As I write about in the book, today, people can’t even imagine living without the internet. It’s bizarre that the internet’s really only been to use for less than 15 years, virtually all of us have in fact lived without it, but can’t grasp such an existence anymore.

Kind of like this blog, eh? Can you imagine life without it..? You probably can, easily, but if you could not – I’ll give you the opportunity to see what it would be like. I’m logging off, won’t be back before June 1.

But on June 1, I have a real treat for you. I’ve persuaded master comment-writer Bigge to be the next guest blogger that week. On June 1, you’ll find out who the smart, eloquent, long-writing, twisting guy with the music and media industry insights behind the pseudonym is!

It may be Martian to the people of the yestermillennium, but to the inhabitants of the Expectations society, “RU IBSA?” is a perfectly comprehensible question. Even a reasonable one.

Expecting there is always something – someone – more interesting around the corner or behind the next click of the mouse, we never really stop looking anymore. As I’ve written before, at the turn of the millennium we went from being involved in relationships to being IBL - Involved But Looking.

But why stop at browsing when you can be sampling?

In a recent poll by the Swedish number one newspaper Metro, the majoirty of people, 54 percent, answered that they think it is ok to have sex with several different people in parallel.

Of those in favor, 25 percent were in a steady relationship. 25 percent that have obviously moved on from Looking to Sleeping Around, their status evolving from IBL to IBSA . 

Not ready to answer yes when someone asks RU IBSA? Maybe that’s because your mind is stuck in the yestermillennium. A survey of today’s teenagers, suggests one third says yes.

Kanye West has had enough  – the numerous twitter streams in his name are driving him crazy. King of CAPS, he blogs “I DON´T DO TWITTER!” He urges the people at Twitter to shut down all the fake Kanyes. Kanye West does not have the time for real-time tweets, he continues, his blog is more than enough.

“More than enough” hitting the mark perfectly. Recently, Marcus Troy earned his 15 microseconds of fame by fessing up that he’s been Kanye West’s ghostblogger, services that came to good use for example when the good Mr. West was in custody for battering a paparazzi. Kanye takes his blogging very seriously, but is busy to the verge of exhaustion. A ghost blogger seemed like the only solution.

Seemingly, Kanye’s suffers from the Expectations society threath to public health I’ve been writing about earlier – blogger burn-out. Keeping the next opera alive, constantly fighting to stay interesting, people become their own worst stalkers, turning into blogarazzi in relentless pursuit of new interesting stuff to reveal about themselves. Welcome aboard, Kanye! Find comfort in the fact that there are several thousands self-help groups on the web for blogger burn-outs.

And why don’t you take your old nemesis 50 Cent with you? In contrast to you, he does in fact do Twitter. Rumours has it, he employs two ghost tweeters…

In the world of any, anyone, YOU, can be Kanye or 50 Cent. And get paid for it.

A while back, I wrote about how Generation In-Charge handle lay-offs in the recession, like when Belgian advertising agency invited anyone to choose who they should fire at youchoosewefire.be.

Well, now the nextconomy is turning, reports on financial and shopping happy-numbers are beginning to find their way into the global flows, and so companies start thinking about hiring.

Hiring Generation In-Charge style, mobile operator 3 invites anyone to vote at dinkundservice.se (“yourcustomerservice”) for their favorite among 25 candidates for the customer service position in Sweden.

In the world of Generation In-Charge, YOU can be the HR boss.

Responding to Martin’s and biggest really interesting comments on yesterday’s post, I came to think about Sir William Shakespeare. Were he alive today, he would quite possibly follow in Josh Freeze’s footsteps and rub smelly feet, or hope that someone will buy stock in his forthcoming play (we tend to forget that’s actually kind of how struggling artists made a living a few hundred years ago).

Whether he would have written Hamlet or not in the new millennium, I’m sure it would never be the classic it became in the yestermillennium. In the world of any, with an audience of 2,920 times more impatient readers, it would more likely be shaped like this:

http://www.angelfire.com/art2/antwerplettuce/hamlet.html

Shakespeare, schmakespeare, in the world of any, big drama evolves by the microsecond.

Commenting on Monday’s post, Micke gave me the great tip for today’s post.

The other week, I wrote about Josh Freeze’s offer to buy limited editions of his new album “Since 1972″, including foot rubs and tailor made songs (thanks, Fredrik!). Well, now you can go even further :

Right now, Jersey Budd’s next album “Wonderland” is in production. And YOU can be the executive producer. Don’t like Budd’s stuff? Then just pick another band or artist, and put your money where their mouths are. Just visit Generation In-Charge’s new music industry home bandstocks.com and take charge of any music act you like – you can even give an artist as a present to someone!

