The semiotics junkyard
You’ve heard it before but I just want to remind you: The global communications grid is having more impact on how we live than the railway and electrical grids ever did. What we fail to remember, in all the clutter of the Internet, is that it is no older than a newborn baby. It’s like Detroit out there, I heard someone say, and even Google can’t sort through that kind of mess. The baby has dirty diapers on but that is also set to change with the emergence of an evolved mobile network- where every everyday life transaction is Internet-enhanced. Where no amount of censorship can stop the emergence of a technology-enhanced IRL (real life). It’s the “Internet of Things” that Chinese companies are working on, today, while the floundering US/UK lead West try to impose new invisible borders of control, more fitting to the Great Chinese Firewall than that of democratic nations.
Technological possibilities are growing far faster and smarter than our businesses or systems of control. But if we navigate this complexity with a “Scandinavian” reframing of our global context to serve humanity, there are literally endless possibilities to do good business – for good (sic). Call it “Folkhemmet” 4G, or Corporate social integration. Call it what you will but “branding” doesn’t make the cut.