1. How have Wikipedia and Social Media changed our society?

Research has taken on new significance in the social media area. Findings are published on the Internet and spread easily. That means they are available faster and without much effort for everyone. Companies also understood this principle and started implementing wiki technology to support their internal knowledge management. At the bottom line, it is all about easy options to ask questions and receive answers.

2. “Germany’s best school class 2010 will present the price to Mr. Wales. You have two children of your own.

i. To what extend does their media and information behavior differ from yours/ours?
Naturally, my children are digital natives. They have not experienced a world without computers and Internet. They choose different channels to communicate and to share content. For example, when I send a quick email, they prefer Facebook. And television is not as important as YouTube. However, I believe that parents need to help their children to understand the mechanisms of social media to protect them from being too trustful.

ii. Is access to information becoming more important than factual knowledge?
This is not a matter of ‘either – or’. Factual knowledge will always be important, for example in professional life or in decision-making. However, access to information becomes fast, ubiquitous and inexpensive. All you need is an Internet enabled phone and network access. Considering the fast-growing amount of information around us, the most important skill will be the ability to assess information and put pieces of information into a broader context.

iii. How does the way we inform ourselves and keep up with our friends change: Will information we share and consume increasingly come in smaller bits? (“snippetization”) / Will reacting in real-time become more important than the actual content? (“real-timization”)
Again, it’s not a matter of ‘either – or’ but will depend on the actual situation. For example, in case of emergency real-time communication can save lives – a snippet of information might be sufficient to prevent from harm. However, if there is a complex occurrence, we might use a data snippet to refer to extensive background information.

3. We believe that the Internet will become the key infrastructure of the 21st century.

i. How can we make sure, that not only Digital Residents, but also every citizen is able to participate?
As integrated communication company, Telefónica O2 Germany feels responsible to open up perspectives to people and enabling them to keep pace with the digitalization of society. Access to digital media can be a chance to socially and educationally underprivileged young people. If they are able to link new capabilities to existing skills, new professional chances might open up. That’s the main goal of our latest initiative, the Telefónica O2 Germany “Think Big” Media College.

ii. What barriers have to be broken down in order to get more people involved with this technology?
We have already broken down many barriers. Our services are simple to use, understand and control. We make it simple for people to get in touch with us. We have also improved the network technology for fixed and mobile Internet. We charge clear and reasonable prices for digital services. We respect our customers’ privacy and keep customer information secure.
The arrival of more and reasonable priced smart phones with increasingly intuitive functionality and easy-to-understand tariffs will enable new target groups to get involved including senior citizens or handicapped citizens.

iii. Can you imagine any drawbacks we might experience in our use of Internet technology?
We have to take precautions to avoid privacy and safety issues. That’s why we offer and use technology to keep children safe online and give expert guidance about online child safety and privacy. We also let our customers choose how we use their personal information. We’ll enable customers to see and correct the data we hold about them. We will keep customer information secure. If customer information is lost or stolen, we’ll act quickly and responsibly.

4. As CEO of an international corporation, you have to always think ahead: Our latest research for Google and Otto shows that the usage of smartphones becomes more and more self-evident and ubiquitous and thus changes the way people think about and use the Internet. They are “always-in-touch” with their digital networks.

i. How will telecommunication companies respond to the changing needs and behavior, which stem from the ubiquitous Internet access?
Telefónica O2 Germany has invested heavily in its network to become one of the most modern networks in Europe. We will continue to expand through our new frequencies purchased in the recent auction. Our overall aim is to develop innovative technology anticipating new requirements, for example in the field of e-health and e-finance.

ii. These days, there are a lot of complaints about too much information. How can we make sure that only relevant information comes through to us?
We have to invest in education and imparting values so people learn how to select relevant information. Of course, we also have to teach them how to use available technology to filter information and to concentrate on a few selected, trusted channels to gather information.

iii. What will o2 do once everyone is supplied with high-speed mobile Internet access? / What is it, a company like yours can offer beyond connectivity and bandwidth?
Mobile phones are becoming the gateway to daily life. That’s what we are working on: Future smart phones will provide you with anything you need for your daily activities – no matter if you are on your way to work, picking the most environmental friendly route, or meeting a friend, quickly paying for lunch, or going to the doctor’s, using the phone to support a health program.

Together you come up with lots of new ideas. You want to remain in permanent dialogue with your staff and customers. You talk about the mobile Internet, blogging and Twitter. Get enthusiastic about the use of legal De-Mail documents*. You establish that development times and development costs are increasing constantly, whereas your products’ market lifetimes are getting shorter and shorter. You hope a remedy will be forthcoming from innovation exchanges such as the exemplary “connect + develop” model launched by Procter & Gamble. The problem-solving service “Innocentive” might be a good idea for problem seekers who prefer an open platform. For in-house usage, many think the “amazee” project development platform is ideal. Your company’s communication strategy is discussed as if it could be reinvented.

Some of the suggestions revolve around location-based services that could revolutionise your services on the ground and tailor them to customers need. Others relate to Web 2.0 and its social media offerings. The commercial usage of Facebook with its 500 million private users fascinates you. Social networks for fostering business contacts, like LinkedIn or Xing, aren’t just suggested as a means of employer branding but as a marketing channel amongst decision-makers. Your goal: project-based, real-time cooperation between staff and customers. For you, that’s what constitutes the enhanced value of tomorrow’s communications.

Indeed, you’re even thinking about how you can apply modular production to mass customisation in a new digital factory. Treating certain links in the value chain as separate entities would drastically increase your company’s profits. Getting customers to pre-finance production could make you more independent of the financial markets. Companies like Nike have been successfully implementing mass customisation for years via tools such as the NIKEiD website. You find that very encouraging.

Rather than merely lowering costs, you want to avoid them entirely. The processes and products should be redesigned from the customer’s perspective. You’ve come up with lots of interesting project proposals. You take a vote on the importance of the individual suggestions and feel extremely satisfied with yourself and the collegial brainstorming.

We don’t want to appreciate things
we’re in emotional denial about.

