What follows will simply be a beginning as some of our ideas unfold and emerge. It isn't perhaps necessary to know where business is going as opposed to simply seeing what we need to do in the near term. However, for companies that seek to plan or structure themselves with what lies ahead in mind, this may be of value.

6 Billion Inventors:
There are several significant things that have shifted on our planet in the past few years. It's known that one of the most significant elements that contributed to the outsourcing of call centers to India and other countries was the drop from 1990 to 2005 by about 95% in the cost of telephone calls; India went from approximately $1.20 per minute in 1990 to 5-7cents per minute recently. The cost of communication globally is now little more than the cost to call down the street. Next, is the fact that there are about 1 billion personal computers in use today. It will not be too long before 1/5, then ¼, then 1/3 the world's population holds a personal communication device and is connected to the global network. Even though telecom companies have demonstrated desire to build a controlled, metered internet whereby traffic can be structured to the higher bidders, ie non net-neutrality, it is likely that the global network will survive or be reinvented. The planet has tasted connectivity; we're not going back if it's in our power to move forward. The question becomes, what happens when 1 billion people hold a device that enables each person to become the next Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, or Larry Ellison (Google, Apple, Oracle). These are just a few of the big players; there are millions of men and woman who have vastly changed their lives and communities via ingenious code or simple technological inventions. The PC is a device that enables one to change one's reality in ways never before seen. Everyone becomes an inventor, a programmer, a communicator. We become only limited by our willingness to grasp opportunity, with caveats of course relating to sociopolitical, environmental, and related instabilities.

Emergent Collaboration:
The future is very much about Collaboration. This is the first very clear truth. The cultures of India and China hold a different approach to the individual as opposed to the West. The concept of class, populous unification combined with individual striving can be seen in the collective uprising of peoples around the world. Self and other are being reevaluated at a fast pace. Numerically, the West is and will continue to be outnumbered as a dominant force in the global future. More correctly, intermixing of genetics, global travel, and related is likely to yield a global planet with isolated pockets of ethnocentricity but much larger segments of multiculturalism. The great orator and ethnographer, Wade Davis, speaks of the fact that the at the turn of the twentieth century approximately 6000 languages were spoken worldwide; today only half that figure are being taught to children which effectively means that in a the span of few generations nearly half of humanity's collective cultural legacy will fall silent. The erosion and systematic destruction of culture coincides with our need for grounding into the past and understanding of our history and lineage. Paradox arises once again - it is hard to say how things will develop. We may be reasonably confident that globalism, international communities, virtual workforces and spaces will continue to emerge.

Collaboration is the centerpoint of our future. It will become increasingly clear that unchecked consumerism and personal consumption are definitively unsustainable. Giant vehicles, global excess, hypocrisy such as organic produce that is shipped 10,000 miles to the consumer, activism for Africa's peoples yet undying commitment to supporting their bondage as through our diamond culture, hopefully these things will come to an end. Honesty, clarity, and transparency, hopefully world peoples will arise and demand truth from business, societal, political, and spiritual/religious leaders. As offered in our flash introduction, we are all in this together. If fresh water becomes the new gold, all of us will pay dearly not just to drive to work, to put food on the table, but to purely sustain our existence. Clarity of what is, the challenges that are before us, and honest action from all parties - Collaboration is Key.

The New Economy:
20th century business largely revolved around the movement and sale of Goods and Services. We suggest that 21st century business will entail the movement of Information and Intellectual Capital through Credentialed Services. 3 Elements to this Transition: The First key is that physical goods are replaced by knowledge and information as the centerpoint of the global economy. The Second key is that organizations will become known for their business practices and wider impact; sustainability and responsibility will become intrinsic to the social fabric. The Third key is that in additional to legacy information, ie products and services, businesses will become known for the community they keep, the collective opinions of their customers, and the many partners with whom they are intertwined. The network and demand for transparency will naturally create a structure in which we evaluate businesses on new parameters, their web of relations and interactions. The conclusion to this is that businesses in the new economy will need to build trust, informational and intellectual capital, and a community of clients and partners that recognize value in the company's endeavors and communicate this value within the spheres of influence wherein public opinion is tracked and formed. Web, Net 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 companies will naturally emerge to handle this new relational data and information, providing new understanding and actively uplifting and demoting the global power of those who transcend forthcoming social and corporate policies.

