Like the Internet itself, the 9/11 Truth movement is not centralized or planned. In spite of this, there are 911 Truth groups blossoming all around the world -- quite similar to how Internet usage and publishing continues to grow, in spite of a lack of centralization.

In a decentralized environment, force is not an effective means of management; the standards needed to foster teamwork cannot be imposed from the top down, but rather must be chosen by members from the bottom up. In such an environment, it is the ability to start memes that is the true measure of influence and control; memes are how influencers can get others to choose standardization. IT business guru Geoff Moore dropped some serious knowledge on this subject in a blog post where he stated:

As the Internet continues to work its transformation of the globe, the single most powerful force it is unleashing is memes, that class of ideas that are uniquely able to capture people’s imaginations and shape their behavior...The ability both to create and promulgate such memes and to recognize when a meme is acting upon you or one of your constituents is core to being effective in this new reality.

Meme Starters = Artists & Journalists (i.e. Communicators)

It is the great communicators that are influencers -- the ones who can inspire people to choose a standard. In 9/11 Truth, folks like Alex Jones can start a meme to call the military to demand the release of political prisoner Korey Rowe. Likewise, filmmakers like Dylan Avery can inspire the decentralized 9/11 Truth movement to unite in solidarity on 9/11 at Ground Zero in New York City.


What's This Mean for Internet Businesses?

The rise in value of social capital is the most significant implication for the business community of this new environment. New school investment ventures like YCombinator and Tech Stars are, to a large extent, social capital investment firms; venture capitalist Seth Levine, who has been involved with Tech Stars, implied this much when he stated:

I actually think these programs are a great deal for entrepreneurs and don't think the equity they give up has much, if anything, to do with the cash they receive. Significantly more important than money, companies in these programs get amazing access to groups of mentors – business leaders, venture capitalists, lawyers, other successful entrepreneurs – whose time and willingness to help out is worth significantly more than the $5k-$15k that is provided as a stipend in the program. The companies also get access to free office space, regular feedback on their ideas and prototypes and get to interact with other companies in a similar stage of development who share learnings, successes and failures along the way.

As social capital continues to rise in value, new investment and management structures that are less encumbered by command and control financial capital-intensive structures stand to emerge as immensely disruptive forces. StartupWeekend, a project in which Internet professionals in a city gather in a weekend to brainstorm and create a company, is a prime example of this. In the spirit of viral/meme marketing, StartupWeekend has begun to spread to more and more cities across the world. I half-jokingly refer to it as Fight Club for entrepreneurs; just as Tyler Durden travelled around establishing fight clubs in cities across the United States, so too is StartupWeekend spreading its idea city by city, manifesting itself as an unleashed ideavirus.

If StartupWeekend can inspire talented Internet professionals to participate, it could lead to management and investment structures that are truly revolutionary, with the potential to innovate better and faster than anything we've seen before.

Next time, we'll talk about what disruption will look like in a landscape of warring ecosystems.

Other Posts in This Series

9/11 and Web 2.0
9/11 Truth and Media 2.0
9/11 and Management 2.0
9/11 and Disruption in Web 2.0
9/11 is the Revolution to Bridge the Gap