From icentered to We centered – harnessing groundswell to make a difference
Icentered is about me, the individual, and the quality of my web of life. The more it becomes our natural habitat, the more blurred the borders between real and virtual, the more we want it adapted to each of us. Icentricity is not about narcissistic entitlement, but about our individual rightful place, choices, habits and self esteem, expressions and relations on the individual level.
At the same time, there is also We Centered, which is about us and our collective power to influence bottom up. We centered is not just about what interests us individually. It’s about having the environments we live in better, more value based, less materialistic, less dominated by the greed and power struggles of corporates and us engaged in them. (I am using We not as definable collective with predefined criteria for belonging, but in the mob sense of We – a collection of atavistic I’s that engage and influence bottom up orders of the days in both physical and virtual worlds, and thus create an accumulative impact)
It’s about our real time abilities to contribute and influence things we care about, become linchpins, help connecting dots and light up bigger stories. It’s about the immediacy of reaction on any faux pas and creating ripple effects through Twitter, Facebook, blogs…
The instant accessibility, instant gratification, instant reaction empower immediate influence and an anxious drive to impact and make changes, a rising zeitgeist of involvement, an engagement urge to make it better, not just for me, my immediate needs and my immediate environment – but for what is around me, what I am part of.
The web generations are natural participants in digital conversations and dictate both a local and a larger scale order of the day. They want their voices heard- now – a real time generation. They are involved, speak their minds, voices of individuals who express their concerns, uneasiness, enthusiasms and dreams.
We Centered are craving for a feeling of belonging, of being part of communities with purpose, where they can be accountable, express, advocate, harness for action – and make a difference. It can take no more than a small individual match to spark an initiative, feed on the burning urge for engagement and the spreadability through social platforms, light an excitement flare and thus make it stick.
Borders between the physical and virtual are blurring on the engagement front as well. We Centered want a better web – because that’s our natural digital habitat. The web generations were born into it, they want better local environments because that is where they hang out, they want to know more and engage more share and harness within their social sphere – within their locality.
Local is the new global – a rising trend for 2010. The web generation embraces locality anew. Not just for the sake of targeting local offerings, but by getting involved locally, and thus making a difference. Localization and social platforms, with real time instant communication platforms empower immediate response, a groundswell effect for an “up to us” era.