On Bandstocks, anyone can first screen music acts and vote for the ones they like, then invest a sum (above ten quid) of your choice to get a stock in their forthcoming album. The stock enables you to follow production in real time, make decisions on the launching of the album, the touring that follows, and a share of all the profits.

I’ve written before about Generation In-Charge’s opportunities to control their darlings, like choosing Hillary Clinton’s campaign song, writing the lyrics to Sepultura’s new album and making the next video for Nine Inch Nails.

Generation In-Charge just took Controlling-your-darlings to a whole other level.

Find out whether you’re evil or not in microseconds. Just answer the question below:

Do you Twitter?

If the answer is no, you’re not evil. Congratulations!

If the answer is yes, you are evil. Sorry.

American neuroscientists recently published a study where they found that virtuous traits such as compassion and admiration require time. People who process information quickly don’t give themselves enough time to think and contemplate events and actions, which would make them unable to take broader perspectives and put themselves in other people’s shoes. Microblogging means sending and receiving messages in microseconds, microseconds that would thus derive of our virtues. Twitter being the fastest growing social medium to date, is thus spreading evil across the world like wildfire. I guess my previous post about Courtney Love’s twoopers would be anectdotal evidence of that. 

Then again. Why would compassion and admiration be impossible in microseconds? Could it be because the scientific tests were conducted on people who were brought up during the yestermillennium, not used to (nor having to…) think fast? Not too long ago, people were appaled by the bad influence of television on our minds, today we know that it has a positive correlation with IQ. Multitasking was Martian language just 10 years ago, today its the rule rather than the exception.

Apart from the fact that  people in the new millennium would probably not need as much time to think virtuously as the yestermillennium people, one could wonder whether the definitions of good and evil would be in need of updating in the new millennium as well? In the old millennium, gossiping was considered a sin. Today it’s an everyday activity where anyone can socialize and communicate with anyone else anywhere, anytime.

Who’s right? The neuroscientists or the nextopia professor? Are you evil? What do you think?

OK, folks, back to ol’ MD again. After Erik’s wonderful guest week, I feel fit for the beach season – perceiving myself as slimmer than ever. No wonder, with Erik doing his acrobatic jumps all over the place, I feel professorially narrow…

Thanks a lot, Erik! It’s been great fun and thought-provoking, and I’ve noticed that you brought forth many new active blog followers, which makes me really happy!

Thank you for a fun week! And remember, we’re getting stronger: Twenty years ago, it took two people to carry ten dollars’ worth of groceries. Today, a five-year-old can do it.

Have a great weekend.

erik.nilsson@jklgroup.com

We’re getting to a point where – for a clear majority of companies – the most important point of value creation is moving away from production and developing into the communication, conceptualization and marketing of products.

MD often refers to the fast food business example when he talks about this phenomenon: in the fast food industry marketing investments are up with 70 percent since 1999, while the production value is up only 25 percent during the same period, which shows that the business’ value creation is more in the immaterial than the material today.

My favorite example is Zappos.com, a company that once described itself as “a service company that just happens to sell shoes”. From its origins as an online shoe-retailer founded in 1999, the company today has expanded into selling clothes, consumer electronics and other items. Last year it rang up a record $1 billion in sales even as other retailers were struggling. The company doesn’t offer any unique products, instead the key to its success is in “deliver[ing] WOW through service”.

Another great example is provided by Steven Levitt, concerning what value the product Coke actually holds to Pepsi. He makes an interesting point: knowing the Coke’s secret formula is probably worth absolutely nothing to Pepsi – the value is all in the marketing of Coke. Here’s the logic:

“Let’s say that Pepsi knew Coke’s secret formula and could publish it so that anyone could make a drink that tasted just like Coke (just like when prescription drugs go off patent and generic drug companies come in). The impact would be that the price of real Coke would fall a lot (probably not all the way to the price of the generic Coke knockoffs). This would clearly be terrible for Coke, but also for Pepsi. With Coke now much cheaper, people would switch from Pepsi to Coke. Pepsi profits would likely fall.

So if Pepsi had Coke’s secret formula, they wouldn’t want to give it away to everyone. What if they instead kept it to themselves and made their own drink that tasted exactly like Coke? If they could really convince people that their drink was identical to Coke, then the new Pepsi-made version of Coke and the Real Thing would be what economists call “perfect substitutes.” When two goods are essentially interchangeable in consumers’ minds, that tends to lead to fierce price competition and very low profits. Neither Coke nor the Pepsi knockoff of it would be very profitable as a consequence. With the price of Coke lower, consumers would switch away from the original Pepsi to either Coke or the new Pepsi-made Coke knockoff, which would be far less profitable than original Pepsi anyway.

In the end, both Coke and Pepsi would likely be worse off if Pepsi had Coke’s secret formula and acted on it.”

Have you got any other good examples of where the value creation in a business has moved away from the “material” to the “immaterial” side?