A business scene staged by an Industrial Age organization likely as not involved a dispassionate analysis of the data, a detailed identification of the opportunity, and the thoughtful mobilization of resources necessary to capitalize on that opportunity. The absence of emotion was a characteristic of such scenes, and in fact the presence of emotion was usually viewed as a weakness in someone’s game. Players were expected to approach things with the cold, hard squint of Clint Eastwood eyeballing a punk at the receiving end of his .44, or Nicklaus lining up a putt to win the Masters.

Networks and business in the networked world do not work that way. Companies can no longer afford to eliminate emotion from their lexicon. Here’s the big reason why: Networks thrive on meaningful dialogue, and most of the meaningful dialogue between human beings happens on the emotional level. (more…)