I very rarely find the time to write magazine articles, but I was delighted to write the opening feature article for MediaTitles 2010, an annual publication which covers the media and magazine industry.
To see the article in the full splendor of the print version, go to the MediaTitles website, which has the full publication viewable using Realview Technologies (with the article reformatted to take out the lists of four, which I think is a pity). My article is on pages 7-10.
The (original) text of the article is below.
CREATING THE FUTURE OF MEDIA
These are the best of times, these are the worst of times. The global economic crisis, coming on top of a dramatic transformation wrought by the rise of the Internet, is creating the swiftest change in media industry structure ever experienced. Newspapers and magazines are being shut down at an extraordinary pace all over the world, journalists are losing their jobs, and broadcast media are under threat as sliding advertising revenue hit an unmoving cost base. Yet as the world shifts towards what will be truly an all-encompassing media economy, there are extraordinary opportunities ahead for media organisations.
This is a critical juncture to examine the future of media. Magazines have and will continue to be central to how we learn, socialise, entertain ourselves, and make buying decisions. Yet the magazine industry will undoubtedly look very different scant years ahead. It is our role and responsibility to create the future of media, rather than to let it happen to us. To do that, we need to examine the most central driving forces, strategic issues and capabilities in the evolving media landscape.
Four Driving Forces
Read more →
Top keynote speech presentations/ videos of 2009
By Ross DawsonOther 2009 summary posts
Top blog posts of 2009: 6 on Twitter and the media
Top blog posts of 2009: Enterprise 2.0 and organizational effectiveness
Top blog posts of 2009: The future
Fourth in my series of summary blog posts from 2009 is selected presentations and videos from keynote speeches I’ve delivered this year (plus, at the end, my list of speaking topics for 2010).
My usual disclaimer: My presentation slides are highly visual and designed to accompany my speeches, and are NOT intended to be meaningful by themselves. The main reason I provide them on my blog is for the audience at my keynotes who want to look at the slides later. However it seems that others find the slides useful – in fact some have been viewed over 10,000 times on Slideshare.
I should also note that this list just includes a selection of the more interesting public keynotes I have given. I do not post slides for the presentations I frequently make for company in-house events such as divisional conferences and strategy off-sites.
Below are the links to the original blog posts which have the context and background for each presentation, with the embedded presentations below.
1. Video excerpts of keynote speech for Sun Microsystems Partner Executive Forum: The Future of the Network Economy
Read more →
Top blog posts of 2009: The future
By Ross DawsonOther 2009 summary posts
Top blog posts of 2009: 6 on Twitter and the media
Top blog posts of 2009: Enterprise 2.0 and organizational effectiveness
Top keynote speech presentations/ videos of 2009
Third in my series of my blog posts that have attracted the most interest this year, on the general topic of the future. (I haven’t included any of my presentations – I’ll select some of these to put in another post.)
1. Wealth Adaptation Syndrome (WAS): a defining malaise of our times and the opportunities that stem from it
A syndrome to help understand society in 2009
2. Why traditional conferences are dying and how unconferences and audience participation are the future of events
Why events will always be important but they are starting to look very different from before
Read more →
Top blog posts of 2009: Enterprise 2.0 and organizational effectiveness
By Ross DawsonOther 2009 summary posts
Top blog posts of 2009: 6 on Twitter and the media
Top blog posts of 2009: The future
Top keynote speech presentations/ videos of 2009
Continuing my series of my blog posts that have attracted the most interest in 2009, here is my selection of 10 posts on Enterprise 2.0 and organizational effectiveness.
1. Why ‘critical mass’ is intensely relevant to Enterprise 2.0 user adoption
What the diffusion curve means for Enterprise 2.0 adoption initiatives.
2. Enterprise 2.0: Competitive differentiation occurs at the intersection of technology and culture
The harder it is to implement Enterprise 2.0, the greater the potential for competitive differentiation.
Read more →
Top blog posts of 2009: 6 on Twitter and the media
By Ross DawsonOther 2009 summary posts
Top blog posts of 2009: Enterprise 2.0 and organizational effectiveness
Top blog posts of 2009: The future
Top keynote speech presentations/ videos of 2009
At this time of year it’s good to look back at the blog posts I’ve written and see what is most interesting. Some have got quite a lot of attention, other posts I liked got passed over.
Having looked through my blog posts, the most useful approach seems to be by topics. I’ll start with a list of six posts on Twitter and the media, including some embeds.
1. Twitter on ABC TV – the impact on politics, media and socializing
The post includes this ABC TV segment on Twitter, which includes interviews with myself and Mark Scott, Managing Director of ABC. Full analysis on the post.
Read more →
The 10 TENsions That Will Define 2010
By Ross DawsonTo anticipate what will shape 2010, we need to understand the TENsions that will define the opening year of the TENsions decade. The TENsions that are most prominent will evolve during the course of the decade. However the accelerating pace of change means that TENsions will inevitably define the decade, in myriad forms.
These are the 10 TENsions for 2010, the opening year of the TENsions.
