On National Consumer Day in India, SAGE India announces the publication of The Consumer Revolution by Naren Nath
24th December, New Delhi:
On National Consumer Day in India, SAGE Publications India announces the publication of the book, The Consumer Revolution: Tipping the Balance of Power by Naren Nath, a visionary technology executive based in Silicon Valley, USA.
In keeping with the spirit of the day, the book presents the ultimate doctrine of consumer empowerment in today's digitally connected and informed world.
The consumer revolution refers to the greatest empowerment and mobilization of the common (hu)man in the history of the human race. The perfect storm created by the confluence of the Internet, smart phones, social media, search engines and ecommerce is triggering an explosion of human energy unlike anything seen before. The friction in information access, connectivity, congregation and commerce is being removed by the technologies of today, and this is leading to chain reactions and ferocious compounding effects among consumers.
"The spirit of the book, The Consumer Revolution, is completely aligned with that of the National Consumer Day. In keeping with the mission of the Day, the book outlines how current technologies are enabling consumers to not only file complaints but assert their power and influence in getting large companies to serve their needs as appropriate", remarked author Naren Nath. "This is the dawn of the era of consumer empowerment unlike every before in human history, and it is up to us consumers to wild this power to fashion the world in accordance with our preferences", he added.
About the Book
In this ground-breaking book, Naren Nath provides a sweeping narrative of revolutions since the dawn of human civilization, leading up to the current and most impactful of them all—the consumer revolution. The book paints a gripping picture of consumers melding together, akin to nuclear fusion, to an unprecedented amount of energy and creativity, setting in motion a stunning transfer of power from traditional institutions. In doing so, it tosses up myriad new business ideas and also highlights some of the sinister implications if the revolution is not harnessed correctly.
The Consumer Revolution provides a fascinating context and rationale for some of the biggest current events and trends around the world. It is a stirring call for action to billions of everyday consumers to express their will and wield power in this ultimate doctrine of consumer empowerment.
About the Author
The inspiration and perspective for The Consumer Revolution: Tipping the Balance of Power comes from Naren's 30-year career in the high-tech industry. He started his professional journey with a bachelor's in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and a master's in computer science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. This provided him an intrinsic understanding of the high-tech industry at work since the dawn of personal computing.
From there, Naren moved to Stanford University for his MBA degree, which he completed in 1992. After Stanford, Naren was hired by Microsoft Corporation to work on its product strategy efforts for interactive television, and subsequently the Internet. After Microsoft, Naren worked at Trilogy Corporation, an enterprise software and dot com incubation company in the late 1990s. After Trilogy, Naren held the position of president at cFares Inc., a travel metasearch company similar to Kayak, and subsequently, Founder at MetaRail Inc., a networked commerce platform company.
HERE'S AN EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK
For the first time in human history, we now have the critical mass of tools and techniques, and infrastructure necessary for mass consumers to do just that (unleash unprecedented consumer power). We now have the tools to look up any information on anything we want in an instant. We have the tools to look up any friend or family member or contact and communicate with them in a second. We have the tools to look up new like-minded individuals we never knew about and strike new friendships. We have the tools to voice our opinion, shed light on an issue, provide a tip or a suggestion, enjoy the entertainment we like and shop the market for the best buys. The confluence of the personal computer, the mobile phone, the cloud, the Internet, the Web and social media has created a perfect storm for consumers. This is tantamount to extracting the cadmium control rods from the cauldron of nuclear atoms. This is, in effect, a rapid melting away of the friction that has been holding back mass levels of human energy flow since the dawn of civilization.
How significant a development is this? Cataclysmic. This changes everything. This unleashes the bridled energy of 7.7 billion humans into the world. This empowers people everywhere like never before to connect, to inform, to share, to band together, to cross-check, to enjoy and to transact. And to trigger and enable others to unleash their innate energies as well. There are sparks starting to go off in every corner of the world. There are fires being lit around the globe.
And these are not just individual sparks. They are connecting with each other, feeding off each other and compounding at a startling pace and scale. They are sharing, setting each other off, banding about, surging and catalyzing movements in incredibly powerful ways. They are coming together and setting off chain reactions similar to hydrogen atoms coming together to set off a nuclear fusion explosion. This powerfully-informed connectivity is the spark plug that is setting off cataclysmic fusion reactions, releasing vast amounts of energy into the world. This energy is then itself triggering other reactions, releasing yet more explosive social energy, creating a feeding frenzy of unmatched proportions.
The world has never before seen this scale of human energy being set free, and this scale of human compounding brought to life. The same building-block dynamic that applies to software is now taking hold with all human resources and endeavours. This is creating powerful network effects, where the network is getting exponentially powerful by drawing from all its constituents inter-linked through it. People are able to reuse and build on what others have done in every walk of life, creating a ferocious compounding effect on human development.
We are at nothing short of a singularity in human development—the shape of the world to come will be dramatically different from the world of the past. We are in the early stages of the greatest generation of power and creativity that our planet has ever seen. The collective horsepower, intellect, drive and ingenuity of our entire race brought together in one giant nuclear reaction is nothing short of astounding. The consumer network is now forming before our very eyes, and its network effects are poised to reshape the entire status quo of the world.
This nuclear reaction of micro human energies setting off chain reactions is shaping up to be so massive that it will dwarf the sum total of what today's macro leaders are able to produce. Merchants, manufacturers, publishers, advertisers, stars, educators, even government officials are going to feel their world change in more and more fundamental ways as the consumer network gets humming. We are in the early stages of witnessing the greatest transfer of power known to humanity—the transfer of power from leader and stars and producers to a network of everyday consumers. A power shift that can upend the very pillars of society and commerce, re-write the rules of human engagement, and create entirely new power structures and power engines in the world.