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Information Technology and marketing guru Joel (Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone, 2010) lays out his vision for how businesses and individuals must re-organize themselves to make it in the upcoming upgrade of the digital world.

For businesses, writes the author, the key word will be “utility”; for individuals, “entrepreneur.” Joel believes that “[i]n a world where many people are looking for jobs, it’s time for all of us to start thinking like entrepreneurs. Individuals working in this interconnected world will need to know how to present and market themselves successfully, as will businesses, which also must reorient to establish more personalized types of digitalized, information-based relations with their customers. He presents many examples, including individuals like Marco Arment, who quit Tumblr, the company he founded, when they wouldn't let him do what he wanted, and built another, worth millions, on his own from his apartment; and more traditional corporations like Procter and Gamble, the household-products and personal-care manufacturer that sponsors SitOrSquat, the clean-bathroom–locating app. Joel shows how what he calls linear and circular data can be combined to help create successful marketing opportunities. Individuals, however, will require the proper education, and they will need to be able to find their own voices, to write, and to present themselves and what they want to do effectively through the new media, as well as in person. Joel provides a useful guide to communication over web-based media, how to set up a blog and where, and what to do to build up a following. He promotes self-employment and independent action as solutions to problems like unemployment.

Lively tips and practical advice pinned to a presentation of emerging digital technologies.