The moment of truth has come. The crucial question is raised: “Who’s going to implement all these ideas? Which department will be responsible for developing the project? Who’s going to organise the Web 2.0 change management project?” Silence. Not a volunteer in sight. They just haven’t got the time. They’re all working at full capacity. Their day-to-day work takes emotional priority. Today remains more important than tomorrow.
Then salvation comes from above. The guys at the top announce that, at the end of the day, the Internet is just another medium. And surely media relations are a matter for the communications and marketing departments? A sense of collective relief spreads through the room. The good old division of labour still exists after all. There are specialists and clearly defined responsibilities in your company too. There’s you.

We can only appreciate things
that speak a language we understand.

You are the communications hero. You’ve got what it takes to be a trainer and sparring partner. You know that merely gathering and disseminating information is no longer enough. You have learned to communicate. You are the interpreter between the monologue of divided responsibilities and the dialogue of cooperation. You are the Change Manager who understands the possibilities of Web 2.0 and is going to systematically acquaint the entire company with them.

You speak the many languages of the various departments and know the access codes to the specialists. You inform both the management and the financial world about facts, figures and statistics. Your exchange of ideas with the staff and unions is characterised by stories and myths. You use powerful images to trigger big feelings amongst customers and politicians alike. More than anyone else, you are aware of the importance of an open exchange of ideas, cooperation and innovations. That makes you the communications coach.

Your core competency: suggest, listen and respond. But you are also aware of the power of software and know how to make meaningful use of it. Your success becomes a synergy game between culture and technology. Your line of work is the permanent combination of wide-ranging skills, activities and experience. You increase the willingness to communicate, improve flexibility and boost the company’s media dynamics.

We can only appreciate something
if it is of interest for our personal vision of the future.

Unlearning is becoming an important virtue. For employees and companies alike, a look in the rear-view mirror of one’s own success is becoming increasingly counterproductive. The shelf life of specialist knowledge is getting shorter all the time, which is why you have to be able to abandon knowledge that still seemed useful just a moment ago. Only somebody capable of exiting his personal reality tunnel is ready for new horizons.

It’s not just that the working world is getting more complex with every day that passes; the breakneck speed of technical evolution is increasing the pace at which learned skills become obsolete as well. Whilst in an industrial culture silo thinking might have been the key to economic success, it no longer provides access to the Network Economy. When the hierarchy turns into a network, the gatekeepers of the old matrix lose their power. Eye-level dialogues call for trust, transparency and, above all, common goals.

The Internet is not just an additional media channel. Communication strategists have to learn to unlearn. They have to realise that it isn’t just a case of internal and external PR. Interactive network media have become a second reality. They no longer report on the world but form a virtual parallel universe of their own. Under Internet conditions, private life becomes a software programme. Networked databases are the factories of the virtual economy.

The Internet will challenge or even destroy the organisation model of traditional companies.

The pillars in the hierarchy of matrix organisations are still stable. Mental commanders-in-chief continue to compile sets of rules and regulations. The controlling department is still successfully scrutinising target-performance deviations and increasing the efficiency of repeatable procedures. In future, however, it is flexibility that will be paramount for a networked, dynamic and global economy. Action structure and process flexibility are becoming a competitive factor. Innovations in the technological structure of the Internets, such as cloud computing, are changing its economic usage. The distinction between local and net-based data storage has disappeared. The quality of process collectives is superseding the classic production collective. Marketing and sales are combining. Customers are becoming temporary employees.

The issue of transparency and trust under the conditions of social media is confronting companies with new challenges. Don Tapscott, Professor of Management at the University of Toronto, came up with an apt description of the situation: “The corporation is becoming naked. And if you’re going to be naked, you’d better be buff.”

Anybody, be he employee or customer, can now disseminate his information, opinions, pictures and documents around the world – and doesn’t need any knowledge of programming to do so. The knowledge lead of communications specialists is suddenly being challenged by the swarm intelligence of the general public. Users and experts are talking to one another on an equal footing. But most of all, users like to chat among themselves. They talk about brands, products and services, not with the producers and service providers but about them. Companies have to learn to listen. The new social media analysis tools are providing some initial assistance. You can only join the conversation if you know what’s being talked about. Those who don’t respond will be kicked out.

At personal level, we’re willing to adapt to the new conditions quickly.
But as a company?

In our private lives, we have got used to being permanently available. 110 million mobile phone contracts for 82 million Germans are a clear indication of the trend towards multiple cell phone ownership. The total number of mobile call minutes per year has grown to 169 billion minutes, more than doubling since 2005. Permanent remote presence has become a lifestyle. Our personal vision of the future correlates individuality with a sense of belonging and media savviness with freedom.

Even today, being able to use individual, location-based data in real time is something the business elite takes for granted. For many, linking work and leisure is a reality they strive for. The old idea of homeworking is being reincarnated as mobile working. The mobile Internet is a workstation that fits into your pocket or handbag. In ten years from now, half of total data traffic is expected to take place on the mobile Internet. In the not too distant future, communication will mean leading a double life in first and second reality.

Peter Wippermann
Found of Trendbuero
Professor of Communication Design at Folkwang University, Essen

* De-Mail is a German E-Government communications service that makes it possible to exchange legal electronic documents between citizens, agencies, and businesses over the Internet. Source: Wikipedia

The “flow” principle is interesting because it appears in a number of different fields: in capital markets and in technology. Acceleration is a perennial topic, as are liquidity and cash. On the other hand, we also need to ask ourselves, “How can we stay in control of all this?” Today’s markets are increasingly global, while legislative frameworks remain largely national in their scope. There is a great contradiction between “flow” and “control”, and this contradiction is likely to get bigger. The number of things we no longer have control over is increasing much faster than the number of things we can control.

So it’s not just about the flow of data.

Technology is the “flow” that shapes all developments. Technology has become our fate. How we handle technology has a decisive impact on how successful we are. The use of technology determines who and what we are. How I use technology is so much more relevant now than the ideology I believe in. Whether I support the totalitarian North Korean system or the Tea Party and Sarah Palin – all of this has far less significance compared with the question of how I use technology.

So what significance does this development have for corporate decision making processes?

The key question is, “How can I handle the wildest contradictions?” This includes – and I am certain that I am not the first person to call it this – what is known as “hybrid thinking“. This is about breaking open the traditional way of approaching issues, which tends to be largely based on applying a highly specialised professional way of thinking and discipline-based methodology, and instead attempting to think in contradictions. We have always been taught to see things as either or ‘this’ or ‘that’, but never in terms of a third option.

