Presentation: Build Your Business with Crowdsourcing

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Today I spoke at Australian Chambers Business Congress on Build Your Business with Crowdsourcing.

Below are the slides from my presentation. Usual disclaimer: these slides are meant to accompany my presentation, not to stand alone. But in fact this time there is a little more detailed content than usual in my slides, as this was intended as a highly practical session on how to approach crowdsourcing.

Build Your Business With Crowdsourcing

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I’ll be fleshing out this content in other posts over the coming months.

List of the top 100 Twitter influencers in Australia

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One of the key facets of the rise of the reputation economy is that reputation and influence can increasingly be measured. The rise of tools that measure people’s influence in social media channels, such as PeerIndex, Klout, and Twitter Grader, is just the beginning of a far broader shift to metrics of influence and reputation.

We have compiled a list of the most influential people in Australia on Twitter as measured by PeerIndex, which is based on a combination of authority, activity, and audience. Follow the link for the original list, or you can see the top 100 as of today below. Problogger Darren Rowse is at the top, and our Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 100th place. I come in second place on the list, driven in particular by the measurement of my authority. Of course the list could be quite different as judged by other influence engines.

Note that the list does NOT include entertainment related profiles (such as Justin Bieber fan JDBaustralia and Melbourne-based Filipino TV star Jasmine Curtis-Smith), corporate accounts, or media accounts such as ABCNews.
[NOTE:] If you are in Australia, have a PeerIndex score of 50 or more, and are not on the Australia list on PeerIndex, email us at oztwitter [AT] ahtgroup [DOT] com and we’ll add you to the list (or even easier, click on ‘Suggest someone’ on the top right of the PeerIndex page).

The full list is below.
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SkyNews interview on future of tech: Cloud, Privacy, Big data, Reputation, Death of newspapers

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Last week just before I flew to China I did an interview on SkyNews Tech Report about the future of today’s technology.

Topics we discussed in the interview include:
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6 critical issues: Why the super injunction story represents a major social turning point

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Much ink and many pixels had already been shed on Britain’s super injunction laws before the last week, but the Ryan Giggs case has pushed this into the stratosphere.

In case you’ve been hiding in a closet, Manchester United star Ryan Giggs was awarded a “super injunction” from British courts, forbidding the press to report that he was alleged to have had an affair with Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas, or even that they had been forbidden to report on it. Some 75,000 tweets and 1 use of parliamentary privilege later, everyone knows anyway.

This is one of those seemingly small incidents on which major social turning points hinge. So many fundamental issues of society, media, and our future are tied into this that it is difficult to disentangle. Here are a few compact thoughts and critical issues on what is at the heart of this extraordinary situation.

– The current super injunction law was created to respond to excesses of the press
The British tabloids have a tradition as world-leaders in muck-racking and invasion of privacy. Their excesses led to what were probably at the time reasonable laws to limit negative social impact from their activities. However the media landscape of today is barely recognizable from when these laws were enacted in 1990.
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The role of a futurist is to help people gain perspective and transcend boundaries

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Yesterday I was interviewed by fellow futurist Eric Garland for a podcast series which was also featured on the World Future Society website. You can listen to the podcast on those sites or below (note that I have had some problems with the plug-in).

Our discussion ranged across global demographics, shifts in manufacturing, robotics, and far more. What I thought was worth pulling out of the conversation were my comments on the role of futurists and futures thinking.

The first point is that I am completely comfortable with the term futurist, even if some perceive it as lacking credibility. I’ve long been meaning to write about my views on the word ‘futurist’. I’ll be back soon on that point.
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Notes from the Australian Institute of Company Directors in Beijing

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I am at the annual conference of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, held this year in Beijing. It is fantastic that Australian company directors are choosing to meet here rather than at home, broadening vistas and opportunities. The Grand Ballroom at China World Hotel is full, with around 500 people here.

While I don’t have access to Twitter from my iPad (I haven’t had time to try to set up a VPN on my laptop yet) I can at least blog, so I might be doing more of that while I am in Beijing this week.

For now, here are my presentation slides for my keynote on How Technology is Transforming Business this morning. These are just a slightly different version of the presentation I shared last week. You can also find a pdf version of the Transformation of Business framework on which the presentation is based.

Transformation of Business – AICD on Prezi

A story about Connected: The Film and why you must see it

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I saw Connected: The Film by Tiffany Shlain last night at its Australian premiere, organized by Annalie Killian.

The first thing I have to say is that the film is absolutely fantastic. It nails how we as humans live an intensely interdependent world, and how our recognition of and response to that will determine our future. I think the more people that see it the better, so I dearly hope it will get a healthy – or even massive – audience.

I have to say I am not an independent reviewer, and that in itself is a highly relevant story.
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Crowdsourcing among an awesome speaker line-up at Australian Business Congress

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The Australian Chambers Business Congress on 1-2 June is shaping up to be one of the top business conferences of the year in Australia, with an awesome speaker line-up. The Congress is organized by the Australian Chamber Alliance, a consortium of all the major business chambers across Australia.

Speakers include Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Porter, Steve Wozniak, Tony Abbott, Anna Bligh plus an array of some of most interesting people in business in Australia and worldwide.

I will be speaking at the Congress on Friday 3rd about Crowdsourcing.

I will do my best to pack in as many practical insights as I can on how to grow your business using crowdsourcing tools. This topic will be a major focus for me for the rest of the year, so stand by for plenty of content on how to get results from crowdsourcing – the scoop will be at the Congress!

The rise of participative TV (hint: that’s better than social TV)

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The opportunity for television is to become a truly participative media.

Over the last year or so my views on the future of TV have significantly shifted, to be far more optimistic for the media. Last year I gave the opening keynote at the Regional TV Marketing conference, and subsequently wrote how The Future of TV is community. In my keynote I reflected on how the power of big screen will remain truly compelling. However TV must transcend the classic broadcast mentality that implies a passive audience. It needs to create participative experiences, from which comes real community. Which, incidentally, will lead to the most powerful business models for the future of television, as I mentioned in some thoughts on TV in 10 years from now.

After a very slow start, TV channels appear to be getting the message and getting on board. The latest is What’s Trending, a “new kind of news show” from CBS News. Here is the trailer.


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Beijing social media/ future of media meetup on May 19

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I’m in Beijing next week to do the keynote at the AICD conference on How Technology is Transforming Business and guest lecture at Beijing Foreign Studies University on The End of Newspapers and Future of News.

While I’m in Beijing I’m keen to catch up with any local folks on Twitter/ Weibo/ social media and those interested in the future of media. As such I’ve set up a Beijing Future of Media/ Social Media meetup on Eventbrite. Please register on the page if you can join us.

Date: May 19
Time: 12pm – 2pm
Location: Union Bar and Grille
S6-31, 3/F, Bldg 6, Sanlitun Village South, 19 Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang District
朝阳区三里屯路19号三里屯Village南区6号楼3层S6-31

If you’re in Beijing next week would be great to see you there, or if you think there are people who might like to come along, please pass on word.

Thanks to @beijingboyce and @benjaminjoffe for the pointers and support!!