After spending the past year working on the #140conf events and exploring the on-going effects of the emerging real-time Internet on both business and on people, I decided the next thing to do was to write a book about the social revolution we are experiencing and provide a platform for some of the amazing people who are involved in this social revolution to get discovered outside their areas of direct influence.
I want to do this right. However, I don’t have any editor or publisher (yet) but I woke up the other morning with the feeling that I had to write the book and the time to start writing was NOW.
So here goes…
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A social revolution was born in 1969 as an unintended consequence of the launch of ARPANET.
It took the advent of the broadbandmobile Internet for the social revolution to become visible, disruptive and help shape the ways we connect.
Along the way, 500 years post-Columbus, the world once again became flat in a Thomas Friedman-esque (I think that you don’t need the hyphen when you add “esque” to a word.) kind of way and the real-time Internet was born. In this new flat world access to information has become democratized.
Now, almost halfway into 2010 I believe we are in the very beginning stages of a global social revolution, which will redefine, maybe forever, the way we do business.
The transition will be slower than some might expect, but as companies discover the benefits of listening to what their customers are saying using social communications, individual customers are discovering the innate power they have (but don’t always know) by simply speaking up, sharing their knowledge and often times serving as unpaid, but passionate, brand ambassadors.
The balance of power is shifting. A new era in buyer/seller relationships is being defined. And unlike other revolutions, this isn’t so much about the power of “we the people” but rather “me the people.”
For the first time in a long time, our individual voices matter and each of us can effect change. When we work together, the mashing together of multiple “me’s” does empower a stronger and more powerful “we the people.” The point is that each of us matter in our own right and at any given moment, any of us can and maybe will stand up and effect change.
This shift is having dramatic effects in many other parts of the business, social, environmental, political and other ecosystems. In the last year, we’ve heard peoples’ voices in Iran, Haiti, China and most recently, those affected by a volcano and an oil spill.
Since the launch of #140conf, I have met some amazing people, some of whom have discovered their own voice in the advent of the real-time webacross the U.S., parts of Europe and Israel. I’ve personally listened to these people as they have effected positive change in many places around the world.
I’ve had famous celebrities, the homeless, musicians, writers, journalists, an ex-convict, educational and religious leaders share center stage of the Kodak Theater, the 92nd Street Y, the Austin Convention Center, an off-Broadway theater, the 02 and many other venues as they shared their passion and stories. At the #140Conf NY, we had more than 100,000 viewers track us on UStream.
After flying approximately a hundred thousand miles (and maybe more) in doing my research, I want to create a new stage that will reach an even broader base. I’m working on new book, “The Connected Me,” which will explore this on-going social revolution. It is my goal to use this book to highlight the people who have discovered their voice and who are continuing to use the advent of this social revolution to effect change. Whether this person is changing business, raising awareness for a social cause or simply making the world a better place, I would like to learn about this person and give them center stage in this new book.
My goal is to curate on-going lists (or to curate an on-going list) of people to vet as candidates to be included in the book. While I already have a number of people in mind, I hope to be able to crowdsource the discovery of new people from around the world, who I otherwise would have never had a chance to meet.
So I am looking for your help in identifying characters who you feel should be profiled and given a voice in the book. Whether this person is yourself, a friend or someone you only heard of, I would greatly appreciate your assistance in helping me map some of the connected “me”s around all of us.
Please use this form: http://140conf.wufoo.com/forms/nomination-the-connected-me/ to nominate a connected “me” to be profiled.
Thanks for your time.
– Jeff Pulver
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