And what does that mean?

We need to get away from thinking shaped by unipolarity, such as “We know what’s right!”, or bipolarity, where there is “either black or white”. We need to learn how to play with all these contradictions, and to stop viewing things as being mutually exclusive. This kind of approach automatically leads to more modular models. We still view things too ideologically. A person is either a capitalist or a socialist, a good person or a bad person. Is a Chinese designer who copies me a good or bad person? He is quite simply different. And we need to learn how to deal with this.

How does playing with contradictions function in real-life management practice?

You can see it in the “Freemium” pricing model, which combines free and premium. A product is no longer exclusively a premium product, but is linked to a free product. Google can offer its services for free because the company earns so much money with Google Ads in the premium sector that it can continue to offer an increasingly wide range of free services. Just for fun. Anything that helps my company to get ahead helps me to gain greater control. But in this case, I need to provide more and more free services and products.

Another example – if we look back to a previous Trend Day – is the insight that the more we live in a globalised world, the more important our neighbour becomes. In this case the aspects “global” and “local” merge to form the “glocal” principle. Global success is only possible if the local is promoted and supported.

How is the individual consumer affected by these contradictions? How can companies support consumers?

For instance in the gradual blurring of the division between working hours and leisure time: the work-life balance. I tend to call it “work style”. To a large extent the question of how I can balance my private life and my working life determines my lifestyle. In the hotel sector we no longer find ourselves dealing with the traditional distinction between business travellers and leisure travellers, but also with so-called “bleisure” customers, who spend a part of their time in the hotel in a business capacity and, at the same time, are also there as leisure customers. This customer wants internet access – but he also wants a massage, sports and a fitness breakfast. In other words, you need to have control over two areas, areas that in the past were clearly separated, which made them a lot easier to control.

In other words, the “hybrid” principle can be applied wherever there are contradictions.

Yes. There is also “hybrid capital” – capital that is neither equity nor debt, but a combination: a hybrid form. You have “hybrid business models”, where the focus is not on a product model or a service model, but a combination of the two. There are also “hybrid cars”, where different technologies are combined, and “hybrid software”, which runs on several different operating systems. Hybridity is emerging in more and more areas.

What skills do executives need to apply “hybrid thinking”?

Our methods and theories are very strongly driven by fear, and hence their ultimate aim is to gain “control”. Everything is viewed critically. For me, this cannot be the future. We need to try different things out and experiment. We must be prepared to have faith in the ‘other’, even though we may not truly understand him in his culture. Another important factor is to avoid jumping to conclusions, forming iron-clad opinions too early. This is probably something we struggle most to achieve, as we are all very strongly shaped by specific ideas of power and judgment. We need to learn to harness hope, and turn our backs on definitive assessments and judgements.

In other words, we need to be more laid back, relaxed?

You have to stop believing that you will eventually have understood something, that you will have regained control over it at some point. To my mind, the essence of Flow.Control. is allowing more things we have no control over to happen. And the only way of retaining control is to experiment prudently with the uncontrollable.

How can one avoid risks when dealing with the uncontrollable?

Attractive models like “freemium” and “glocal” always mean that I have to be prepared to share. That’s the crazy thing. I have to be flexible, which boosts my ability to adapt. At the same time, I need to ask myself, “What is my substance?” If you want to survive, you have to have your own principles, principles that you must not reveal. Every strong brand has something that it can never and must never give up. If Apple were to suddenly say, “Hmmm, design isn’t so important for us now”, then they would reveal the core of their unique strength which would make them comparable.

Who is Wikipedia? All of us!

Meanwhile, the open wiki model of cooperatively collecting and editing articles has been successfully applied to the knowledge management of companies and institutions. The fast gathering of individual knowledge and open discussion of the content, errors or possible nonsense lead to up-to-date, pragmatic and effective results. The dynamics, flexibility and sensible self-regulation make the wiki model a standard for the networking society. Wikipedia works according to the laws of the mega trend Flow.Control. The culture of networking and cooperation as well as simultaneous competition brings about speed and quality. Here, Flow.Control. proves to be tried and tested practice.

The Millennium Vision Award belongs to the ‘future makers’.

The German Trend Day awards its Millennium Vision Award to people who presented and realized a vision within a decade. The laureates must have implemented an idea that is socially enriching, technologically innovative, economically revolutionary and of global relevance.
The trustees of the awarding jury are: Prof. Dr. Norbert Bolz, Technical University Berlin, Dr. David Bosshart, CEO Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Zurich, René Schuster, CEO Telefónica O2 Germany, Munich, and Prof. Peter Wippermann, Folkwang University, Essen.

Wiki generation will present the award.

The class 7b of Albert Schweitzer Grammar School in Hamburg will present the award to Jimmy Wales. The pupils of class 7b, who only recently won the title of “Best School Class in Germany” in a TV show broadcast by the German children’s TV channel ARD/Ki.Ka, belong to the ‘Digital Residents’. They have grown up with free digital access to knowledge. René Schuster, CEO Telefónica O2 Germany, will give the speech in honour of Jimmy Wales and will talk about the future of education under the conditions of mobile Internet.

The central idea in my book “Glück kommt selten allein” is that happiness isn’t just one feeling but five different ones. Flow can be equated with one kind of happiness: accomplished activity. But flow has little to do with the happiness of serene relaxation or the happiness of community. Mountaineers are a classic example of flow: when they’re climbing a mountain face, they’re totally in their element and so concentrated on the here and now that they forget all about time and space and their tax declarations. But at moments like that, people aren’t subjectively happy, they’re much too focused to even ask themselves that question. The sense of happiness doesn’t come until afterwards, in retrospect.

Can happiness be managed? Can flow be controlled? How?

