The Social-Cultural-Economic Power of One in the Network is mindboggling!

I once asked an audience of tech engineers I was speaking with. "What are you worth a year and the answer was around $200k". Then I asked the next question. What if you could not connect into a corporate network, www or telephone into a network and workflow of people, what would you be worth. There was a real shock and the answer was probably $8/hour.

NOW THAT IS WHAT A NETWORK DOES. It raises the social-cultural-economic value of an individual to exponentially!

I am sure that everyone's asking with all the social platform activity that is going on with the like of the Facebook's, Google's, Microsoft’s, Yahoo's of the world. Hang on a second. This is not a new activity if one looks at history and why people went in search of new lands (to build networks) and to some contemporary examples.

* Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank ~ www.grameen-info.org

* The Amul project ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amul

* The PCO booth project in India ~
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/2003/12/24/stories/2003122402410500.htm

* Cooperatives in India and around the world ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperatives

"...…In the American economy. About 48,000 cooperatives, operating in nearly every business sector imaginable, serves 120 million members, or roughly 4 out of 10 Americans. The top cooperatives in the United States ranked by revenue individually generated at least $346 million in revenue during 2002 and in the aggregate $119 billion. They represent agriculture, finance, grocery, hardware, healthcare, recreation and energy…..."

learningstore.uwex.edu/pdf/A1457.pdf

Why is this so?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_capital

Power of networks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990725.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan

Now imagine that one person at a time investing $100 into a cooperative-fund or a micro-equity invesment can change the world and that is the power of the network.

http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2007/10/19/may-a-thousand-talpiots-and-stanfords-bloom/

http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2007/11/06/part-2-and-an-open-business-plan-bottom-up-lets-unleash-creative-destruction/

http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2007/11/07/part-3-we-then-go-glocal-microequity-investing-to-catalyze-glocal-innovation/

http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2007/11/10/part-5the-basics-explained-and-a-great-opportunity-this-is-for-wealth-creation/

Imagine what you can do to catalyze change BOP and across the pryramid, one at a time connected to the network?