A Critical Time, A Call to Action:
We live at an incredibly exciting, dynamic time. It must be noted that our planet holds several possible destiny lines. It is absolutely false to claim that we live in a free world. We do not. Only fools fail to see the writing on the wall. The so-called creep of fascism has graced our path as it has moved across this planet many times before. Power corrupts and our leaders are not without significant faults. The lobby system has been argued as the institutionalization of corporate influence and greed. Totalitarianism is not removed from this planet by any means - one might argue that there is no true concerted effort within the global leadership community - the spiritual mastery, courage, foresight that would bring this about is absolutely not exhibited in the actions of such nations as the US, GB, Russia, and China to name a few. The United States is at best a constitutional republic; however, as is well known, the administration of 2000-2008 has deconstructed the sanctity of the Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus, we have endured political cronyism and hypocrisy beyond the wildest fantasies of most political scholars, our international position has fundamentally changed, our mainstream media has been nearly silent and arguably complicit in degrading complex issues into emotionally charged child's play. This once great nation has fallen far from its heights. Patriotism is not measured by a yellow sticker on an SUV nor a lapel pin; Courage is not measured by closed eyes, cold hearts, and blind party loyalty; Wisdom is not measured by the loudness of Lou Dobbs' or Bill O'Reilly's intolerant rants. No. The United States had a great opportunity. Our nation has not completely blown it but we've fallen far from any claims of moral high-ground. We torture; we do. Thank you to our political leaders for all that you have done to advance humankind with secret global prisons, secret energy meetings and expectant collusion, no-bid billion dollar Iraq contracts, and the destruction of human liberties, wireless wiretapping, and your immense hypocrisy. Regardless, Americans, we are not the center of the world; in fact, no nation is. Our hegemony is impossible to sustain without drastic change in course; ideally we surrender the desire to dominate and embrace the will to lead and guide through enlightened action. Many nations are rising now - we have an immense opportunity to return to that moral, political, economic high-ground - to rise higher than ever before and to lead a new century of development and global prosperity. The developing world is rising, their demand will not fade, we have the choice now to act from fear or to act from love and to build systems that embrace our global brothers and sisters, sons and daughters as one family. Fear doesn't work. Endless war yields endless suffering, pain, and illusion. A life without fear for 1 moment is infinitely more valuable than one hundred years of constant fear of terror. Freedom from fear is arguably the root meaning of freedom - it entails all - economic, social, political freedom. Inner change must be chosen. The outward change is happening of its own course. We continue.

Transparent Corporations, New Systems:
The future of business is global-centric. It is not US or any one-nation centric. This is a fundamental emergent property of the networked planet as described above. Soon, billions of people will be collectively communicating in yet to be invented virtual realities. Medicine, energy, ethics, science, philosophy, every field of great collaboration will become a global dialogue, a global community of investigation and participation. Virtual worlds will emerge that look and feel like the real one yet unbound by physical laws, time, and space. Interaction, invention, and the collective spirit of those who fire the planet, those who move the Dharma, who hold the love of Christ, Yeshua, Mohamed, Krishna, Kali, who recognize the Earth as sacred, the rivers as our blood, the mountains as our collective soul - you are millions strong - and your collective longing for change is a powerful contrast to those who currently hold the reigns. The rising of Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the preponderance of Americans in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who drove these campaigns are powerful examples of what lies ahead. Inward power, inward awareness, outward commitment, unrelenting will, courage, and passion.

From Goods to Information Services:
With limited global resources, the sale of goods will become complicated by the collective uprising of hundreds of millions across this earth. Raw materials are already in much higher demand, which will eventually outstrip supply driving prices higher for all peoples. We would also offer that goods will no longer drive the economy for the following reasons: 1) Rising prices will create a more realistic, sustainable approach. 2) Consumers will demand that purchased goods hold a long useful life and be of high quality. 3) Many goods will be 'good enough' and will be used longer than previously intentioned due to rising costs globally. 4) New systems such as 3D printing, self-assembling robots, and nanotechnology hold the potential to revolutionize commonly consumed products. Information and I-Capital (Innovation, Intellectual, Informational) will be moved through global commerce in much the same way that goods were sold in the past. Finally, service is set to make a great return to the marketplace as consumers globally have 1) Become disenchanted with the absence of quality service from most large corporations 2) Recognized that they want the old-touch mentality - the closeness of the local banker in a virtual world and 3) Consumers will create an economy whereby service becomes a demand and a luxury that has a monetary value. Whole industries are set to emerge that bring people together who are willing to spend their dollars on individual interaction such that they have 1) Greater control of the process of business transactions 2) Greater security in the long-term and 3) The human element of trust.