Definitely! The better you know yourself and your strengths, the better you can adapt the tasks and challenges you face to them – in an ideal world, that is. Obviously it’s easier if you’re independent and your work is creative than it is in a situation controlled by others. It’s the feeling of self-efficacy and control over the ground rules and feedback that are key. Let me give you an example: people who ride motorbikes often tell of flow experiences. No wonder: gripping the handlebars, a motorcyclist has got everything under control. He can accelerate on the straights and slow down on the bends. And he gets feedback on how good he is at it very quickly. And if he’s not that good at it, the neurosurgeon has a flow experience that day too, then it’s his turn to concentrate. Looking at it from the outside, the motorcyclist and his buddy on the passenger seat experience the same landscape. But two parallel realities exist in their heads. The driver is in flow, the passenger in fear. He has no control at all, he’s totally dependent on somebody else’s skill. That’s roughly the same difference as between a freelancer and a salaried employee.

You compare your own career change from physician to cabaret artist with leaping into the right element – a bit like a penguin that seems to feel so much more at home in water than on land. When you look back, what was difficult for you? What stops a lot of penguins/people diving into their element?

It helped that I wanted to move towards something rather than get away from something. Even while I was still at university I was interested in cabaret for many years and made my stage début as a compère and magician. I started being successful when I realised that I could combine my medical knowledge and experience as a comedian and come up with something that didn’t exist at that point: medical cabaret as a show, book and TV format.

It helps to have places where you can put yourself to the test without putting your entire livelihood at stake. For me, that meant playing on small stages in Berlin where I could get better through trial and error. It takes courage to put yourself to the test and courage to embrace failure as part of the process. If we didn’t learn to walk until adulthood, we’d be surrounded by people crawling around and whinging: “I’ve really tried to get the hang of this walking thing, but now I’ve given it three goes it’s time to face up to it: standing just isn’t my thing.”

But you also coach managers and decision-makers. What do your students learn about being happy at work?

Contentedness with oneself and one’s work sets in when I recognise a higher meaning in what I do. I know why I make the effort, I have a goal, I create something that transcends me and exists beyond myself. I experience my vocation as a calling to some extent. There are many cases where you can replace the word “happiness” with the word “meaning”, and it still makes sense. Victor Frankl considered this dimension extremely important. It’s something a lot of executives are lacking, they play a role because they think that’s how they ought to be and end up losing touch with their own profundity and “diversity”.

And what can managers do for the flow experience of their staff?

They’re already doing pretty well if they manage not to demotivate people! It’s essential for decisions and promotions to be transparent and to observe the four levels of esteem: money, appreciation, security and the opportunity for advancement. Feedback is also vital: the type of feedback, how soon it comes and how personal and concrete it is. Poor delegating is when the boss has an idea of how something ought to be done but only lets on afterwards, when it’s been done differently. Flow cannot occur under fear and outside control, but only when the employee can exercise self-determination within the range of expectations instead of being left dangling and worrying about whether he’s loved or not. Because that’s something we all want.

The last 60 years have been shaped by fundamental and radical changes in society, business and technology. How have our notions of happiness changed over the last decades?

Have they actually changed? A lot of what makes people happy can already be found in the teachings of Jesus or Aristotle. It’s the comparison that’s changed. It used to be enough to be the most attractive man or woman in the village. These days we all want to look like top international models and actors. Because the media are constantly showing us totally “unrepresentative” models for a seemingly happy life, it’s become more difficult to counter with your own model and your own element. Take sexual liberation, for instance: if you don’t have a fulfilled sex life, it’s very much easier to blame society, the church and public morality than it is to admit you’re allowed to do whatever you like with whoever you like but nobody wants you. For many people, the multi-option society is too much of a challenge, it just intimidates them.

Overload as a result of media ubiquity has been a popular topic in the feature pages for some time now. As a doctor, what influence do you think today’s media have on the way our brains work?

On the Internet, spatial closeness is replaced by closeness of content. I can network and exchange ideas with like-minded people all over the world. But when there’s a power cut and I’m laying in bed with lumbago, my 500 friends on Facebook are no good to me at all. The “digital divide” is splitting society even further apart. Stupid people aren’t getting any smarter, but luckily the new media aren’t making caring, mentally alert people any lonelier, either – quite the contrary, in fact. The attention economy is a serious problem. How long should I devote myself to concentrating on one thing, on a complex task? Great mental achievements call for a degree of complexity that cannot withstand constant interruption from text messages, e-mails and the Blackberry. Moses went to the mountain to get better reception. These days people go to the mountains so they won’t have any.

The main issue is for politicians to trust citizens and democracy. It is therefore key to ensure that the Internet is an open space of debate so that deliberative democracy [Note: political decision-making that relies on popular consultation to make policy; see also Wikipedia] can exist on a mass basis. The new requirement is quite simply intelligence, it’s simply a question of politicians understanding that they cannot hide behind the walls of bureaucracy and the traditional mass media. They must be ready to go out into society, engage citizens and engage each other in full daylight, so that the citizens can decide.

Which characteristics of Obama’s winning campaign do you find the most exemplary? Which ones will become “mainstream” political practice?

Trusting the self-organized grassroots groups on the Internet and in the localities to take ownership of the campaign without control from the top. Then, under these conditions, the Internet becomes an essential tool. Social networking space is the new public space. Politicians and parties will have to be present, and most of them are just not ready – I don’t mean technically, but culturally and politically.

In 20 to 30 years from now, which political processes might be fundamentally different from today?

I never, ever talk about the future. But what we are already seeing is the demise of political parties in terms of their capacity to control the political process.

New media have made it easier to organize counter-powers. You cite the ecological movement as a successful example. What are the critical prerequisites for ensuring the success of this kind of counter-power via networked media? Are networked individuals themselves enough to bring about change?

Networked individuals are the ONLY basis for social change in the network society. As soon as an organization is set, it loses appeal, it becomes another institutionalized form of action. This is of course necessary in democracy, but it only becomes a means of social change in the political arena if new values, new projects emerge from free networks of free individuals who are in control of their lives and their networks, networks that are always being reconstructed, always evolving with society and the values of society.

In what way are online social movements dependent on “offline” action? How do they relate to one another?

They need each other, they cannot exist without each other in social practice. But they originate online because the first call to action comes from spontaneous initiatives that are launched the easiest way, on the Internet and via wireless communication. But their call has to be taken up in the local community and turned into face-to-face encounters in which people love being together as well as fighting together.

The financial crisis is currently forcing many governments to introduce massive cost-cutting programmes. In Greece, this led to major (offline) protests. Do you see any other signs of a counter-power or social movement forming as a reaction to the current events?

