It Is No Longer A Paradigm, But A Cyberdigm

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Communicative self-steering & Cyberdigma.

Cyberdigma (The Dutch spelling of the word Cyberdigm) is our web & software development company, responsible for all Society30.com and Seats2meet.com websites, reservation engines, dashboards and innovative products like The Serendipity Machine. We named our company Cyberdigma as a tribute to Arnold Cornelis. Let me explain.

A paradigm is a line-up of convictions, values, and policies that are shared by members of a group or society: the playing field that we – our customers, suppliers, co-workers, and ourselves – move around in. “Paradigm” is becoming an old-fashioned word. We tend to use it negatively most of the time, like in the context of a “management paradigm.” In a paradigm, the players on the playing field, wittingly and unwittingly, self-impose limitations. These limitations characterize our old, Western economic thought processes.

Arnold Cornelis introduced the concept of the cyberdigm in his book, Feelings Logic. In this book, he says, “A human being finds happiness to the extent in which he directs his own learning processes, while listening to his feelings. Every person will find the question to what gives meaning at the final destination of the development of the life program.”

According to Cornelis, as a society, we are ready to leave the social regulation system and are on our way towards a new level of stability in “communicative self-management.” Communication has opened up a world with new, unprecedented possibilities. The people of the social regulation system – a certain paradigm – are discovering that they need each other, depend on each other, and are willing to learn, gain new insights, and create new value. I visualize the cyberdigm as a three-dimensional cluster of paradigms, containing all sorts of players at different times on many playing fields. There are no boundaries; once the game comes to a halt on the one field, the players step onto another field with (perhaps) different parties, rules, and procedures. The players regulate themselves. The paradigm shift is their second nature. The Internet, and Web 2.0, in particular, offer opportunities to live and work from within the new cyberdigm, and in doing so, accelerates the process towards communicative self-steering.

The principal idea in the creation of this human cyberdigm is the accessibility and the growing use of social media, where information and knowledge is made available, that can be easily accessed by everybody, free from time and space. This is one movement. A second movement is when people create personal knowledge, add to it, and make it available by sharing their experiences, stories for others. Often free of charge.

The cyberdigm contains an unprecedented level of transparency; everybody is fully visible. One can easily assume a social or professional brand experience. However, users will unmask this experience when the offered knowledge, skills, and integrity of the actual business transaction do not meet the image of what they believe should be offered. Every statement you make about yourself will result in dozens being made by others through logical connections between pieces of information. In principle, information is verified very well in this manner because the opinions of many are used instead of one expert, which is why authenticity is one of the most important values when operating within social media. I find this to be a nice side effect.

So, now you know the philosophy behind our software products and services.

 

The text of this blog also appears in the book Society30, the English and Updated Version. 

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