I will however, alert you to the growing trend of Hacktivism and Pranktivism because it fits perfectly into the Corporate Hating™ wave. Take for example, this recent publication of Beautiful Trouble, A How-To Project for Activist Pranksters By EDW Lynch.

It ties together often disparate and underground movements and showcases them in one interesting and inspiring book that is looking for support on KickStarter.

“From prank websites to militant carnivals, flash mobs to virtual sit-ins, social activism has a creative new edge that is melding prank and PR, direct action protest and pop art. More and more, activists and artists find themselves together on the barricades. But in the heat of battle, the principles that make creative actions successful seldom get hashed out or written down — until now. Beautiful Trouble will arm our movements with their own best weapons.”

For many years these groups have been dismissed as unorganized “radical fringe” elements, trust me when I say, they are growing and even mainstreaming in ways even I couldn’t have imagined.

I mean it’s really not hard to understand. The Human Truth™ of the Corporate Hating™ wave is: “I hate being treated like I don’t matter.” Now, how many people do you think feel that way, in these times of widening economic gaps and unease about a myriad of issues? Perhaps you even know someone who’s attended a protest or “day of action” on an issue they feel strongly about… and it’s someone you didn’t think would do “that sort of thing”.

My advice to anyone bringing a product, service or new business innovation to market would be:

Be a solution. Be a point of difference to the objects of peoples anger. Most of all, don’t wait until people start screaming at you before you start listening.

The power of social media flexed it might, as a huge wave of backlash rolled over Facebook and twitter as people cried: Homophobia!!

I noticed angry tweets, and fb updates- in addition to many petitions and rallies being proposed.  One rally was organized in Brisbane that gained 20,000 attendees on Facebook in just 5 hours.

Australia, home of the world famous Sydney Gay Mardi Gras, is often perceived as extremely tolerant – so this just didn’t sound right to me.  My suspicions were justified.  It turned out Adshel had fallen victim to an orchestrated campaign by the Australian Christian Lobby. Once the director, Wendy Francis, finally acknowledged that the complaints had been orchestrated by the ACL, Adshel immediately reinstated the ‘Rip and Roll’ campaign.

Corporate Hating™ is about demanding respect. “Big business listens when people start screaming” is the essence of this wave.  Today I witnessed an outcry that had an incredibly quick turn around thanks to the connectivity of the internet and social networks.

“The app’s “bribe stream” reveals specifics about each bribe, including how it was requested or paid, how much it was and who was involved. When users encounter bribery themselves, meanwhile, they can also use the app to report it anonymously.”

Their website says: By accumulating data from thousands of anonymous users, we turn isolated users into powerful movement against corrupt individuals and institutions.

Corporate Hating™ is about “the people” fighting back.  The Human Truth™ is “I hate being treated like I don’t matter.” This app is a perfect example of how crowdsourced information can be used in an empowering way.

It’s a WIN-WIN-WIN situation.

These body scanner’s and “enhanced pat-downs” really bother me. And I’m one of the least likely to be offended. I don’t’ travel often enough to be concerned about the radiation, I’m practically a nudist, and love a good grope from the right person! It’s the erosion of personal liberty’s that is really offensive to me.

I know it’s become a cliché, but didn’t the terrorists want to change the way we live our lives and impact our freedom? Yes, freedom: the thing I hear, over and over, that is what America stands for!

Anyway if I was traveling in the States on the 24th of November I would be one of the people making an Opt-Out Statement. I guess it’s unfortunate that it might disrupt Thanksgiving plans but as the organizer says: “Chaos makes great news, sure, and news makes great exposure for a cause such as this.”

This is a perfect example of Corporate Hating™ who’s essence is “Big Business listens when people start screaming”™ and apparently the screaming is getting louder as more of the scanners go live. Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association has been quoted as saying: “We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travelers vowing to stop flying.”

Aram Bartholl, an artist at Eyebeam is going around New York cementing USB hubs into walls, and while hackers are corrupting some of them, others are streaming data to anyone willing to plug up a port.

Let me backtrack: I first came across this while scanning through my twitter, and I saw this:

This, of course, gave me pause – and so I clicked.

Comments already range from sarcastic to flat out offensive, with a few fans rallying to her defense praising the recipe as “simple advice.”

Regardless of whether or not it was intentional, the internet has taken notice. This could be the next 3 Wolf Moon.

Well back off! Because “the man” just trademarked it!

What we have here is two “green” companies that want to use the lovely daisy on their packaging. Method, who emerged in 2004, was “considered pioneers in the green marketing world, bringing transparency, humor, safe ingredients and good design to cleaning products. In the opposite corner, Clorox and Greenworks.”