Economic crises usually cause panic, and panic is usually prone to trigger very ugly reactions such as racism and xenophobia. Most protest movements will reproduce the traditional social movements, mainly unions, who actually want capitalism as usual. They are actors of resistance, and that is important, but not actors of change. The most important impact is that when people can no longer live by working to consume, they may look for other ways of life, and then they may find thousands of people (both young and not so young) who are living in different ways, concentrating on what they enjoy and want to be, people practicing urban farming, engaging in housing cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, exchange networks, alternative currency networks, free art and so on. This is the real alternative to the crisis because, except for a small minority, the old model of speculative financial capitalism is dead. So most people will react violently because they do not know how to live without consuming themselves in the consumption process. But that is a dead end. Therefore the alternative eco-economic cultures may become a mass alternative because, once banks decide they can’t lend us money any more, it becomes possible to live without banks.

The traditional mass media have lost their position as gatekeepers. At the same time, you define the “network-making power” as paramount in the field of communication. Does that imply that everyone should aspire to the position of a programmer/switcher?

Absolutely, that is what citizen journalism is all about. It is also why open source software is crucial. And that is the reason why the struggle for freedom on the Internet is the defence of the commons of the Information Age.

In what way has the gate-keeping position been taken over by new players like Facebook or Google? What are the consequences for individuals and their autonomy?

Yes, the largest Internet spaces are owned by corporations. But: a) Many other spaces are being created every day by people with the technical knowledge to do so, minimal resources and the possibility of being on the net. b) Because of the low entry barriers in social networking, Google, Facebook and even MySpace have to let people communicate freely because otherwise they would be challenged by hundreds of similar social spaces. They sell freedom, it’s true, but we are free. c) All this works as long as the networks are free, as long as corporations (e.g. Comcast) do not own unrestricted access to the telecom networks. This is why the battle for Internet neutrality is fundamental and why citizens must pressure public regulators to regulate on their behalf.

Do you see any risks of abuse by programmers/switchers? How can those risks be avoided?

Any programmer or switcher will try to advance his interests. That’s why we are engaged in a battle to programme and switch the networks according to values and interests rooted in the social structure.

How can a “democratic” flow be ensured?

By means of public pressure on public regulators. People have to understand that, in our society, freedom means a free Internet. Free from corporate control and free from government control. Neither governments nor corporations are ready for that. That’s why this will be a struggle, the most fundamental struggle of our time.

We act in the face of this condition and need to assume an attitude towards it. Oscar Wilde had such an attitude when he said: “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” However, not everyone is so relaxed about it.

The crisis is changing our world view

The global financial and economic crisis has also thrown numerous professional experts into deep doubt: the “wise men”, a council of economic advisors as well as analysts, journalists, politicians and other “symbol analysts” did not see this crisis coming. Slowly but surely it becomes certain that neoliberalism and the unrestrained deregulation of capital markets and living conditions may have contributed to this crisis. Why is the world view of capitalism, which triumphantly succeeded after the breakdown of communism, now collapsing like a soufflé when opening the oven door?

The traditional economic theory teaches that basically, free markets are perfect and stable. According to this school of thought, any intervention by the government would be detrimental. If people acted rationally and pursued their self-serving economic goals, in an economy that consists of perfect markets they would use all mutually beneficial opportunities for producing and exchanging goods. But they do not.
Because this theory by Adam Smith does not take into account that people are also driven by non-economic motivations, they also act irrationally and pursue wrong ideas. In a nutshell, human behaviour is also influenced by “animal spirits” (Akerlof/Shiller) and therefore creates inconsistency, ambiguity and uncertainty in the markets. People’s actions are mainly driven by trust and a desire for fairness, and are also influenced by the occasional disposition to corrupt behaviour as well as the habit to view reality through the glasses of their personal subjective reality of life and life story.

By incorporating those “animal spirits” into economics, the economy and its crises could be explained better. At the same time, turning away from the sole company goal of shareholder value and from the image of man as a purely rational Homo Economicus will result in an improved understanding of the human being as an employee and customer.

Nervousness: between flight and attack

People react to emotional stimuli. Emotions are excitation patterns in the central nervous system and therefore basic human driving forces. It is this tension that activates a human being, provides the organism with energy and puts him in a state ready to perform. However, these excitation patterns do not form the basis of a definite direction on how to act.

We live in a state of mind that in instinct theory is called appetency, a search and orientation behaviour that precedes our readiness to act: we sense danger or prey. We are faced with the decision to take flight or to attack. Our daily lives are full of examples.

• The euro crisis makes shareholders nervous. Because of the dangers or the opportunities?

• The metropolitan middle class reacts nervously to school reforms. Is this status panic or the search for the best opportunities for their own children?

Especially in crisis situations, a large amount of nervous tension can build up at the societal level that often goes hand in hand with a kind of emotional fatigue of the society (depoliticization, decline in civic commitment, reduced to consumption). In the face of such nervousness, a downward spiral could get started. Stagnating markets will bring about nervous and worried consumers.

However, being nervous does not only have an adverse effect: it increases our awareness. Nervousness is not simply a decrease in calmness, but often a productive situation of tension. Some people feel pressured much more quickly, while others become multitasking talents when under pressure. There is also a nervousness of vitality and creativity. Moments of panic and hysteria have always been the engine of the avant-garde.

The sociologist Georg Simmel talks about anxious classes. He describes a new type of consumers: “In fashion – the alternating and contrasting form of life – anxious classes and individuals pressing for change see a reflection of the pace of their own emotional flow.” Simmel adds that “today’s fashions are not as flamboyant and expensive as they were in previous centuries” and, given the fact that many goods cost less, fashions “have a much shorter lifespan”. What Simmel describes here is the basic element of a distinction process – the devalorisation from “the front”, the “masses” advancing and the escape movement of the “avant-garde”.

Today, the economy is faced with an ever more restless audience. More and more people show multitasking consumption behaviour. These days, many people consume TV and the Internet at the same time and TV programme producers are not the only ones to be concerned about this restless consumption behaviour – it can also be found in the consumption of other things.

