by Andrew Keen
If the Web 2.0 age of the first decade of the 21st century was about user-generated-content, the Social Media age of the second decade of the century is about the way in which technology is changing our lives. Yesterday's Web 2.0 was all about data; today's social media is all about people.
An increasingly collaborative and social Internet appears - at least to those who believe in its efficacy - to be becoming the vehicle with both society and business can be radically transformed.
Two important books published last month, Clay Shirky's Cognitive
Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
and Charlene Li's Open
Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead both make this point
eloquently. In his Cognitive Surplus, Shirky - who teaches at
New York University and is the author of the 2007 hit Here Comes
Everybody - argues that the
collapse of a centralized mass media ecosystem frees us up from
watching television and allows us to become more creative and generous
citizens. Li - the Founder of the Altimeter Group and the coauthor of the
2008 bestselling Groundswell - argues that
social media technology is enabling business leaders to make their
companies more effective, decisive and thus profitable.
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