New scenarios for business: the spread of knowledge and consumer promotion

The wiki model, the gift economy and coopetition: these three seemingly obscure concepts harbor features of the most advanced contemporary social relations models. Representing relational systems that were developed on the internet, today they have spilt over into the real world – into the economy and the businesses that are key players in them. The most accomplished sociologists and industrialists today look to the interpretation of these three concepts to understand current trends and the future of markets over the next twenty years.The explosion of the world wide web and the spread of broadband, giving everyone the possibility of becoming content producers, critics and arbiters of the world around them, have been central to this transformation. Indeed, if their effect has not yet been revolutionary, it soon will be.The traditional hierarchical relationship between those who produced and communicated (businesses) and those who listened and bought (consumers) is no longer the only possible model. It continues to exist, but alongside it an alternative has sprung up. From music download sites to highly specialized blogs, the internet has seen the emergence of a new economic model (Wikinomics) stemming from the horizontal structure of the net, based as it is on dialogue between peers, and within which, on any given subject, it is possible to find comments and answers from increasingly more numerous and incisive users.Today, it is on the web, through the social model it has given rise to, that meaning, value and the incentive to act (and also to buy) are created. If this new relationship model still eludes us, the fault lies with the “linear” mindset (based on the one-to-one relationship of cause and effect) with which we have been inculcated. It is necessary to move on from the industrial age to the digital era, including in terms of the way we think.Saying that today everything is interconnected is not just spouting empty words. In contrast with the competitive and aggressive approach, where companies were engaged in communication “campaigns” (to use a military term) aimed at “hitting” client “targets”, we are beginning to see – or, perhaps, to see again – a preference for a more collaborative or cooperative model (coopetition). Corporate marketing has no choice but to take this into account.On the internet, everything is connected. Just as computers have been transformed from individual tools for calculation to means of communication, net surfers – or everyday people, one might say a little optimistically – have also developed mutual-help dynamics (the gift economy), based first and foremost on the sharing of information and experiences. This wealth of knowledge and feedback is even offered to companies (who are no longer seen as the enemy) and has already begun to change production processes (avoiding the design defects that once would have been discovered after products had been placed on the market, with serious commercial losses to businesses). Even end-users benefit, getting exactly the products with the features they were after. After all, with the end of mass society, everyone wants to see their individuality manifested.