no need or ulterior motives for my data manipulation as part of the company’s business plan . I pay – I’m the customer – they cater for my needs.

 Straight. Simple. Clean.

Also the cart of services they offer answers any need from any prism a user may wish for.

The company offers data removal methods activated through both automated tools and manual data manipulation in sites, that in itself promises a more thorough and systemic cleaning.

User side services such as DeleteMe that empower me, the individual, to take active control through outsourcing expert based is yet another step towards enhancing user centered paradigms and shift control over web interaction from providers to us users – an  important step towards a transparency culture and a cleaner web ecology.

The Internet is a direct expression of the emerging energy structure of the planet in which the need of the individual can be met within the organic evolution of the whole, and the evolution of the whole served through the free participation of each individual.

Llewellyn Vaughan Lee

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.  The internet is more than just a global system of interconnected computer networks. It’s about us, people, and not just about technological platforms and apps, bits and bytes. As a growingly digital habitat for millions of users, as it increasingly becomes part of our life’s fabric, and not just a delivery platform, we should look beyond its material, practical and functional aspects. There’s an array of soft attributes, quality of life and mutual respect and caring that should be a strong stratum woven into its infrastructure.

The internet’s global nature transcends political, geographical, religious, national… boundaries. It offers us day in and day out innovation plateaus that reshape our communication capabilities, handling of our personal and professional life. The interconnected world of the social web offers opportunities across media and makes connectivity ubiquitous. Corporates will build the technological and commercial layers. It’s up to us to build the compassion and awareness ones. You don’t need to be a new age practitioner, or a believer in Sufism in order to consider the internet as a ground place for global consciousness, connectedness and involvement.

Connectivity is not just the physical and technical attributes of who, where and how you connect with someone. Once that is made axiomatic, the vacuum must be filled by reverting the focus to the quality of communications – the soft attributes of connectedness.

It is no longer just the sum and scope of our interactions, or, if you want, the attributes of our interactions that make it searchable for corporates to become part of the web based economic food chains. It is about trust,  the values and quality of what is being communicated.

When old orders begin to crumble around us, when the current world crisis affects each one of us, and will continue to have a long run impact – we must look around and seek the deep causes and ways to make our life better.

The empathic consciousness and awareness to the soft attributes of our life, and web life, will drive  harnessing us, bottom-up, to make a difference and contribute to paradigm changes that will ensure a trustworthy, transparent, empathic way of life,. This, in turn, will force corporates and institutions to embrace it in order to reach us.

Jeremy Rifkin writes about the global connection that must have a transcendent reason to it, a sense of purpose. In  The Empathic civilization – the race for global consciousness in a world in crisis, he talks about the global consciousness that makes each of us responsible for the well being and quality of the whole, because we are all individuals living in a global neighborhood. Harnessing empathy in our personal communications will become the life force that sustains the greater whole of which we are all parts. This, to him, is the third industrial revolution that will release the capitalistic grip, will transcend self interested greed and will allow  value based governance systems, bottom up.

The Internet, because of its individualistic nature, combined with its function as a global connectivity platform, is where such shifts can best be felt, where human connections can be strengthened, glued around value based purposes, and can influence our digital and physical existence alike. The soft attributes of empathy, consciousness, sharing, bonding for do good, are rooted in the individual choices and values. Their sharing and advocating create a global conversation that turns into a zeitgeist, that in turn creates an increasing return cycle to empower putting together the corner stones and then the blue print for different, better, more empowering paradigms.

   When we insist, bottom up, in many small increments on seeking transparency, freedom of choice, decaptivation as hostages in providers’ power struggles over us, new norms are being built. Only then can the not caring as the real root of the crisis be reversed and replaced by a new caring economy that will rise through us, where each of us becomes a facilitator, particles in the global brain and heart of the web of thought and conversation. Although we each only touch a local part of it, ideas can travel a long way,  by connecting the dots- create a movement whose magnitude ‘s resonance will globally impact.

These notions of values that are not hard core smart decisions but questioning, doubting realities, wanting from the heart and not from structured brain layers are beautifully expressed  in Diesel’s “Be Stupid” campaign for their  spring- summer 2010 collection, a campaign that encourages the religion of the heart and not of the brain. When  these values become a trend and infiltrate the main stream of youngsters, the ones who have the power, culture  and zeal to influence their worlds –  this is  the window of opportunity for paradigm shifts that will roar bottom up and hopefully reshape our worlds – the digital and physical alike.

 Initiatives such as One Young World, a next generation Davos like convention of  hundreds of future leaders from almost 200 countries, teaches us that when a global new strata of leaders gather, they can spread a new culture, a new zeitgeist, building their future activities on trust based, do good and new paradigms for transparent more equal doing.

This will lead to a clean life ecology, paradigm shifts based on attributes that bring back the soul to business, empower a participatory web ecology not just as noble purposes to be put as lip service in corporate identity brochures, but as a way of life, a new pact between all participants in our lives’ physical, digital and  and spiritual food chains.

It is this time of year, full of contemplations about the passing year, trend predictions, resolutions and musings on the year to come.

Seth Godin asked over 60 thinkers to write a page on what they think is needed now, as resolutions for the coming year, to shake things up, to make a difference. The result is a free e-book What matters now.

It touches on the soft, intangible fabric of life, defines a sense of purpose in personal attitude as a change factor in the social sense. The choices were made mostly around the humanizing traits that are the engines to make things happen.

