And that's why I feel so optimistic about our future, because you all are the most engaged, service-minded generation since the 1930s and '40s, serving your communities in record numbers.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama at Points of Light Forum in Texas

High minded public service broadcasters that they are, they refused, of course.

BBC: Who's shone?

Users of the service pool money with like-minded investors to make commercial real estate investments that are otherwise difficult to access.

FORBES: Crowd Funding for Aspiring Real Estate Moguls

The 1, 500 vendors of security products and thousands of security service providers have had a single minded focus on defending against bad actors ever since the invention of networked computers.

FORBES: Operation Olympic Games, Project X, and the assault on the IT security industry

The direct result was the kind of dehumanizing experiences we complain so much about customer service hell driven by transaction-minded policies and well-intentioned automation.

FORBES: Thor Muller Q&A: Customer Service in a Social Media World

He goes out of his way to hire customer-service phone reps who are outgoing, open-minded and creative.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Even in mandarin-minded France, the problem of an ageing civil service is felt.

ECONOMIST: Public-service careers

This challenge is central to national service, which gives thousands of Americans a chance to unite with like-minded people and work toward improving the lives of our most-vulnerable citizens.

WHITEHOUSE: Our Top Stories

CDNow, Outpost (computers and software), Home Depot, Reel.com (videos) or Garden.com, they and hundreds of like-minded competitors think specialists understand their customers better and can provide superior service and lower prices than a generalist such as Amazon.

ECONOMIST: Electronic commerce