The Empathy Economy

Jeremy Rifkin's talk on the empathic civilization highlights the need for greater empathy in business, especially in open innovation. People and organizations that excel in open innovation have a higher degree of business empathy, making an effort to understand each other and create mutually-beneficial relationships. Rifkin argues that the unit of economic activity is shifting towards a global or hyper-local model, which reflects the experience of open innovation. However, technology cannot replace face-to-face interaction, and therefore, there's a need to try and connect different groups of people in both online and offline communities. To achieve a more efficient and bigger open innovation marketplace, companies involved in open innovation need to collaborate with each other in a shared risk and reward environment. The summary concludes with the idea of creating an empathic economy, which is necessary and commercially sensible.