Yet, this change in behaviour does not simply result from stress and restlessness. It also has to do with the new and confident self-image of the consumers who see the new possibilities as a liberation from paternalism. The consumers are more restless, and, at the same time, more self-confident. They refuse to buy a product if they find its advertising annoying. They show only limited patience with online shops. On the other hand, they spend a lot of time at places where they can expect a social reward: around the world, social networks are growing in appeal. And the Internet is increasingly accessed from mobile phones.

The economy has to adapt to the nervous consumer (and employee). His restlessness has to do with stress as well as his new self-confidence and attitude towards life: Flow.Control.
The coming years will be shaped by a dynamic, flexible and rapidly accelerating environment and the challenges it will present to consumers and companies. The mega trend is called “Flow.Control. Self-determination instead of system domination” and will be the key topic of the 15th German Trend Day.

Your current work in progress is entitled “Program or be programmed.” What is it about?

In most of history, whenever a new medium becomes available, human beings learn both sides of that medium. We got language and people learned not just how to hear but how to speak as well. We got text and people learned not just how to read but how to write. Now we’re getting programming, but people are only learning how to use it, not how to make it. As we relinquish authority over our programs, we are destined to become programs ourselves. My book is about the importance of understanding the way the tools that you’re using work. Of understanding that every website you use has been designed by somebody else with a purpose in mind. It’s not a pre-existing condition of the universe. In some ways it’s a very simple book, because I explain very clearly what to do and what not to do. It consists of ten commands for a digital age. The most important one of all is the last one: “Program or be programmed”.

What other rules are there?

Digital media haver very strong biases. For example, there is a particular time bias. These tools don’t exist in time. These tools are also biased against place – digital media encourage long distance over short distance. Then there’s a bias we could call “choice” – digital media demand choice, everything has to be discrete. They are biased against complexity. They exist on multiple scales but they appear to make everything the same scale; uncrecognized, that’s potentially dangerous. On top of that, the human experience is biased out of body, which leads to many strange behaviors. The net is biased towards contact rather than content. Towards facts, and away from stories. And towards a limited kind of openness. It seems as if everything’s open but it’s really only open to Google. Finally, they’re biased towards those who know how to program, and away from those who don’t.

[Editor’s note: click here for a full list of Rushkoff’s ten commands.]

Your first command is “Thou shall not be always on”. Do we even have a choice when it comes to being on or offline?

The fact that you think there may not be a choice is the frightening part! But you don’t have to be “on” all the time. Your nervous system doesn’t even want that. Today there are technologies available that let you filter better. I can have my phone set so it will only ring if my wife calls, for instance. But then I’m not always on. Right now being able to afford to be online, to have your iPad or your 3G-modem, is considered positive for your social status. But remember beepers? Who wears a beeper? It was the repairman for the washing machine. I definitely think it’s going to turn around the other way. The disadvantage will be having to be always on and the advantage will be the luxury of not being online. I understand that a computer which isn’t connected is no longer as useful. But that’s very different. It’s one thing for your computer to be online all the time, and quite another for you to be.

So we have the option of withdrawing ourselves from the media. But do we also have the option of using the biases for our own purpose?

That’s what I’m arguing. All the biases can support you or not. If you understand the bias of time, you are able to decide to be online or offline. Understanding the bias of place makes you understand that it is supportive of long distance communication, but not of up-close communication. Or the factor of complexity. If I understand that the net is going to have reduced complexity then I’m going use it for simple and immediate answers. I’m not going to use it for things that I want to contemplate more deeply. If you understand the biases of media, you can use media appropriately, in a way that’s consistent and supporting to you as a person, as an organism, not just to you as a consumer.

So your point is not simply to avoid the net.

No, but I’m critical of people who use it stupidly. Net use requires an understanding of how these interfaces work; what behaviors they want you to have. These things are not natural but were made by people and companies who want to make money. Some of the encouraged behaviors are good for those companies, and some of them are random. Nobody intended them, but they just are. If you don’t understand the biases of the world you’re in, then it’s very hard to operate in it effectively.

Many admire younger generations because digital media and behavior seem to come so “naturally” to them. Representing themselves online, for instance.

In most studies, young people actually seem to have a less sophisticated and a less nuanced approach to identity online. They don’t seem to realize the consequences of their actions. They’re worse at distinguishing between what’s real and what’s fake. Many people say, “Oh, that’s just because they’re more open or more giving.” But when you actually talk to young people and explain to them what’s going on, they are horrified and they change their behavior. To my mind, they’re not more sophisticated, they’re less.

Can you give us one such horrifying example?

That everything they type stays there forever. That there is no longer a local identity, only an international one. There is no neighborhood you can move to, no social group you can go to, to get away from what’s just happened. The ability to experiment as a young person is gone. You can look at the inability of young people to exercise authority over their privacy online as a premonition of a future in which we will all know everything everybody else is doing anyway. So in one sense that makes them more advanced. But they seem to be experimenting with this unconsciously rather than consciously. And that’s a little bit less effective than it might be.

Who is responsible for that kind of media literacy?

Right now me. After me, hopefully teachers, schools. Just like we used to learn how to read and write, we need to learn to understand these environments. It’s a life skill.

In your last book, “Life Inc”, you deal with the commodification of our lives. Are there any parallels with your current work?

They have the same message about understanding what the programs you’re living with were intended to do. “Life Inc.” looks at the invention of central currency and the corporation. It shows that both were invented to monopolize access to capital and to prevent regular people from doing business for and amongst themselves.

If you understand these programs, you’re empowered to reclaim your ability to do real business – actually providing goods and services for other people, who then exchange the value that they’ve created. Right now, most people don’t make anything and work for corporations that don’t make anything. They don’t have any competency. But it turns out that most people can create value, they can do things and even enjoy it.

So it’s also about a way of becoming happier?

I wrote a book a while back called “Get back in the box”. It was about how being good at the thing you do is really good for business. I argued that creating a culture of competence is a lot of fun. When you’re really good at something and committed to getting better incrementally over time, and when you’re part of a culture which values that, then everybody has a good time. Then you don’t need extrinsic rewards in order to make people satisfied. What you win is more authority over what you do next. You get to be at the creative core of your field or industry. […] The modern age has been characterized by industrialization. And industrialization meant disconnecting the worker from competence. But that’s over. That stopped working. It has reached the point of diminishing returns, both in terms of human satisfaction and in terms of money.

