New business opportunities based on ‘connected minds’

If as history indicates more connected minds are more conscious minds, then human development (and business innovation) is about to take a great step forward.

What we are seeing taking place around the Web 2.0 developments is an interconnected world. Look at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, but also at Wikileaks, Google, Flickr, Skype, etc. These services are attracting hundreds of millions of people.

Up until now countries, organisations and companies have been largely organised within silos. These silos have their own experts, their own systems and their own hierarchies, bureaucracies etc. However, it is not too hard to predict that the next phase will put an end to these silos – some of the new Web 2.0 services are already creating severe havoc inside our siloed worlds.

Like-minded people are increasing connecting directly with each other rather than using the traditional silo-based systems they often operate in. It is more than likely that the next level of innovations and new business opportunities will arise from a linking together of minds, independently of the silo (country, company, organisation) in which they work.

Organisations that are able to harness this will become tomorrow’s winners. And those who are resisting it will be left behind.

As we discussed recently, the Wikileaks affair will have massive implications for the publishing world. Equally, retailers who are trying to save their traditional retail businesses by claiming that the government should put a tax on the Internet don’t understand the big picture. eBay and other direct retail services are already far too advanced to be stopped. The music industry is a classic example of what happens if you don’t adapt and video based entertainment will be the next victim. Political campaigns are an other example of the power of connecting like-minded people.

As my hobby is history I was keen to put this development into a historical context.

Some 150,000 years ago Homo sapiens (Latin: ‘wise man or knowing man) began to appear. At that stage they were still very similar to the Neanderthals, but they rapidly evolved through a process of consciousness, when the human brain became capable of language, around 70,000BCE (Before the Common Era).

For the discussion of the conscious mind, below, I have used information from Piero Scaruffi’s book The Nature of Consciousness. He quotes several leading researchers and authors on this subject, such as the American psychologist, Julian Jayens, and the British archaeologist, Steven Mithen.

Consciousness is more of a process than a physical attribute. Animals also have some level of consciousness but it applies only to the here and now. Consciousness in its full meaning indicates a true understanding of ‘self’ and the ability to place it outside reality, both in the past and the future. Also consciousness – as a neurologic process – is capable of growth, as can be seen in the early years of babies and toddlers.

Consciousness requires language, and it has therefore been argued that language was the final element in the process of the development of human consciousness. It was preceded by the ability to deal with other humans, to deal with the environment, and to utilise tools. Together with language these skills ‘fused together’ in the modern mind. This led to the development of art (60,000BCE), agriculture (10,000BCE), organised religion (4,000BCE) and more sophisticated tool-making.

Consciousness increasingly became a more important element of the unconscious mind that constituted the earlier phases of the evolutionary process. As less time became needed by the brain to sort out how to struggle through life (food, sex, shelter) more was available for the development of consciousness.

It has been argued that truly conscious humans only emerged after writing was invented – some 3,000BCE, perhaps as late as 1,000BCE. Certainly the development of the ability to create written records produced a level of consciousness in humans that was different from that of their forebears.

It is interesting to note that a lack of consciousness does not mean a lack of intelligence – some impressive cultures were built well before this time.

However, during earlier stages, instead of having a fully-developed understanding of ‘self’, people relied on ‘voices’ to guide their decisions. Shamans and priests received messages in visions, while they were in a trance state. For them it was not possible to differentiate between real and imagined events. This process became more and more sophisticated and increased the power of the priest class in several of the city states in the Near and Middle East.

Homer’s Iliad is perhaps one of the first written records where there is an indication of humans acting independently of the voices that still feature very prominently in this writing from approximately 900BCE. Also the latter part of the Bible includes more and more conscious decisions. And similar shifts occur in the Chinese and Indian literature of that time.

In more recent western history these developments are very noticeable. Significant progress was made during the Greek and Roman civilisations where a rather free flow of knowledge was possible. Once the Catholic Church proclaimed that all the knowledge needed by humanity was within their dogmas and teaching the acquisition of new knowledge was suppressed; however it re-emerged during the Age of Enlightenment.

It is interesting to note that even in modern times we still see remnants of that proto-conscious process in religious and government structures, where ‘authoritative’ guidance is needed for important decisions.

But the more sophisticated societies became the more knowledge was acquired, and, after writing was invented, better records could be used to guide the decision-making process. Vision-based processes were becoming less relevant. People with conscious minds also have the ability to advance their societies much more quickly.

This is where the concept of ‘connected minds’ come in. In our globally connected world more knowledge is being acquired by humanity in our lifetime than in its entire history, people in the connected society will further increase our capacity to tackle the problems of our times.

At the same time they will give the organisations that are going to lead the way an enormous business advantage in developing what will undoubtedly be the next big wave of opportunities.

This blog was originally published www.buddeblog.com.au

Paul Budde is the CEO of BuddeComm, an independent Australian telecommunications research and consultancy company, which has 45 national and international researchers in 15 countries. He specialises in the strategic planning of government and business innovation and transformation around converging markets, aimed at building smart communities – e-health, e-education, smart grids, e-media and e-entertainment. He has been involved in discussions on this trans-sector concept during meetings in the White House and with the FCC, the ITU Secretary-General and the governments of the Netherlands, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. Paul Budde also advises the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Digital Development and is the lead author of a report that was presented to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in September 2010. He is also the founder and executive director of Smart Grid Australia and a founding board member of the Global Smart Grid Federation. www.budde.com.au