Later today at 13:00 Chicago time, I’ll be interviewing author Nilofer Merchant on the topic of ‘onlyness’. What is it? In her book 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, she writes:

Celebrate onlyness. The foundational element starts with celebrating each human and, more specifically, something I’ve termed onlyness. Onlyness is that thing that only one particular person can bring to a situation. It includes the skills, passions, and purpose of each human. Onlyness is fundamentally about honoring each person, first as we view ourselves and second as we are valued. Each of us is standing in a spot that no one else occupies. That unique point of view is born of our accumulated experience, perspective, and vision. Some of those experiences are not as “perfect” as we might want, but even those experiences are a source of ideas and creativity. Without this tenet of celebrating onlyness, we allow ourselves to be simply cogs in a machine—dispensable and undervalued.

Merchant, Nilofer (2012-09-12). 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era (Kindle Locations 107-108). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

It is my belief that an understanding of onlyness is fundamental for transformational thought leadership and I plan to talk with Nilofer about what onlyness is, how it came to her, why she thinks it’s important in the social era, how is it different than branding [or is it?] and how does one tap into it. Our talk will be available as an event in Google+ as it happens and in an archive after the fact…

Here’s Nilofer’s TEDTalk on the topic of Onlyness;