To make money you have to sell something, yet we seem to have become obsessed with the word ‘free’ on the internet – free content, free platforms, free products, free blogs, free uploads, free sharing and, well, just lots of free stuff. No wonder it’s a little noisy and we’re all wearing headphones. The SOPA debate about copyright, intellectual property (IP) and freedom of speech will run as long as the IP lawyers can make money out of it, and anyhow it’s not the focus of this article. Free has different meanings!

Let’s get a few things straight: free isn’t sustainable and doesn’t work in the long run. In fact, in some cases it’s just bullshit! People who complain that they aren’t making money out of their blog or social media activity are usually giving away too much for free. It’s time to put our capitalist hat back on and start monetising the communities we have grown. The market place is maturing and, thankfully, growing up.

When I was a kid, I used to stay a lot at my Aunty’s in Marske-by-the-Sea on the North Sea coast . It was great fun. I loved the beach, even if it was freezing cold, which it often is up there! I remember vividly my cousin Diane posting a note (which was there for years) on the back of the bathroom door that said, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera,” referring to a TV program from the 60s. Little did I know at the age of 8 how ironic that was. It took me until I was 38 to read George Orwell’s “1984″.

We have spent the last 30-plus years locking down our homes with mortice locks and deadbolts, but we seem to have completely forgotten about our personal privacy, which can actually leverage equal damage. Now, it’s too late. Privacy is gone. That longstanding aspect of our lives is as extinct as the dodo. Our data has been assimilated by the big social networks for up to 7 years, by Google for 12 years, by mobile phone companies for 20 years, and by the banks and governments for even longer.

The brain is a little like a wheel: it is a pretty ordinary thing until it is in motion. 2012 will be a year that gets that grey matter of mine in motion by challenging, pushing and progressing it. During the year, my companies will head in a slightly different direction because of the experimenting (thank you to all you guinea pigs out there) and modelling that I have worked on over the past 18 months.

I have asked the question “Why?” a lot in 2011. I have been working hard to understand the history of social and the science behind it, the impact of digital and the future of not just technologies but our changing behaviour and how that will lead to new business models and ways of working. With the amazing support of my team, we have worked arduously to refine and reshape what we do and to do it even better. Here’s what’s happening:

‘Collaboration’ is a word that is being thrown around the global playground of work presently. As a word it is overused, but as a concept it is underutilised in many ways. Frankly, most of us mistake ‘collaboration’ for ‘partnership’ or ‘strategic alliance’. So why is this word that is difficult to say when you have had a glass of wine or two becoming common terminology in offices, laboratories, factories, studios and even whole fields across the globe?

Over the last 30 years we have slowly moved from organising and re-organising production systems, industrial relations, factories and procedures to understanding and facilitating ideas that are shared and developed using collaborative methods that we still do not understand the power of. The most significant catalyst has been mass adoption of the web, in the western world at least. Not only has it removed geography, it is enabling mass participation and mass innovation.

Its an ordinary day, but you’re doing something special; you’re meeting friends for a coffee in a store down town. You’re chatting, you’re gossiping, you’re catching up,  discussing the merits of disposable nappies or, the latest offering from a mobile network company. Suddenly, right there next to your table somebody starts walking up and down with a placard showing the brand name of those companies on it you have been talking about. You laugh at it, you try to ignore and after a few moments become irritated by it.

Then, even ruder, you’re having a conversation about your next holidays in New Zealand and up pops a message board right there in the middle of the table. It might be quirky to begin with, even fun, but eventually that interruption becomes nothing short of bombardment. That’s what and will happen on a fundamental basis in the future. And it won’t stop there. That person that was walking up and down with the placards with the nappy brand on it, was discreetly looking through your handbag taking data that will help that same person market to you when you’re sat on the loo and on the intercom in your new car when ‘social’ introduces itself to the driving experience. Welcome to in real life what Facebook and Twitter are doing to you online. Of course you know that.

Most of us would admit that when Facebook launched way back in 2004, it was a game changer. It stole the show and created demand for social networking, which individuals across the world didn’t know they needed. In the last year, though, Facebook has changed, as it becomes busy fulfilling the demand not of its users but of the brands that drive its revenue and shareholder value, other brands will see that the gate has opened and the horse has bolted! Opportunities are everywhere, and everything can be remade. Unthink is just one of the first out of the traps.

Facebook’s changes in the last few weeks are just tweaks. Seriously, they’re not revolutionary. When Henry Ford brought the first mass-produced motor car to the market in 1908 it changed the world, but since then the industry has just been fiddling with the original design. When James Dyson launched a snazzy new vacuum cleaner it was a game changer, but since then all they have been doing is fine tuning.

Every sector is now embedded in an ecosystem. A dynamic, interconnected, knowledgeable community in which all the members are dependent on each other to survive and grow. Whether or not you choose to engage with this ecosystem of activity and pulse is up to you. We live in a world where there is over capacity. Too many restaurants, too many design agencies, too many banks, too many charities, too many consultants, too many engineers, too many graduates. Surely you don’t want me to go on? Businesses too are like newspapers. Today’s news, tomorrrows trash!

Digital Darwinism, as some call it has taken hold. The premise that evolution in business is happening far quicker than at any other time in history and only the fittest brands will survive. Its a stark fact that means we can’t control something that is moving quicker than us.

To put this in perspective look at these figures:

Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million listeners

TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users

Internet took 4 years to reach 50 million users