Category Archives: digital identity

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

Interdependent + Interconnected

Economic turmoil over the months of August and September have awoken many to the present day realities of how interdependent and interconnected we have all become. The recent collapse of Sigma Finance draws the curtain on a once $400bn Special Investment Vehicle (SIV) industry which over the last 25 years sowed the seeds of our current credit crisis. While commentators move from debating the wisdom of using the term bailout instead of rescue package to the shortcomings of central bank regulators our financial markets have forever changed. Masters of the Universe are a thing of the past and that is not a bad thing.

Technology has been a key enabler of our interdependent and interconnected world over the last decade. In September Google and Skype celebrated their 10th and 5th birthdays respectively. Both have played foundational roles in paving the way towards our coming Meta Age. The question many organisational leaders are starting to raise is how do they improve communications in preparation for a Meta Age. Social Computing holds many of the answers. Forward looking companies such as SocialText have been quietly getting on with developing enterprise ready platforms to meet the needs of organisations of all shapes, spaces and sizes. And that is a very good thing. Interesting times indeed.