Such an interesting world time that we all inhabit right now. Characterized by shift/change, where what used to work no longer fits, and it's not clear which path we should be on, no wonder there is fear out there. The potential for economic collapse threatens to unhinge a lifestyle we thought was permanent. I've often called this period a Charles Dickens moment. He wrote novels portraying the collapse of the centuries old agrarian social structure and the emergence of the Industrial Revolution & the new cityscape. The Industrial Revolution continued the evolution of the consumer as the engine of real growth. Throughout the ensuing 20th Century, inventions and wars leveled the playing field between peoples, countries, cultures. If on the agrarian side of that 19th Century divide, the lifestyle erased. On the Industrial Age side? Opportunity & growth. A message for our post-Internet time? The huge societal shifts now created by the Internet are still unfolding, and the further evolution of the consumer's role continues. New always replaces old. Technology is speedily making sure that we are matching its immediacy, its pervasiveness, its inclusiveness. One can friend someone never met, can tweet a message that can start a revolution, can link with someone across the world for a business enterprise, can inhabit with equal ease the real & the virtual universes. An exciting time! Time, too, to park our fears & to say "yes" to the time we live in...a time of innovation, creative response, invention, & the power of the "now". It's a bottom up & consumer driven methodology, which means we can all be the path-maker! Wow...that is opportunity! Every individual voice counts. Means, too, that we all need to be listening....