Monday 24 June 2013

Ready For The New Era?


In his last book, The Icarus Deception, Seth Godin defines the new six assets that matters in the so called connected economy:
  • Trust
  • Permission
  • Remarkability
  • Leadership
  • Stories
  • Humanity
In the today's world, with the huge boom of social networks and social media, we encounter an information overload in every aspect of our lives. Think this as being in a room with an orchestra but each instrument is playing a different melody. The human nature tends to close its outer sensors in this situation to decrease the level of complexity in the environment, most people starts to hear only instruments that has some kind of attraction. If we return back to this connected economy the first step to create this 'attraction' is trust and permission; don't forget, the only people we hear are the ones we choose to hear - give permission to be heard. And we choose to listen to those we trust.

Ever consider which ideas we share with our environment? The boring ones? The ones that everybody already knows? Or what we look for are ideas that are unusual, extraordinary, surprising? Or think from the opposite perspective, what kind of ideas we prefer to be shared with us? Yes, we are all looking for remarkable things; the degree of remarkability may change, and the tendency towards is won't.

Management vs Leadership... People loves this comparison, there are lots of articles, blogs related to this topics but still most people use the terms "management" and "leadership" interchangeably. Management is the act of well-known, the act of past, taming the complexity. Leadership,on the other hand, about the future, the unknown territory, change. And when entering a new era, past should be left behind.

There is an old French saying, "Les gens heureux n’ont pas d’histoire à raconter" meaning that happy people don't have a story to tell. I once fond of this idea, especially during university years when girls tend to be attracted sad-looking guys - according to them it creates a mysterious aura - which I found a little bit masochistic. But in the today's world, it is the story that spreads. Remember Simon Sinek's concept of the "Golden Circle" where everything starts with a "Why?". And it is your story that defines that "Why?' - and if you don't the inspiring TED video of Simon Sinek, go immediately to YouTube after reading this post.

And humanity...In today's current over-industrialized world in which mass production sweeps away the era of scarcity for most of the products, the new rarity becomes the "humanity", we begin to seek out for human originality and caring in this industrial jungle...

These assets remind me of so called "Rambo" knives which used to be advertised in the Sunday pull-outs of newspapers. These knives usually contain a compass, needles, fishing lines, etc. - a basic survival kit for unknown, wilderness environment suchlike the new era. To enter the new era, to safely pass over the "doorstep", to catch the next "safety zone", one must embrace these assets internally... There are no other alternatives...