How fascinating it would be to teleport a 200-year-old Charles Darwin into today's world and quiz him on his reactions, particularly his views on where the forces of natural selection might take key parts of the global economy. Where to start? So, Mr Darwin, how do you upgrade these dinosaur industries? And how do you solve a problem like Detroit?

If the great man had exited the teleportal next to a WH Smith earlier this year, buying a copy of a certain American business magazine, part of the answer would have been on its cover. It asked the question: "Could Google Fix Detroit"?

Inside, an extract from What Would Google Do?, the book by blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis, argued that Detroit might just be turned around in time if the search giant's open-source management style could be applied to the leading three American carmakers, and particularly to the way they connect with their customers.

The big three car firms have long been intensely stealthy, cloaking new models in secrecy to ensure that their styling is a surprise on launch day. But these days, Jarvis wonders, who really cares? New cars "rarely engender excitement or passion". What if, instead, a car company were to open up the whole process to its customers, asking them to get involved in co-creation? What if they launched new cars in beta?

Design, he believes, should be a conversation. So BMW invited customers to colour in pictures of its new M5 model, with—perhaps surprisingly—more than 9,000 people sending in designs within a few days. Fine, as far as it went, but what if you could help drive natural selection in automotive design, co-evolving the car you really wanted?

All sorts of questions could be asked and possibly answered. Would customers give up their electric windows, for example, in exchange for a nicer radio, a lower price or cleaner exhaust emissions?

Such an innovative strategy would be stakeholder engagement taken to a new level, a set of keys to a better world on wheels. Which is one reason why Google makes the Phoenix 50 in Volans's latest report, which explores the new economy now rising from the ashes of the old.

John Elkington is co-founder of Volans. His latest report is The Phoenix Economy: 50 pioneers in the business of social innovations