In a nutshell, I think that many mainstream businesses are embracing social media as tools without necessarily having an understanding of how human behavior is changing as a result.  Examples are all over the place, of people getting together in unique ways with their own agenda for change.

• Open source versus corporate built: Linux, Wikipedia, Firefox, Shareware, Freeware
• Product-service systems versus product manufacturers: hardware and software solutions versus SaaS
• redistribution versus hyperconsumption
• carrot and stick versus autonomy, mastery and purpose
• peer recommended versus brand identity
• trusted behaviors versus credit report
• friction versus flow
• me versus we
• and on and on.

Early in the class I was struck by symbolic interactionism and the implication of the idea that meaning is created through the interaction between people.  What does that mean for a society that has developed an exponential capability to interact through many-to-many communication mechanisms when interaction volumes increase astronomically?  I suspect it means a period of rapid change where new ideas take hold and are implemented by people rather than institutions (open source, arab spring, collaborative consumption, etc), simply because of rapid growth of cognitive surplus applied in altruistic ways (e.g. microfinancing) to address pervasive problems that mainstream institutions can’t seem to solve.  I think there is evidence (on web sites) that many businesses do not understand how fundamental the changes are and simply view social media as a new set of tools by which to market, advertise, and reach people, rather than applying social media strategically to address fundamental shifts in behavior and values.