Just a sampling :

Generosity –giving to others will reward you, you will make a difference

Dignity – creating ways for people to solve their own problems

Ease – relaxation, stop the race of life not to forget appreciation of what we touch upon

Compassion – We are all connected and compassion is the order of the day and a core business value

DIY – a prescription for empowerment, as the best prevention

Harmony – defines other goals, creates teams and a soft place to develop in

Speaking – use your authentic voice and talk about something that is your passion

Evangelism – the future belongs to people who know how to spread ideas, create causes and remain tuned to the authentic voice they spread  

Autonomy – Less management and more freedom will empower autonomous individualism and better directed and motivated people

Thnks – Thank you economy for sharing, engaging, when the cost of interaction is negligible

 Attention – can be given, bought or earned by producing something meaningful  and publish it online for free

Vision – the lifeblood of progress

These are the building blocks to leap into the next year with passion, inspire, and leave a rewarding impact.  The choices many of the thinkers made came from the heart, not the mind. You can feel the spirit of do good, values that foster consideration, compassion, positive thinking, ardent striving, personal belief, mostly abstract constructive attributes that people who will find them in their hearts will be able to make things happen, influence and make a meaningful change, enriching themselves and others.

The web today is not about the technologies, platforms and e -businesses. It is about the people that comprise it, their relationships and conversations. That’s why it is time to reach upon the humanizing effects. That is why a sense of purpose that comes with do good, be sensitive and you will be rewarded, influence and make a difference wins over just practical, cerebral, tangible, logical thinking .

I believe that the decade to come will be transformational in more ways that we can envision. Signs and vibes are around. It starts with us, the people, the rest follows. What Matters Now offers a soft toolkit for the emerging zeitgeist and  points at the building blocks of the engines that will empower those transformations.  The engines are the people. From there it can develop to corporations who will have to learn how to bring thick value, a real do good tangible value.

Minimize evil, maximize good!

 That’s how Umair Haque summarizes his 21st century strategy in four words.

 Short, to the point,  simple,  true.

There is a growing yearning for something else, for a new human touch, of do good and authentic reaching out in an alienated world, of using a language and attitude of collaboration, sharing and co-existing in mutual respect.

The following two campaigns have this common yearning. Both were born bottom –up,  and  have used the web to spread the word and  harness many others worldwide to join their wish and vision.

It is not only part of an emerging zeitgeist, but of an approach to life and businesses that can and should  be translated to the web as well, not just as a message delivery vehicle, but as a way of web life.

Charter for compassion was the result of Karen Armstrong’s 2008 Ted prize  wish. A cooperative effort to restore compassionate thinking and compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life. As the world is becoming a global neighborhood, we should all live in peace and collaboration in it.

Karen is a British ex nun, a writer and thinker on the role of religions in the modern world. In 2008 when she won the Ted prize  and made a wish “I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by a group of leading inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect.”

It became a movement. The concept was put online and the charter was crafted by people all over the world, drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, who strove to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular , has failed the test of our time.

 In November 2009 the charter, a call to restore compassion to the center of morality and religions, was unveiled, with  a call to people all over the world to adopt it.

Free hugs campaign, an initiative that started in 2004 by Juan Mann, who landed at the airport of Sydney Australia, sad and lonely, envied all the people surrounded by hugging and smiling family and friends. Yearning for compassion, he grabbed a cardboard and wrote free hugs, 15 minutes later he hugged a sad woman mourning the death of her child and made her smile. In 2006 an Australian alternative rock band Sick Puppies, uploaded their song ”ALL THE SAME”  on YouTube, accompanying the Free Hugs campaign. It has received over 48,000,000 hits and had a huge impact.

The conversation era of Web 2.0 has humanized the web to become much more than just an interconnected world of computers. In a global interconnected web we’re all in the same boat, interdependent. We are at a tipping point where, at least as digital relationships go, it’s time to create a new pact of interactions with our digital providers because as the web increasingly becomes our habitat, we should strive for a more transparent, respectful and adapted relations.

The spirit of openness  and sharing is already prevailing on the web between people. Open sharing of content and managing rights through free common creative licenses , open code, crowdsourcing, bottom up creations – all indicators of the power of collaborative efforts for the benefit of all.

There is a growing dissatisfaction and apprehension of power struggles between the Goggles, Microsofts, Yahoos….. Over hegemony of our data, fear of privacy intrusions,….. 

New buds of old feuds being mellowed by new approaches can be seen through a terminology of neologisms such as coopetition and frenemy,  life forces yesterday’s adversaries to cooperate today for their business competitiveness.

It’s definitely a step towards the recognition that together we stand, our needs will be fulfilled and all will gain. Some just talk the talk, or walk the walk as a lip service and will be happy to disengage at the first appropriate moment, but some go about it with conviction and deliberation that stem from a deep understanding that times have really changed and new tools and approaches should be the order of the day. 

When your customers have changed, have become much more independent , opinionated, attentive to other customers’ conversations – reaching out an authentic  cooperative hand, truly turning customers to  partners  in a marketing dialog – is bound to ensure loyalty based on trust and authenticity.   

It can be translated to a new paradigm of relations with  providers, corporations and institutions. Food chains created around users where the user, for whose alleged benefit the whole food chain is created, will be taken into consideration as part of the benefit and fair rewarding of all participating in it. Creating new ecosystems, be it ad-hoc around a transaction, a user/client/customer/partner, an offering, a collaborative effort, a win -win situation that sidesteps  power struggles of big corporations on owning me.

This is the Icentered spirit- clean, open, green, authentic, transparent, and collaborative.A vision of an Icentered world where all parties embrace the culture, business practices translate it to new business processes, supporting technologies and platforms are implemented, semantics and semiotics change to reflect the culture and ethics become mainstream.

It is not a utopian dream. The buds are there. Sooner or later paradigm shifts are inevitable. Getting there is a gradual process. It has started.