Today at Oakland the Delta gate person announced "In just a few minutes we will begin boarding you by zones." She could have said "Boarding by zones will begin in a few minutes." The difference may seem slight, but I think it's telling. The original language is indicative of a corporate culture that views customers as undifferentiated herd to be "managed" rather than as human beings.

Doc Seals talks about how the entire architecture of the modern web has this model, which he calls "cow-calf" built in. Rather than interacting with Web sites and other services as equals with our own tools and representatives, we just live in their silos.

The good news is that the world can be different. My answer is personal event networks. Until we make the tools that force companies to interact with us as human beings instead of demographic bins or undifferentiated herds, they will continue to do so.