And what is the next step?

A culture of knowledge, learning and awareness. It’s really just a return to competence. Leaning how to do things.

The digital world’s supply of information is very much bigger than we could ever hope to cope with in a single lifetime. As a result, the right filtering is one of the most important tasks we face, be it as private individuals or as companies. In a river, you can either swim or drown. It’s the same thing with the information flow. Those who don’t allow any “control” – any filtering or selection – will drown. The escalation logic of the past no longer applies. It is not the addition of possibilities that leads to success but the subtraction. It’s a matter of deciding: What’s relevant for me? What’s just entertaining? What bugs me?

Surely it’s not just about the information you receive, but about what you yourself pass on as well?

Yes, that’s right, because we reveal a great deal about ourselves in the digital world – regardless of whether we do it knowingly on the Internet or unknowingly via radio chips. This information becomes a commodity. It is sellable and scalable. Its value can rise and fall. We are entering an economy in which privacy represents a monetary value and an advantage, where your own life becomes a resource. When I use a navigation device, I disclose the data about my current position and planned route in exchange for perfect orientation. I enjoy huge advantages when I’m in that kind of “flow”. I can concentrate on what’s really important to me; everything else is organised for me.

Yet right now people seem increasingly sceptical about the constant exchange of data.

This is where the word “control” comes into play. On the other hand there is of course the desire for control – I don’t want the whole world to know what I’m doing or where and when I’m doing it the whole time. And that’s where it gets really interesting. It’s increasingly becoming a question of weighing up what service I expect in return for my private data. Where do I want a shelter so I don’t turn up in the digital world? How much am I willing to pay for that? Basically, it’s all a question of “How do I handle the value of my identity?”

What does flow control mean for companies?

Ideally, it means being able to react to every single customer. In the meantime, the Prahalad formula that every individual all over the world counts pertains to almost every company. In the 1980s and 1990s, the introduction of IT as a company’s central nervous system led to a revolution. Calculability, i.e. controlling, became possible. The “Chief Information Officer” was instated. Today we don’t just have an internal data flow, we’re networked with our end customers too. The predictions of the Cluetrain Manifesto have become reality. The net is turning into a conversation. As a result, companies are faced with hugely increased complexity. A whole ocean of possibilities for observing a customer is opening up to firms. They too have to incorporate filters and ask: Where is the conversation with the customer interesting? Where does it turn into mere blabbering? It’s a bit like being at a party: you have to know when it’s time to leave.

So for the company it’s not so much a case of knowing everything about the user but only what’s relevant?

Exactly. Companies have to be able to assess the value a consumer offers them. Anybody who uses Web 2.0 as a marketing or sales channel has to know how much money the individual customer is prospectively worth to him. How worthwhile is it to track his data so as to be able to make him an offer at precisely the moment when my product becomes important? “Customer Lifetime Value” is a very apt expression for it. Mutual communication between consumers and companies only makes sense when it results in a better quality of life. When the customer’s car breaks down, but he knows: “My car dealer will help me.” In order to do that, the dealer has to know: “What kind of breakdown is it? Does the customer need a repair job, a rental car or a brand new vehicle?” Making offers in the relevant situation is of course far more effective than trying to imprint yourself on the customer’s memory to such an extent that, when the time comes, he turns to your company and nobody else.

Which companies are already practising these principles successfully?

The best examples are companies that grew up in the dotcom phase and survived the bubble, whether it’s Amazon, Google or a classic industrial enterprise like Apple. They’re all moving in the same direction: they’re basing their thinking on the customer and focusing on the benefit for the individual consumer. At the same time, Apple, Google and Amazon are developing very different ways when it comes to e.g. how they want to earn money with their personal media offering. Apple wants to sell advertising. Amazon absolutely doesn’t want to sell advertising, it wants to give priority to content instead. Those are two very different approaches to “control”. The filter mechanisms and thus also the criteria for doing business successfully vary and appeal to different people too, of course. Apple’s restrictions in relation to pornography have led to very severe reactions. Is that a “control” point that has to be abandoned? Or will they deliberately opt for the clean, Disney version of the product?

What implications does the principle of Flow Control have for the way the company is organised?

In essence, Flow Control means being able to deal with surprises. Knowing the right way to react in a dynamic conversation situation with several million people is vital – and is precisely what Nestlé failed to do recently. The online debate [about Nestlé suppliers who pose a threat to species conservation] gathered momentum extremely quickly and on a global scale. On the one hand, companies cannot assess the significance of this kind of event correctly because they lack the appropriate seismographs. On the other hand, it is impossible to react with the necessary speed because the matrix organisation of most companies doesn’t permit such rapid reaction times. The IT department might realise there’s a sudden increase in data traffic, but a period of at least several days will pass before the marketing department or head office is informed. That’s too slow. But being able to react correctly and early enough to a situation like that means being informed in real time and acting just as quickly. A company that masters these principles is a happy company.

You cite “Digital Residents” as the vanguard of Flow Control. Will corporate practices change as younger generations move up?

The main thing the younger generations mean for companies today is that they will have to adjust to a totally different kind of employee. On the one hand, Digital Residents have highly specialised interests and a profound knowledge. On the other hand, they’re not interested in observing and interpreting connections. For them, the feedback loops and information cascades of their own, often self-contained communities are more important than anything else. Thomas Huber touches on this topic in our blog. That’s why management has to focus on the productive networking of individuals. So that great, new and processual steps can be

One of the most important times to have a good information “flow control” strategy and data management discipline is during a crisis. Recent financial crises have sent investors scrambling for safety. European and United States government debt and gold became “safe” investments for most investors. Many trusted consumer brands and their owners that have proven they can weather such storms in the past were ignored. Only the biggest global discount retailers and consumer brand portfolios received some of the flight to safety investments. Highly dependable mid-sized brand owners and retailers had their stock values fall dramatically despite consistent performance success. Why did stock markets treat leading brands like over-leveraged banks during the crisis?

