the online world, social media has redefined the way people interact with one another, enabling people to build relationships without geographic and demographic barriers. The impact of social media does not stop there. It also facilitates global collaborations in innovation. Consider Wikipedia, which was built by a countless number of people, or InnoCentive, which broadcasts research and development challenges and asks for the best solutions. In fact, all social media that take a crowd-sourcing approach are good examples of social inclusivity. Social media drives social inclusivity and gives people the sense of belonging to their communities.
Social inclusivity is happening not only online but offline as well. The concept of inclusive cities– cities that welcome the diversity of their inhabitants – are often dubbed as a good model for sustainable cities. Similar to the concept of social media, the concept of inclusive cities argues that when cities welcome minorities who are often left behind and give them a sense of acceptance, that will only benefit the cities. Social inclusivity can also appear in the form of fair trade, employment diversity, and empowerment of women. These practices embrace human differences across gender, race, and economic status. Brands like the Body Shop are building a strong commitment to social inclusivity with values such as “support community trade” and programs such as “stop violence in the home.”
Globalization creates a level playing field. The competitiveness of companies will no longer be determined by their size, country of origin, or past advantage. Smaller, younger, and locally based companies will have a chance to compete against bigger, older, and global companies. Eventually, there will be no company that overly dominates the others. Instead, a company can be more competitive if it can connect with communities of customers and partners for co-creation and with competitors for co-opetition.
The flow of innovation that was once vertical (from companies to the market) has become horizontal. In the past, companies believed that innovation should come from within; thus, they built a strong research and development infrastructure. Eventually, they realized that the rate of internal innovation was never fast enough for them to be competitive in the ever-changing market. Procter & Gamble (P&G), for example, learned this early in 2000, when its sales from new products flattened. It later transformed its research-and-develop model into a connect-and-develop model. The more horizontal model relies on outside sources for ideas that in turn will be commercialized using internal P&G capabilities. Its rival Unilever has been moving in the same direction by capitalizing on its vast external innovation ecosystem. Today, innovation is horizontal; the market supplies the ideas, and companies commercialize the ideas.
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