Democracy and business mix within the Internet Revolution

I have been reading a book about early English democratic ideas of the seventeenth century. The similarities between that time and today were striking to me. In this sense, there was a major technological revolution happening in the 16th and 17th centuries. Society was converting over to a literate society; print and reading were taking off. Interesting from our modern literate perspective those citizens who did not read could definitely play a very active role in society, becoming New England selectmen and constables. Today I think the new tools of the Internet revolution are empowering people to communicate more easily with people across the US. People who only a few short years ago had no realistic hope of influencing public debate or really participating in our democracy. Are now with the Internet learning how easy it can be to get involved. These changes have heavily affected business technology culture, but I think the current election cycle will provide new ideas and models for business to involve their customers. Andrew Sullivan’s article in the Sunday Times describes the Dean campaign’s use of the Internet for political campaigning and how in part Dean’s Internet Strategist, Trippi, developed his ideas on business experience.

“Trippi's innovation was to get investors in Wave online, so they could communicate with the company and themselves in real time. Instead of stuffy, occasional and incomprehensible stock-owner meetings, Trippi created an online investor chat-community. The result was a far more involved investor-base, people who bonded with the company and with each other.”