The second property of the new economy is that the actions, practices, and policies of corporations will be brought to light by the system. Transparency is a fundamental, self-emergent property of the networked and information society. There are countless websites and portals of information where every Jack and Jill share their expertise, anger, and passion. We are communicators. Give us a forum and Wikipedia emerges - the future of global knowledge. See MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Flickr, Skype, Pandora, Amazon, Wordpress, , Gmail, Digg, Reddit, and countless more. MIT, Harvard, Stanford, global universities are beginning to open more and more online courses free-of-charge to the global community, which Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, defines in his Feb 08 cover story as the future of business - free. Looking further into transparency - On the Internet and global networks, the free flow of information provides a venue for consumers to counteract and to rise in power against the corporation's control of image and public opinion. See www.consumerist.com. The flow of information cannot be controlled, it can only now be managed - errant business practices and ethical transgressions are more freely exposed by consumers. The new system bears flexibility, fluidity, transparency, and the absence of control. Systems will need to emerge that remove outliers, spamming, and false claims of course. However, at the end of the day - businesses will increasingly be evaluated by the following new criteria: 1) Social Consciousness, Awareness 2) Environmental Stewardship 3) Transparency in Practices, 4) Corporate Compensation and Excess and 5) Employee Fairness & Corporate Fabric.

The Third key to the future of business is that companies will no longer transact business in a unidirectional relationship with their customers. The network will enable and require a system in which companies and their customers interact in a dynamic way. Customers will share experiences; communities will form in which new levels of transparency will emerge. A company's suppliers, vendors, lenders, customers, every element of its business cycle may become a part of its public record. Increasingly, businesses will become known their constituents and their communities whereas in the past the limited flow of information would enable a company to say one thing but to do another. Recently, a story broke on Reddit.com, one of the leading news aggregators, about a crucial metal that is required in the manufacturing of many electronics, notably Sony's PlayStation System. This mineral is mined in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). John Lasker of TowardFreedom.com explains how the demand for 'Coltan' helped fuel a decade long conflict. Rwandan troops and Western companies allegedly used local children to mine for this metal such that children of developed nations could play first-person shooter games. Our hope is that companies will innovate and incubate solutions to such issues as new media moves these stories to consumers. In 2006, a story broke about conditions in the Chinese factories where the Apple Ipod was being mass-produced, Apple acted immediately by sending an investigative team, conducting a broad review, implementing policy changes, and publishing a detailed report on its website. Apple also enlisted outside assistance through Verite, a global leader in workplace standards, joined the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC), and wrote widely of their commitment to social responsibility. It shouldn't surprise us that Apple may be ahead of the curve in taking this stuff seriously. We might compare this to Exxon Mobile which earned profits of $40.61B in 2007 largely on the tail of American consumers. Pointing towards its corporate philosophy and coming off the highest profit records in all of history - a June 2008 Supreme Court ruling reduced Exxon Mobile's obligation to Alaskan communities from $2.5B to $500M in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez 1989 oil spill, one of the largest ecological disasters in world history . This was not a simple issue but one that speaks to broad questions of corporate responsibility. There is more of this to come. The future will show us 3-D views of the depth of corporations partnership to the emerging global community or their separateness from it. We will be ranked, rated, and held to account (hopefully) for the entire web of relations that we hold - all levels, all categories.

References for this article:
"Report on Ipod Manufacturing"

"Report: Rare Metal Fueled African "PlayStation War"

"Inside Africa's PlayStation War"

"Exxon Shatters Profit Records"

"Justices Slash Damages for Exxon Oil Spill"

"Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business"