Thanks to new technologies and social sites like Facebook and Twitter, our world is overtly connected. No matter where you go, there are people with their faces in their smartphones or other devices — having conversations, snapping pictures of their food or posting something expectantly clever in hopes of obtaining some likes. Face it: we are a culture addicted to sharing. But why?

As the world’s first expert on Shareology, Bryan Kramer recently explained at TED@IBM that personal branding is what drives us to share. The fact is we care about how we see ourselves as well as how others see us. And in this seemingly flat world, what we share shapes how others view us and easily connects us with like-minded people. Sharing enables us to collaborate in ways we’ve never been able to before.

Told through his TED@IBM talk, Bryan was discontented with his career, albeit successful. He found that sharing helped him find greater purpose and reinvent his personal brand, and took to social media to connect with others who share his passion and to redefine his future.

To show how powerful sharing can be, Bryan asked his audience to pull out their devices and think about how sharing inspires them to re-imagine the future and positively change our world. Ready, set, share!

During his one day of sharing via the #sharinginspires hashtag, Bryan made nearly 21 million impressions with tweets generated in countries all over the world, reaching well beyond the 500 TED@IBM attendees in San Francisco.

Bryan’s experiment truly shows the power of sharing, imagine what we can do! Check out some of the highlights of #sharinginspires.