1. Optimism – Fear
Many companies and workers are now daring to be optimistic as they put 2009 behind them, look forward to opportunities, and worry about getting left behind if things improve rapidly. Yet with the shock of the onset of the financial crisis still fresh, any optimism is subject to being shattered, resulting in wild swings in confidence.
2. Institutional work – Independent work
While many lost their jobs in 2009, sparking a rise in home-based work such as direct selling, many others gave up self-employment to return to the workforce. Over the long term more people are making the shift to work independently, by desire or necessity. However the temptations of self-employment can be replaced by desire for a steady pay packet, pulling people both ways.
Read more →
Amazing 3D video projections bring buildings to life and shape our environment
By Ross DawsonWhen I was a child I dreamed of creating an immersive experience of light and images. I put a chair in a cupboard in which I intended to put up lights around me that would create an experience of being in a magical world. Unfortunately the technology I had available wasn’t up to the job.
Today we are able to control and shape our environment as never before. What is proving to be one of the most useful technologies is 3D animations projected onto external spaces. Buildings are the largest canvases on which artists can paint.
While I’ve seen a number of fantastic building projections over the years, 3D animation combined with mapping onto architectural forms is taking the art of bringing buildings to life to new levels. Prime practitioners of this art are the Dutch digital design firm NuFormer. The videos below show some of what they are capable of.
The first video shows how the contours of buildings are used to great effect in generating 3D animations. The second video shows how a large white wall can be used effectively to create 3D effects, in this case for a public show sponsored by Volvo. Well worth a look!
Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.
Read more →
Creating the Future of Media: 4 Driving Forces, 4 Strategic Issues, 4 Essential Capabilities
By Ross DawsonI very rarely find the time to write magazine articles, but I was delighted to write the opening feature article for MediaTitles 2010, an annual publication which covers the media and magazine industry.
To see the article in the full splendor of the print version, go to the MediaTitles website, which has the full publication viewable using Realview Technologies (with the article reformatted to take out the lists of four, which I think is a pity). My article is on pages 7-10.
The (original) text of the article is below.
CREATING THE FUTURE OF MEDIA
These are the best of times, these are the worst of times. The global economic crisis, coming on top of a dramatic transformation wrought by the rise of the Internet, is creating the swiftest change in media industry structure ever experienced. Newspapers and magazines are being shut down at an extraordinary pace all over the world, journalists are losing their jobs, and broadcast media are under threat as sliding advertising revenue hit an unmoving cost base. Yet as the world shifts towards what will be truly an all-encompassing media economy, there are extraordinary opportunities ahead for media organisations.
This is a critical juncture to examine the future of media. Magazines have and will continue to be central to how we learn, socialise, entertain ourselves, and make buying decisions. Yet the magazine industry will undoubtedly look very different scant years ahead. It is our role and responsibility to create the future of media, rather than to let it happen to us. To do that, we need to examine the most central driving forces, strategic issues and capabilities in the evolving media landscape.
Four Driving Forces
Read more →
The next generation of computer interfaces will bring together the physical and digital worlds
By Ross DawsonFor many years I have believed that our everyday interfaces with computers are deeply limited, and that creating more effective interfaces is central to our future. In my 2002 book Living Networks I selected Interfaces as one of the three key enablers that would bring the networks to life.
Pranav Mistry of MIT Media Lab’s SixthSense has made his mission integrating our gestures in the physical world with the digital world. In this video taken at TED India last month, he tells his personal journey of exploration, beginning by taking apart his computer mouse, moving on to monitoring his gestures, headmounting cameras and projectors.
Some of the technologies he shows include framing photographs by holding up his fingers, projecting live updates onto newspapers, making hands into phone dials, and far, far more. This is ultimately about bringing together the physical and digital worlds, helping making us more human.
In the video, Pranav tells of his plans to open source the technologies he has developed to provide broader applications for them. The video is well worth seeing.
Empresa 2.0: Sistema de Implementación – Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework in Spanish
By Ross DawsonWe have had a fantastic global uptake of the translations of our Social Media Strategy Framework into 12 languages.
As such, we intend to translate a lot more of the content created by Advanced Human Technologies and Future Exploration Network, starting with our Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework, which plays a central role in my book Implementing Enterprise 2.0.
Here is the framework in Spanish.
Click on the image to download the pdf
Please share this with any Spanish speakers who would be interested.
Also be sure to let me know if you can suggest any improvements to the translation.
The future of video and man-machine interfaces
By Ross DawsonThe Institute for the Future has shared its Future of Video project using the presentation platform Prezi. This is a great way of giving access to the rich visual frameworks that are the trademark of IFTF – it’s well worth a browse just to see part of what Prezi can do.
The presentation wraps up with some nice videos from Microsoft and Sixth Sense showing visions and demonstrations of the role of video in how we interface with the external world and information. Which illustrates how man-machine interfaces – one of the primary mechanisms for the birth of the living networks – are in fact largely driven by video.
The trends that are highlighted in the presentation are:
– From scarcity to abundance of digital video
– From passive to hyperlinked, interactive video
– From keypad to gestural and tangible interaction
– From limited to ubiquitous video interactions
– From camera-captured to synthetic CG video
– From 2D to immersive HD, 4KHD, and 3D video