Earlier this week I attended a conference in Telefónica held by our partners, Kemp (management skills training in Spanish) about Social Media.
Most of the content was factual, informing us of the different medias available and how to exploit them from both a professional and a personal point of view. However, what I found most interesting and what really impacted me most, were the discussions about more subtle implications of web 2.0, and in particular, the issue of TRANSPARENCY.
Individuals and companies can no longer afford to hide behind falsities, to mask devious behaviours in the bid to get ahead of the competition and to ultimately increase “bad” profits (profits that do not contribute in the long term to a sutainable world and fulfilled, happy individuals). By the sheer weight of open communication on the internet by ordinary individuals, poor service and deviant practices will inevitably be discovered, forcing companies to act with much more integrity. Companies are being forced to be more transparent.
This is a fantastic offshoot of our advancing tecnology, and supports my view of a world that is moving slowly but surely towards a society where basic spiritual principles such as honesty, transparency and integrity will reign, and will lead to sustainable prosperity.
Who would have thought that something like technology would end up indirectly contributing to this movement?
Another humanistic side effect of web 2.0 appears to be the erosion of an individual as expert. The traditional role of the teacher, boss or parent who feeds their own ego by claiming they know everything, and certainly more than the person they are “in charge of” is virtually dead. And those same people who cling to this ridiculous stance will suffer as their belief is challenged more and more by their students, employees and children who have access to all information on the internet. In my view this change emphasises the growing importance of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE in leader roles. It supports the concept of awareness of another, their views and knowledge, and the necessity of working together to pool the information that all of us have gathered from different sources in our attempt to find solutions.
Through Social Media we are seeing a connection of minds and energy that would have been inconceivable even just twenty years ago.
This is so invigorating and powerful.
