If you’ve been watching the news over the past months, you have certainly noticed that the media is talking up social technologies during their coverage of the turmoil in the Middle East.  Check out this article about how Facebook is being used in Egypt.  And if you’ve read David Kirkpatrick’s book, “The Facebook Effect,” you are familiar with the story about how Facebook contributed to activism against FARC, the controversial and often violent revolutionary organization in Columbia.  This is great stuff.  While there is a debate about the degree to which social media influences or enables revolutionary activities, there is little doubt that it is a contributing factor.

What we hear less of is how social media are contributing to economic change.  When we do, it is primarily in the context of marketing and sales, and a lot less about how the power shift from corporation to consumer will affect economies and capitalism broadly.

This change should not be taken lightly.  Traditionally, corporate decision-making has been rendered inside a fenced yard,  where executives make decisions about strategy, marketing and brand based on proprietary, internal and/or available market data, and which is manifested in market communications and product development.  What we see in the social space is a constant feedback loop of customer verbatims and opinions, playing outside the confines of the yard and in spaces where corporate decision-makers are not necessarily welcome.  In effect, the public has created a sphere of influence where they are continuously introducing referenda on corporate products, policies, procedures and practices.

If you think about it, this is a win-win scenario for both consumers and intelligent businesses.  For the consumer, they get a stronger voice, more influence and a needs-set that has a higher probability to be satisfied.  For corporations, they get product development information, new sources of market intelligence and deeper relationships with loyal customers.

However, only the organization that is willing to cede some power to a democratic capitalism will really be successful.  Governments around the world are learning the hard way that survival is directly correlated with a content and empowered citizenry.  Corporations are about to learn the same lesson.