I love Seth Godin. Who doesn't? The best-selling author and Business Week's "ultimate entrepreneur for the information age" is a smart guy; a genius who tells the truth, particularly when he's talking about it. "Trust is the scarcest resource we've got left. No one trusts anyone," he says.

Thanks to the tsunami that is e-mail spam, we don't put out the welcome mat to unfamiliar names that pop into our inboxes. Missives that start with "Dearest one. I am a dying woman who..." or have "You are a winner" in their subject line are viewed with the contempt they deserve. It's like picking up hitchhikers in Johannesburg: we just don't.