Category Archives: re-invention

co-creation, collaboration, creativity, digital identity, lifetime learning, participation, re-invention

The Future of Business

With global consensus finally reached on 2009 being a year of recession people are starting to seek answers on how to shorten its duration. Innovation is the topic du jour around the world with technological innovation coming top of the agenda. Business leaders are starting to speak nationally about how to turn recessionary challenges into opportunities. Rupert Murdoch encourages his fellow Australian’s to embrace technology in the second of five Boyer lectures on ABC tonight.

Eric Schmidt shared his views about the future of business in this 6 part video interview with James Manyika. Part one covers the coming remote control for life, cloud computing and network effects. Part two covers the Power Law and how you need both the “head and tail” in a “yes and” rather than “either or” world. Part three covers the freemium business model and how free is better than cheap.

Part four covers the wisdom of the crowds and how new models of governance are needed to foster open and transparent communications both internally and externally. Part five covers the nature of innovation, simplexity and shared value cultures. Part six covers strategic platforms and the evolution of global standards.

Each of the above are recommended viewing in full – runtime is 18 minutes with lots of food for thought. Great to see Ian Davis and his team at McKinsey starting to make their material more publically accessible. Heres hoping many of his peers and the organisations they advise start to follow suit. After all knowledge is a never ending conversation.

co-creation, collaboration, creativity, digital identity, lifetime learning, participation, presence, re-invention, virtual world

User Centric to User Driven

July was an active month within the social computing space. Microsoft kicked things off by acquiring Powerset for $100m. Founded in October 2006 and having raised $12.5m in venture funding the San Francisco based search and natural language company are early semantic web practictioners. Apple launched its much awaited iPhone 3G with 1m units sold over its opening weekend. If you have yet to get hands on with the device we recommend watching its 30 minute guided tour video.

Google went public with Lively, one of its virtual world projects. The browser based offering joins Meez Nation and a number of other browser based virtual world offerings currently within the marketplace. IBM and Linden Lab announced the launch of their Open Grid Public Beta project. Interoperability within virtual worlds is something both companies have been working on in partnership for sometime.

Each of the above were discussed with analysts looking to understand how the third wave is taking shape. While public listed companies were mere observers of the second wave they are now positioning themselves to be active participants within the third wave. Making this transition from user centric to user driven is one of the great challenges many organisations face as we enter the Meta Age. Interesting times indeed.