“Following three simple principles, we can design smarter, more useful systems that make our lives better.”

WWII-generation paradigm: hierarchical organization
Baby boomer paradigm: treat me like an individual!
Millenial paradigm: networked/social organization

What’s the tradeoff: networks are open, not closed. Decentralized, not centralized. Flexible, not disciplined. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.

“That notion of being treated and seen as an individual is not a preoccupation of the current generation. It’s not part of their paradigm.”

Boomers want to surround themselves with the totems of their individuality.
Millennials want to be surrounded by things that signal that they are a member of a community. _Not_ to be profoundly different. That’s why they all have identical Apple laptops and iPhones. They don’t care.

Not interested in deference to hierarchy and experts, they’re interested in participation. Millenials care about the supply chain. Where did this piece of meat, or that computer, come from? No one in previous generations cared about that. Millenials care because they see themselves as belonging to series networks, and they want to understand what the networks they are joining look like. Current brands need to explain who they are, where they come from, who they work with, what they intend to do.

What Neuroscience Really Teaches Us, and What It Doesn’t
“There will eventually be neuroscientific explanations for much of what we do; but those explanations will turn out to be incredibly complicated. For now, our ability to understand how all those parts relate is quite limited, sort of like trying to understand the political dynamics of Ohio from an airplane window above Cleveland.”