@Publish

“widespread unrest does not arise from long-standing political failings of the system,” the authors wrote, “but rather from its sudden perceived failure to provide essential security to the population.”

If current trends continue, the authors note, prices will permanently cross that barrier as early as next July. Prepare for a lot of angry people.

the relationship between income elasticity and the price (in-)elasticity of food means that “quite modest increases in global income will drive food prices up alarmingly unless matched by increases in supply.”

collective intelligence is not as dependent on individual intelligence as first thought. Having more women in a group improves the collective intelligence, because it raises the level of "social sensitivity." Another important factor is letting everyone talk equally, rather than having the loudest or most opinionated people dominate the conversation.

Just as a tissue is a new, bigger level of organization for a bunch of individual cells, these new social structures are a new bigger level for individual humans. And in both cases the new level breeds emergence. New behaviors emerge from the new level that were impossible at the lower level. Tissue can do things that cells can't.

optimizing groups with more women and more democratic discussion is just as important as casting your crowdsourcing net far and wide.

“social media” refers not to platforms, but to what those applications enable: social interaction.

Instead of touting Twitter in general, instead emphasize the importance of reaching new and savvy stakeholders using the platform. Instead of evangelizing for a blog, show how blogging can generate leads. Instead of pointing to videos gone viral, explore video tools that will help your client develop a brand identity.

Often when innovation is the goal, there’s pressure to create an original product with an unusual name. But sometimes following a completely obvious path is an effective, albeit counterintuitive, way to achieve a design that is easy to use and ultimately popular. Take, for instance, Facebook’s design approach. On Facebook.com, which will likely soon have one billion global users, all of the company’s successful features -- “Photos,” the “Like” button -- have names that are less about clever and more about direct, descriptive utility. And doing the obvious is not just what Facebook does in the arena of naming and branding. The company has been working on bringing real-world human actions and interactions in an online social context. People share photos in real life. They tell their friends what they like. They share information. Facebook is simply creating software and interface design that replicate these aspects and then naming them in the clearest way possible, almost to the point of where they don’t seem named at all. The result is proven usability and immense popularity.

Understanding the unarticulated needs of a product user, anyone interacting with a service, or even a team that converges in a space to collaborate and solve problems, enables solutions that inspire, surprise, and surpass expectations.

By such orchestrated interplay of all media, whole cultures could now be programed in order to improve and stabilize their emotional climate, just as we are beginning to learn how to maintain equilibrium among the world's competing economies

I'm not advocating anything; I'm merely probing and predicting trends. Even if I opposed them or thought them disastrous, I couldn't stop them, so why waste my time lamenting?

Resenting a new technology will not halt its progress.

Whoever invented the term "social media" didn't do the world a favor because, while that's the accepted term now, it's completely wrong, and I believe it's part of what drives this disconnect. Social media is not really media. I think of it as a channel, more like a telephone than a TV commercial. And when's the last time a CEO asked, "How are we monetizing the telephone?" And has a CEO ever threatened to not invest in phones because the company can't make money off of them?

Truth is, companies monetize the telephone quite well, and if you don't think so, take away your company's phones and see what happens to your top and bottom lines. Likewise, companies can monetize social media, but they have to stop thinking about it as a way to market products and start thinking about it as a way to communicate and build a brand.

Formal research typically takes months and requires healthy investment and long planning cycles. Smart companies are trading in highly rigorous research for quick, nearly scientific data collected through social media platforms.