C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan’s new book on innovation describes key principles as: Personalization of experiences; global collection of resources. (Thank you, Greg, for your nuancedintelligence.)
Experience = consciousness. Consciousness is above all holistic – the whole that is made up of a sum of a myriad of parts and is at the same time greater than the sum of the parts.
Consciousness in humans is brought about by having brains that continually collect new external inputs, analyze and combine the inputs into more sophisticated meaning patterns, combine the fresh, externally derived meaning patterns with memories of previously aggregated patterns to create new patterns, which as a whole form a personal consciousness (a flow of experience) of being alive in the world.
The new business imperative (competition/sustainability/innovation) to assist in improving personalized experiences from globalized inputs is part of an awakening of global consciousness on a whole a new scale. This is made possible by an explosion in connections. (Way more than 100 trillion.)
In business, as described by Prahalad in great detail, this is seen in the shift in strategic focus from products to services to experiences, and in combing products and services with real-time analysis and feedback to enhance the intelligence and experiences of business customers and individual consumers.
So this is a new idea?
Noo. Not new.
100 Trillion Connections 
Duncan,
Where do you see these global business connections getting made?
I think (hope) that I see it happening, but I fear that all too often social networks function to reinforce old, ingrained ideas and patters, rather than developing new ones.
-gb
Thanks. I didn’t intend to limit “connections” to just those made in social networks, but rather meant *all* the connections that occur as companies and consumers innovate and interact. Online-enhanced social networks are still in their infancy, or by now in their toddler-hood. So they’re not yet able to carry the weight ultimately needed. Even so, by simply increasing connectivity — revealing and facilitating new connections — social networks can already have large impacts. For example, blogs have to be included in the social network category, and blogs can definitely help to both spread innovative ideas, and help spawn new ones. So can social networks composed of professionals and artists. Better solutions to echo-chamber problems still need to be developed, though.