Entries by Ross Dawson

More on the future of PR and influence networks

Ketchum PR, one of the top few public relations agencies in the world, has just posted on their company intranet an interview with me on major trends in PR. They’ve kindly allowed me also to post it here on my blog. The key themes they distilled from our original wide-ranging interview are on the role […]

Microcredit gains momentum

Microcredit (also known as microfinance) is the business of making very small loans, sometimes as low as $50 or less, to poor people who can invest the money to help them make a living. Recipients of loans may buy sewing machines or other simple tools that allow them to earn money, pay off the loan, […]

The new generation of social networking and expertise location

Blogs, wikis, and other social software tools are rapidly gaining traction in the business sector. In particular, they are being applied to issues that were previously addressed with other tools and approaches. Last week executives from IBM Lotus, which arguably provided the first enterprise collaboration platform back in the early 1980s, stated that they see […]

Update: Sony withdraws its DRM

Following on the previous story on Sony digital rights management, Sony has announced it will stop making CDs using this DRM technology, after the first virus that uses Sony’s copy-protection software to hide had been discovered. At a public event yesterday, Stewart Baker, the assistant secretary for policy at the Department for Homeland Security made […]

The Sony DRM debacle shows you can’t hide

The big story this week has been how Sony BMG has way overstepped the mark by how they have used digital rights management (DRM) technology to prevent copying of its music CDs. This could shift the course of the debate and public perception of DRM. For those who haven’t read about this yet, Mark Russinovich, […]

Investor relations and blogging

Investor relations is the art of managing relationships with your investors. It used to be easy: tell them whatever you felt like telling them. Shareholder activism, new regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, and the internet have dramatically changed the landscape, giving far more power to investors. A great example was the Save Disney campaign. Roy Disney […]

Sell-side banks become consultants

One of the issues I’ve spent much time on over the last decade is how financial markets buy-side/ sell-side relationships (usually those between investment banks and fund managers) are changing, and what the implications are for investment banking sales and research. My case has largely been that financial markets salespeople need to build “knowledge-based” relationships […]

Your printer is telling on you

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the most active and powerful organization aiming to protect civil liberties in the digital world, has just announced that it has cracked the secret codes printed by the Xerox DocuColor color laser printer, as a first step to bring color printer secret codes into the open. The U.S. Secret Service […]

Australia in the global network economy

Last week The Bulletin, Australia’s premier newsweekly magazine, ran an interesting article on the role of technology in the future of Australia, drawing heavily on an interview with me. The broad topic of how Australia – and all other countries – can be successful in the swiftly evolving global economy is taking much of my […]

Online advertising is a viable business

The head of Goldman Sachs‘ high-tech group has said that the IPO market is back for the right Internet companies. However the barriers are far higher, and we’re not likely to return to unprofitable or no-revenue companies getting piles of investors. Now that advertising is a viable business model, with further strong gains in online […]