Isaac Newton would have made a good retailer – but will soon be using their 3G phones as POS terminals in stores.

That is a great example of retail gravity pushing down the tasks that were once done by staff to customers themselves.

I am also fascinated by the number of emerging on-line collaborative business models such as Innocentive.com and Yet2.com which allow thousands of people to bring their collective knowledge to the R&D market.

This is simply another symptom of the new force of gravity which pushes innovation down to the mass market away from the elite echelon of a few scientists, reducing cost enormously and opening up opportunities for a whole generation of consumers globally.

I will continue to explore this concept of gravity as I have a feeling it is one of the more basic forces shaping our existence.

Watch this space.