Growing up, children are completely dependent upon their parents for life’s necessities. As soon as you’re old enough to realize that parents aren’t cool, you do everything you can to assert you independence.
Despite having very liberal parents, I myself couldn’t wait to go away to university. I went to the University of Manchester in England in part because it was one of the farthest places from my home town of Cincinnati, OH. I was ecstatic over my newfound freedom to drink cheap white wine and tack up band posters.
A lot of self-actualization and self-realization takes place in college. You get the rebel out of your system. There’s a stick-it-to-the-man mentality that pervades higher education institutions – and I think a similar sentiment can be said of collaborative technologies that encourage bottom-up communication and undermine seniority.
At the ripe old age of 25, I’ve come back around to reevaluate the positive contribution my family and friends can make in my life. I now define myself as interdependent, as are most contributing members of society.
Both professionally and personally, peer-to-peer validation and networking exemplifies how valuable being interdependent is. My friends have a professional networking group called IPE. They host local parties in the city where people from different industries meet to discuss what they ‘do’with others. You wear a sticker tag with your name, occupation and organization. Sprinkle some hors d’oeuvres and house wine into the mix, and you have a recipe for enjoyable networking. Each time I leave with a stack of business cards. Can’t hurt to know someone in the biz, right?
When these folks begin to map out the connections made at live networking events on to a web-based social network, the interdependent nature of business becomes clear. Today’s work force is becoming more mobile, and thanks to web-based applications, are able to work remotely. As this trend continues, corporate cultural identities begin to fade away. And what remains? The individual, their personal identity and their perspective. These independent characteristics in turn form the way one conducts themselves professionally.
As the work force connects with one another, the whole taking shape seems much greater than the sum of its parts.