In this passionate piece from treehugger they explain:

“Greenworks from Mega-corp Clorox launched with a bang, the blessing of the Sierra Club (and a whole lot of advertising on TreeHugger) in January, 2008. Hugely successful, they have been eating Method’s lunch ever since. And now they want to eat their daisies. They have sent Method a cease and desist letter (pdf here) including the following friendly message”

What we have is a clear cut example of what we have been warning companies against since the Green Hot™ trend emerged:  Walk the Talk.

Greenwashing is common. I think some companies believe that most people don’t look past the “clean, pure, organic” looking packaging.  And, you know what? To a certain extent they are right.

But just as the “Go Green” trend started in hard core, conservation sub-cultures…so will the “Savvy Shopper” trend continue to grow into the mainstream.  There are already many sites that expose companies for not being what they claim they are.  You’ve been hearing the “Transparency” catch cry for awhile now…are you ready for the rise of the “label readers” and “ethics researchers”?

As treehugger says, this trade marking decision has left Clorox: “looking petty and evil” and remind us all that “there is more to being green than what is in the bottle; business practices matter.”

It may sound far-fetched, even laughable, but the former news chief of the Canadian Broadcast Channel  (CBC) and current managing director of Al Jazeera English (AJE), Tony Burman, isn’t joking. Comparing the rise of his network during the 2008 Gaza conflict to CNN’s spectacular rise during the Gulf War, Burman makes a strong case for why now may be the perfect time for AJE to step up as a serious contender in the American market.

According to an in-depth report on Alter-net, AJE has successfully established itself as the voice of the developing world.

With more than seventy bureaus run by staff drawn from some fifty nations, a typical news day for AJE might include reports on a nomadic camel-herding tribe whose members are key rebel leaders in Darfur, a lawsuit against Chiquita (formerly the United Fruit Company) for financing paramilitary death squads in Colombia, the effects of the global financial crisis on Pakistani carpet weavers, and the recent massive spike in arms sales to the United Arab Emirates. AJE currently broadcasts to 150 million households in more than 100 countries — with the exception, until now, of North America.

Impressive, but, the greater story here is that domestic and international perception of American news  networks has eroded to all-time lows. Here are some sad statistics from The Pew Center for your consideration.

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight

only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased

Nearly three-quarters (74%) now say news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations compared with 20% who say they are pretty independent.

To make the situation even worse, the economy and the Internet have taken their toll on advertising revenues, forcing news organizations to make serious cuts or shut down entirely. Investigative and International reporting have seen the biggest cuts; According to the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report, coverage of international events by American media fell by about 40 percent in 2008.

This brings further harm to the legitimacy of American networks and creates a window of opportunity for AJE, who’s coverage continues to expand,  to become a legitimate source for international news.

Burman tells Alternet….

“The mainstream American networks have cut their bureaus to the bone,” says Burman. “They’re basically only in London now. … The channel plans to open ten new bureaus in the coming year, including one in Canada. …”At the risk of sounding incredibly self serving….that’s where, in the absence of alternatives, Al Jazeera English can fill a vacuum, simply because we’re going in the opposite direction.”

In reality, I am not sure whether Al Jazeera will have a major American presence, but, there is little doubt that trust in the American media has never been lower. Americans may not be ready for AJE, but there is no doubt they are ready for change.

China’s iron fisted control of information is not a state secret, it is widely known that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are currently blocked by state controls. Despite the aura of softening there is a dark layer of oppression and censorship that lie just behind the guise of the new China, where objecting to the actions of your government could land you in the gulag.

A recent article in the Times authored by Jeremy Goldkorn, describes the experience of having his website blocked by regulators and calls in to question the long term cultural consequences that result from living in a society of censorship and fear.

“The effects are not just an underperforming film industry and underrepresentation on the world’s literary stage. Censorship contributes greatly to the crisis of trust that many complain of in China. People don’t trust newspapers or companies, business people don’t trust each other, and no one – including the people who work in it – trusts what the government says.”

With all the talk of China and India being emerging powers it is hard to imagine how a nation that possess this level of distrust could truly ascend to the position of global leadership, despite their massive industrial and financial might.

But, maybe I am putting too much focus on the power of the Chinese government to oppress. Maybe, the government has reason to fear the power that the Internet has shown to have in terms of political organization and social change. The Internet is a giant killer, some of its victims slowly disappear, death from a thousand cuts, such as newspapers and print media, others die in a frontal assault made up of millions and millions of participants, ( amazonfail, Iran, etc.) . The mighty Chinese Dragon is obviously scared, and well, rightfully so.