I heard from John Maloney that Shoshana Zuboff has renewed and reenergized The Support Economy blog. Shoshana is a social psychologist and retired Professor at the Harvard Business School. I have written about her work before, The Support Economy: Taking Us Out of the Grasp of the Industrial Revolution. I mentioned that her work seems aligned with that of the economist Charles Handy whose thought I have admired.
Here is a quote from the blog that highlights her approach.
"The new model emphasizes the distribution, rather than the concentration, of assets-people, information, authority, technology and so on. Economic value is now understood as distributed in the unmet needs of each individual: It is lodged in their hearts and minds, living rooms and kitchens. Value is "realized" in relationships of advocacy and trust. It's no longer adequate to think that value can be "created" inside factories or offices.
History teaches us that those enterprises that move decisively to reconnect with an alienated population get rich first. When wealth creation depends upon authentic relationships of trust and advocacy, there's no more room for adversarial behavior that ekes out a profit at the expense of consumers, employees or suppliers. In a support network, all behavior is aligned with the interests of the individual who pays. More alignment means more cash, more profit and more well-being distributed throughout the network."
It is good to see her blog started up again.
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