Without the establishment of realistic information flow controls it is relatively easy to be overwhelmed by data and thus make poor decisions. Data quality not quantity is essential for determining brand value and brand investments. For example, if you do not know what you are looking for and why, the Internet can often be a very dangerous and misleading tool for brand managers and investors. The same is true for brand valuation studies and financial rating agencies. BrandZ, Y&R Brand Asset Valuator, Interbrand/Business Week – Best Global Brands, Dun & Bradstreet, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings all have their specific strengths and weaknesses. They all analyze large volumes of data with specific filters that need to be understood before they can be intelligently used to support investment decisions. Despite the recent catastrophically poor performance of financial ratings agencies like Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, brand and consumer behavior studies have gained limited extra attention.

Despite the claims of the world’s leading banks and credit ratings agencies, real estate is not always a safe investment. For those that were able to go beyond quantity and follow quality of information, the crisis was not only avoidable but enough time was available to profit from the bubble’s eventual burst. Similarly exaggerated values exist in the brand analysis community. How much do consumers really love Google and Microsoft despite the huge valuations given to their brands? Are more focused brands like Blackberry, PayPal and Skype better positioned for the future? What about brands like Ralph Lauren, Tiffany and Hermes that prosper even in difficult times? Are their business models safer than those of Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs?

Information technologies allow poor-quality data to be cost-effectively “dressed up” to look like valuable inputs. Data retrieval and presentation often receives more resources as compared to benchmark and strategic goal management. A poorly defined question that has limited strategic value does not produce better results when asked to 50,000 consumers instead of 500. In fact, increased test group sizes and numbers of variables used in a model often help to mask poorly executed data collection and analysis.

When consumers’ media-driven worlds stop making sense and their daily lives are filled with increasing amounts of negative data and fear, they still continue to buy their favorite toothpaste and detergent brands. The stock market valuations of companies with the most trusted brands in brand-driven industries have been surprisingly volatile over the last three years. The investment community largely ignored brand value and brand equity as a “safe haven” when their debt-fed bubble markets including real estate CDOs popped.

When the finance world sends the global economy into a panic, where do professional investors look for safety? This time around, when the global press cried fire in the crowded media theatre, it was predictably government bonds and gold that were purchased in huge volumes – and not trusted consumer brands or product producers that leveraged predictable consumer behavior patterns. Government bond yields were falling despite the fact that government debt and risk were rising. Gold prices are largely driven by professional investors rather than industrial demand. If one has lost faith in the financial system, why trust an instrument like gold that this same system so completely controls and regularly manipulates?

To support these claims, I will present charts of publically traded companies in the US and Germany that have brand-driven businesses compared to two leading risk-friendly banks, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. I have also included broad market indicators – the S&P 500 and DAX30 – to provide overall market perspective. I believe the charts underline that many safe brand-driven companies were treated like high-risk investment banks during the crisis.

Let us begin with the publically traded company Lululemon Atheltica (nasdaq:lulu), a leading yoga-only apparel and lifestyle brand operating in the USA and Canada. I think we should begin with Lululemon and yoga because they are both very safe and predictable. Over 20 million Americans practice yoga regularly, supported by the success of yoga-related products, services and media creating a multi-billion dollar global industry. It is an affordable pursuit with a strong fan base within the desirable middle-income and middle-aged consumer groups. It has proven to be a recession and financial bubble resistant industry.

Many leading investors follow Lululemon stock and its market capitalization grew significantly after its IPO. Yoga mats, clothing and accessories like water bottles have great profit margins. Lululemon has established superior brand driven value and is now a market leader in a stable growth market. So why were Lululemon shares not seen as a safe haven during the debt crisis? Why did investors fail to analyze data around the yoga market and Lululemon shares?

Lululemon shares fell harder and faster than Goldman Sachs or the S&P 500 during periods of the debt crisis, despite delivering relatively good results. Poor data flow management and benchmarks turned what should have been a conservative investment into a volatile investment. Despite cash reserves, limited debt and growing market share, Lululemon became undervalued. When retail shares rebounded in 2009, Lululemon was suddenly noticed again and has been a shooting star over the last twelve months, outperforming its category. To add to the irony and general data flow management problems, Lululemon is now considered by many to be overvalued, trading at more than 40 times current earnings.

The chart below tracks Lululemon against the S&P 500 and Goldman Sachs. Please note Lulu valuation volatility both up and down. The downward fall from September 2007 until March 2009 was particularly dramatic, as was the rise in early 2010. This does not represent a relatively safe and predictable investment.

A similar case in Germany is the mature women’s fashion brand Gerry Weber. This company has reported consistent revenues, cash flows, margins and market share growth over the last three years within a brand-driven category where product innovation and competitive forces are limited. The Gerry Weber target market is mature middle-income women in Germany as well as other European markets and has grown via the company’s own retail outlets as well as retail partners. This is a very stable and predictable target group that displays strong brand loyalty and stable purchasing habits. Despite these consistencies, Gerry Weber shares were only marginally more stable than those of Deutsche Bank or the Dax30 during the recent crisis. Like Lululemon shares, they are volatile and have skyrocketed in the last twelve months from an undervalued position.

In contrast to the relative stability of the biggest market capitalization US brand owners and value retailers like Walmart and P&G, many more focused and brand-driven mid-sized lifestyle and fashion leaders suffered intense volatility during the crisis. Despite strong past performance and stable category properties, they too were not seen as safe havens in difficult times. Respected brands Ralph Lauren and Tiffany both suffered during the financial crisis. Even Puma and Adidas have experienced significant valuation fluctuations. The market seems to ignore consumer behavior and loyalty during tough times and often overvalues them during good times. I hope the following charts speak for themselves about poor data flow management and poor long-term value perspectives regarding brands.

How would investment funds behave if they were supported by market research, brand management, advertising and digital marketing professionals? I am still waiting for a brand-driven investment fund that effectively tracks consumer behavior for my hard-earned savings. Consumer behavior patterns and trusted brands are some of the best long-term investments available – especially in a crisis. Washing powder and candy bar brands tend to be more responsibly managed than CDOs and the national debts of Greece and England.

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Alexander Shapiro (45) was born and raised in New York City. After his Philosophy studies at Wesleyan University he returned home to Manhattan to work in Investment Banking. Mr. Shapiro moved to Europe about 16 years ago where he has held numerous business development and strategy positions at companies including Spotify, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), Springer & Jacoby, Deutsche Telekom and Nortel. He currently lives in Hamburg in his beloved St. Pauli.