Clay Shirky gave an amazing presentation at TED@State last month about how users are becoming empowered by the ability not only to talk back but to self organize to communication with each other.

Almost as a follow-up to Clay’s presentation, McKinsey Quarterly has an article on how companies should deal with this changed environment, which may be a little scary for companies that are more used to traditional one-way communications: Managing beyond Web 2.0

Executives can use a model we at the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing have developed called LEAD (listen, experiment, apply, develop) to create a road map that will help companies thrive in the online world’s environment of constant change.

Listen is usually the hardest thing to do.

trendwatching.com has a briefing on what they call Generation G, where the G stands for “Generosity”, not “Greed”.

This is more of a report for businesses and how to capitalize on the latest consumer trends, but it does identify some interesting aspects of how the attitudes of consumer have changed recently.

GENERATION G | “Captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced ‘taking’ as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”