It’s been 10 years since the Web 2.0 conference launched 2004. We were talking MySpace back then as the behemoth, but there were plenty of emerging social tools: Flickr, Delicious, Blogs, Wikis. And I was a beta tester a few years later on a platform called TWTTR that would go on to become the engine of revolutions around the world. I knew it would be big when we experienced our first ‘twitter quake’. We’re now in an age where it’s pretty much a given that every business needs a social presence. To not have one would be as ludicrous as not having a webpage…or a phone number even. [A stat about the adoption of online - spending, etc] Year after year, the technology advances. Today, 30% of the world (and 56% of Americans AND Canadians) are on smart phones and that is growing by 20% each year. MySpace was left in Facebook’s wake years ago and who knows what tomorrow’s hot new platform will be. And as the technology advances, I get really excited, but I also get really worried. Because the technology is moving quickly, but the culture is not. Or, to be clear, there IS a culture - or rather multiple cultures - that have grown and been catalyzed through the democratization of the web, but not everyone understands what is really going on here: The web isn’t about the tools or the technology, it is about the culture. There are 5 new rules for Digital Culture: 1. There is no mass. 2. Listening is more valuable than talking 3. When you see a parade, get in front of it! 4. Trust is the most valuable currency. To earn AND give. 5. Invest in the long term. I gave this on June 3, 2014, in Toronto, ON, Canada at the Social@Scale Summit hosted by Air Canada, organized by Sprinklr