Okay. We saw last time that what seems to matter the most is to consider individuals in the context of their organizations, and not just individuals in their essential characteristics, or as the supreme level of analysis. We acknowledge now that if organizations matter so highly, we need to comprehend the space where they are located and how us, defined as insignificant individuals, are interacting with them. Endorsing some and rejecting others, and how this process ultimately shapes the world we evolve in. To understand the complexity of the creation and the loss of legitimacy in our world, how it introduces and differentiates meanings in our individual lives, we must understand first the nature of the world we are evolving in, and why, ultimately, estranged from organizations the individual is powerless to act on it. Let's look more closely at this space where organizations strive, cohabit and also compete where they interact with us, the individuals, and how this interaction can destroy, transform, or generate meaning. We call it the public space. Remember Res-sources. During the first week we saw that organizations offer solutions that individuals fill to the brim with meaning and these are Res-sources. The public space is where organizations are able to communicate more or less freely about their solutions, and to offer the solutions to individuals. In open public spaces, individuals can choose from many solutions those they find most meaningful. Therefore the public space captures both a communication dimension - what can be said about products and producers - that is public places, physical or virtual, and an economic dimension - what can be exchanged - that is the market place. Therefore both, a public place and a market place. According to an intellectual tradition, the emergence of development of the public space, both the public place and the market place, can be traced to the 18th century, a time when the first Industrial Revolution was brewing and when the American and French political revolutions brought about profound changes in common men beliefs. The passage from the feudal, social, political, and economic system to the modern world has led to outstanding changes. Revolutionary ideas provided the base values for what we now refer to as modernity: Equality, all people are equal. Justice, all people have equal access to the same rights, regardless of rank or birth. Freedom, all people have the right to express themselves and to act according to their own will. Upon this foundation, the concept of citizenship is built and it demands a forum for exchanges : from political parties to media commentaries. The opening of the public space sparked exchange in confrontational opinions. Gradually the bureaucratic technocracy of the government, begins to disassociate itself. from its representative political function. The subsequent expansion of voting rights to broader ranges of citizens means the head of state no longer independently sets the rules and enforces them. Instead, the head of states looks to the state administration, which maintains a fragile balance between simultaneously dealing with, on the one hand, public affairs and, on the other hand, those interests championed by organizations that use private means of production such as businesses. In this definition of a public space there isn't on the one hand, political, environment and public services, and on the other, markets where goods are exchanged. This means that an orgologist does accept neither the idea that the markets are, or must be, standing apart from the political sphere. Nor that the power of money and the political power are in constant opposition. Both are acting in the public space, thereby forging the space as much as they are influenced by it. The gradual emergence of political and economic dimensions of the public space serves as a fairly reliable guide for distinguishing open societies from those that verge on totalitarianism. For instance, Egypt has recently witnessed the collapse of a society marked by its lack of both public places - meeting spaces, blogs, newspaper, and magazines - where citizens can exchange personal or collective opinions, and, efficient market places. The absence of robust enough organizations in the political and economic dimensions of the Egyptian public space, prevented the country to remain stable after the Mubarak era, reverting to a state where the army controls the country. So based on what we just said, according to you, what is the public space? -An efficient market with many solutions available to individuals -A political agora where citizens express themselves -Both of the above, i.e, a public place and a market place. -Or, none of the above. Of course, the answer is the third one. Both a political place and economic place. The more unbridled the public space the more movement between the two places exist, letting new communication taking place in the public space, and the more products and services are exchanged in the marketplace. But you wonder, what do organizations represent, embody in the public space? This is what we shall see next time.