While radically different in aim and scope, the experiments that retailers are now conducting are drawing from experiments in civic participation.

FORBES: 2012: Our Intelligent Return to the Physical World

Scope, the outsourcing arm of Standard Chartered, the largest foreign bank in India, has the grand aim of becoming, in effect, the back office for many of the bank's operations in 56 countries.

ECONOMIST: India aims to become the back office for the world's banks