Another beautiful day and experiencing some technical issues, laptop froze and had to restart it but now having network connectivity issues, ah the joys of technology, as we say in Qatar "It is what it is." Well read a couple more articles that I had printed previously so I'll comment on those in two separate entries. The first article I read was the blog page about the "Relationship Economy" wherein the author describes what he sees as the trend in consumerism.He starts out with the time frame the economy peaked, then goes on to describe how every aspect involving human activity became marketable like consumer products. Goes to describe how the media highway transformed from a one way road to a crowded two way road it is today. It mentions how barriers are collapsing in all aspects of the world and publishing is specifically mentioned in that it is getting easier to share information with other people. It goes on to mention that the Consumer Economy is on its way out and is being replaced by what the author refers to as the Relationship Economy which works very differently. Consumers are purchasing less and sharing more as the author says to reconnect and create a sense of community. Companies are now building "authentic relationships"with their clientele and not as a consumer relationship. In this relationship economy what becomes paramount between the customer and the company is trust, companies that are struggling to maintain a market share or consumer base will try to control and manipulate which is viewed as untrustworthy to the customer. There are many things the initial thought process was that corporations would build these but the trend is that these are now being created by a collective of people at a very low cost. This abundance changes the face of business where supply and demand no longer have a major role. Today according to the article it is more based on trust, whom you trust and who trusts you, this is the so called Relation Economy. The rest of the article is more about attending a conference and what will be presented at the authors talk. I see the changes that is referred to in this article and that the times are changing, but still has to account that the article is still five years old and there may be more trends or changes to the way consumers behave. Overall I found it very insightful, I believe he may be onto to something but times keep changing and we need to keep with the trends. Are we lead into this trends by way of manipulation, in other words is this the path the corporations want us to follow? More to think about.