When viewing some TedTalks recently, I came across a presentation made by Clay Shirky. In his talk, Clay asked a very interesting question:  “How do groups get anything done ? How do you organize a group of individuals so that the output of the group is something coherent and of lasting value instead of just being chaos ?”

The classic answer to this question is forming an institution. Whether private or public, for profit or not, local or transnational, institutions have historically been our main answer to what is commonly referred to as “coordination costs” – the cost of organizing and governing the collective efforts of individuals into a coherent whole.

According to Clay, the rapid fall in communication costs has paved the way for a second possibility. Rather than form an institution, individuals can now connect in a way that allows them to embed collaboration within the infrastructure itself, effectively creating a self-governing system. Examples abound in social media, with sites like Flickr, Delicious or Digg creating ways for individuals to help each other in finding answers to their problems.

A similar evolution is happening in the consulting industry as well, with loosely formed groups of individuals coming together under a “brand umbrella”, offering services jointly to tackle assignments they could not handle individually. Or, in a very different example, citizens in South-African townships using mob law as an answer to rising crime rates and ineffective government police forces.

I am convinced this is an unstoppable evolution, and will continue to influence the world of institutions as we know it. As individuals can come together unhindered – or unaided – by physical boundaries, we are likely to see more and more examples of creating results through self-governing collaboration rather than institutional governance.

The impact on brands is nothing short of potentially huge. If we define a corporation as “a collective of individuals working towards a series of set goals”, the focus will increasingly shift from the collective to the individual level. The potential impact is clear: people will become increasingly important in shaping the brand of the institution. More and more, the people will become the brand.

Already, examples abound of high-profile CEOs heavily impacting consumer perception of their brands. What is the influence of Jack Welsh on the GE-brand ? Steve Jobs on Apple ? Or, Ken Lay on Enron ? George Bush on brand “America” ? Barack Obama on the same ?

To what extent are our perceptions of institutions and brands shaped by the opinion we hold of their “most prominent people” – their perceived personality traits, values and the corporate myths surrounding them ?

More and more, this type of influence will start manifesting itself at lower levels of the organization as well. Corporate bloggers and experts with a very high degree and level of knowledge in a  specific topic will become increasingly visible as representatives of their organization, impacting our perception of the brand.

For all practical purposes, people in visible functions like this will increasingly become strong brand ambassadors with a disproportionate impact on how their companies are viewed by consumers.