I think as we develop further more it will be required to go back to basics. "Know thy self", "Understand our true nature"...once we really understand our self, I think the question becomes irrelevant. Whenever we think about success it is a relative term, i.e. success compared to my past or success compared to somebody but once we understand "the Self" all these external yardsticks and comparisons are irrelevant. And success will be internal. Success will be beautiful and everlasting. It will be calm and serene but so loud that makes heart filled with beautiful music. I think we have a snowball going where more people are enjoying this beautiful everlasting peace than ever before and as more people experience this feeling it will free more minds and we shift from having more materialistic disposition to more spiritualistic disposition filled with love and compassion.

I think in order to answer the question effectively, one must first think of the following to begin with: a) Who are the successful people you have met in your lifetime? b) Is success a personal definition or do we need to have some sort of consensus on it as a society and global village? c) Why is only one kind (or paradigm) of success celebrated so widely in popular media and perhaps the bulk of society? d) What other forms of success have you seen and heard of? Do you remember from your childhood - who/what was considered successful? Until we answer these, any attempt at defining success falls short in my opinion. Ani, I agree with you on the point that "the ability to purpose, champion and influence critical events" will be an important component of success but perhaps is not complete in itself. I truly believe a single universal definition is not possible for success in this connected world.

To appreciate beauty; to give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -- that is to have succeeded. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think the new measure of success in the connected age is awareness among people. When each and every citizen of a nation realizes his/her duties as well as rights; it would be a great success for a country. When we will understand our duties as citizens of country and as human beings things would be in order. In our country it is also important to understand and realize the importance of our rights. Forget about the people, if we realize only about our rights and raise voice if someone encroaches our rights there would be a valuable difference. The problem behind problems is that people are not doing their duties which they are bound to do as per law and order. Use your rights and explore them in public and create a deterrent for other people not to do the same, thus quite a things would be in order.

I am reading a book Wisdom of the Crowds and it had lot of parallels to what the New Constructs is trying to achieve. Talking about the Connected age my view is this will give a perspective in everyones life. Two great revolutions in my life time has been Internet and Cable TV ( I am from India born after 1970) which has provided as a bridge and ability to be powerfully involved in development. However one factor has been this is still available only to a section of population. We need in my view lets say a computer which works on solar battery and uses the inbuilt wireless modem to get connected to the world that a small girl/boy of a farmer in Rajasthan can buy this and get herself educated. While i am typing this i see possibility and thats the power of connected community. Please help to build on this

In the connected age, the world truly becomes borderless. A platform offering people from across the world, the opportunity to voice their opinions and vote on global critical issues faced by mankind would be tremendously useful. Issues like global warming, food scarcity, wars, amassing weapons etc affect the entire world either directly or indirectly - such issues are simply too critical to be the prerogative of leaders of a few nations. The opinions expressed on such a platform could serve as a referendum that leaders cannot ignore.

If there is one underlying quality which is necessary in today's world, it is Compassion! Rest everything flows by the mere existence of this aspect within! Compassion within, makes me listen to "their" truth, makes me understand "their" truth, makes me less judgemental, removes the barriers of Right and Wrong, Shifts my world from within to merge in "our" world. Checks my actions to encompass "them" I wonder if this can be the measurement of the connected world?

At a very fundamental level, the NEW measure of success in the connected age is the same as what it has been for thousands of years - reducing the level of uncertainty. Before the money age, power was a means of reducing uncertainty. If you were powerful, you could reduce your chances of being impacted by thieves, dacoits, wild animals, etc. Powerful people could have a strong ring of defence. In the money age, which largely coincided with the industrial age, power was supplemented with wealth. Wealth was also a substitute for power, and also gave you some additional benefits. But unlike power, wealth was store-able, ie you could leverage your wealth over a period of time. Next, we came into the knowledge age. Unlike power and wealth, knowledge was not so much for protection, but for advancement, to do new things, to explore new frontiers of human capability. The transition from rural to urbanization and from autocracy to democracy, reduced the levels of threat and uncertainty. So, knowledge starting increasing in importance compared to power and wealth. Now we are in the connected age and in search of the new paradigm. To me, the new paradigm is clear. It is a slightly modified version of the oldest paradigm - ie security. Whereas the early man worried about security of self and family, in the new world, man worries about mankind. Today, we are afraid that mankind may be deeply hurt by large disasters like epidemics, nuclear war, bio terrorism, environmental destruction, etc. Connected age is the only age where we can anticipate and counter global threats. To summarize: Survival of mankind is under threat, and I am hopeful that the connected age will elevate mankind to a higher plane so as to counter newer and even more deadlier threats. So, the simple measure of success in the connected age is how capable we are of preserving the existence of mankind until we graduate into the next age.

New measure of sucess in connected age is how and how fast you will recover from dangers like cheating of connected peoples and global problems like recession. One who is determinant enough even after being cheated and robbed by his/her colleagues and still do with its own hamlet withsatnding pressures will be a winner. Hence overcoming failures will be new measure of sucess in connected age.

One of the measures of "success in the Connected Age" will be the number of people that you have touched in a positive way. The more people you help, the more successful you are deemed to be. This is already being demonstrated by a lot of the social networking sites. Social networking sites today are based on the theory of "Six Degrees of Separation" i.e. in this world any two people are "6 introductions away" from each other. As a result of this, people can start differentiating between the good/bad, successful/unsuccessful based on experiences that have been reported....and as a result of the theory, the likelihood of someone you know having posted that experience grows by the day as the world becomes more "connected". Of course, the flip side of this could be the resurge of "herd mentality" in the electronic age as people blindly accept the experiences of the majority without going through the experience themselves.