Are you missing out on opportunities to connect with and engage your stakeholders?

Why do people of highly diverse backgrounds connect online? The notion of 'tribe' is the predominant way to convey what social connectivity online is all about. It cannot stand alone, however. Indeed, a preoccupation with online tribes obscures a range of opportunities for companies and organizations to connect with and engage individual stakeholders and threatens to leave obvious business opportunities unexploited.

Is your company ready to reap the benefits of social technologies for value creation and customer relations?

Increasingly, customers expect to have a say in the development of new company products and services. At the same time companies look to customers for innovative inputs to products and services honed to meet customers' needs. Social technologies both necessitate and enable these developments. Indeed, social technologies offer important opportunities for increased value creation and stronger customer relations.

Rethinking 'exchange economy' in the light of co-production and crowdsourcing

We contribute to all kinds of co-production on the web. We often do it on a volunteer basis expecting that - but not knowing whether - others will contribute as well. What we DO know is that we can pick up a multitude of things of value to us from the web, things that others have produced.

The fact that the individual giver does not necessarily get anything in return from the receiver, but certainly from somebody else, gives us reason to rethink what exchange economy is about. An updated concept of exchange economy includes - not only the traditional exchange of goods and services but also - the new 'reciprocity economy': 'I contribute to something of value to you because I know I'll get something in return from somebody'.