The state of the UAE and Gulf economies

By

Continuing my live blogging of the MegaTrends conference before my keynote this afternoon, there are two sessions on the economy: a presentation from the Ministry of the Economy, and a panel of the chief economists of leading banks.

The UAE Minister for the Economy couldn’t make it, so the Director-General of the Ministry presented his speech. Most interestingly, he said that they believe that the worst of the crisis is over. Government spending is up 30% on last year, and infrastructure spending is continuing as planned. A new government body will be established this year to provide more consistent and accurate economic data.

Views from the panel:

Mr. Marios Maratheftis, Chief Economist, Standard Chartered Middle East, UAE

While things seem to have been bottomed in UAE and the worst is behind us, not prepared to call a quick recovery. Apparently 70% of projects in the country are real estate related, which is not appropriate. The downturn could be a blessing in disguise if it shifts investment into infrastructure that will drive productivity, away from a focus on real estate. There will be limited negative impact from UAE’s decision not join the GCC monetary union.

Read more →

Keynote presentation: Profiting from Accelerating Change – MegaTrends in Abu Dhabi

By

Below are my slides for my keynote at the MegaTrends conference at Abu Dhabi.

As for all my presentations, note that these slides are designed to accompany my speech and not to be viewed on their own, though may still be useful to people who didn’t attend.

Keynote: Profiting from Accelerating Change – MegaTrends Abu Dhabi Conference

For some more detail on the Driving Forces section, see my post on The MegaTrends of Technology, Business, and Society.

The MegaTrends of Technology, Business, and Society

By

In preparing for my keynote at the MegaTrends conference in Abu Dhabi this afternoon I have distilled my thinking into a new visual representation.

Tech_Bus_Soc_framework.jpg

To gain insights the future we need to understand the intersection of three domains: Technology, Business, and Society.

In each of these domains we can distill one driving force that brings together the vast diversity of trends in these domains. These are:

Exponential Drivers. The most important technological drivers are all exponential: increased bandwidth, greater processing power, more storage, and the development of richer man-machine interfaces. These are driving a wide variety of fundamental shifts, not least an intensely connected and increasingly interdependent society and economy.

Read more →

Paul Krugman on the state of the global economy live at MegaTrends in Abu Dhabi

By

The biggest highlight of the MegaTrends conference for me (other than my own keynote :-) ) is the presentation by Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel prize for economics last year, on the state of the global economy. I have a lot of respect for his outlook. Live notes from his speech:

The volume of world trade has fallen off a cliff – down 15% over the last year, the biggest since the Great Depression. In fact there are many similarities to the Depression, but that doesn’t mean that it will be the same. The global economy is stabilizing, but not recovering. Things are getting worse, but more slowly. It *probably* won’t be another Great Depression. Extraordinary declines in output, employment and more. There have been no havens.

So how did it happen? The crisis was far more global than those that point to US mortgage lending as the source. European debt losses will probably be as large as those in the US. There was an epidemic of excessive borrowing across all domains. The IMF now predicts $4 trillion of bad debt.

Read more →

Live blogging the MegaTrends conference

By

I’m at the MegaTrends conference in Abu Dhabi where I will be giving my keynote this afternoon. I’ll be live blogging the morning sessions.

The conference was opened by His Excellency Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, a member of the Al Nahyan Abu Dhabi royal family, and chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and several other government bodies.

He said that they have recently re-examined their forecasts, and still predict 15% growth in tourism each year over the next years. Yesterday the local newspaper reported that Abu Dhabi airport arrivals in April were up 12% from last year, suggesting this is feasible despite the downturn. This is strongly supported by the success of Etihad, the Abu Dhabi based airline that was established in 2003, and provides strong connectivity from Europe to Middle Eastern and Asian centers.

As mentioned the other day, one of the critical issues for the UAE is establishing itself as a hub in this time zone. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, despite their strong relationship, compete for regional activity, particularly in financial services. The UAE pulled out of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) monetary union because Riyadh in Saudi Arabia was selected as the home for the union’s central bank.

More soon.

Keynote presentation: Profiting from Accelerating Change – MegaTrends in Abu Dhabi

Keynote in Abu Dhabi: The future of the Gulf region

By

Next Monday I do the closing keynote at the MegaTrends conference in Abu Dhabi. The opening keynote will be by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, while I will close speaking on ‘Profiting from Accelerating Change in a Downturn’.

While I will be speaking from a global perspective, I will also be addressing some of the specific issues of the Gulf region and particularly United Arab Emirates

These issues include:

* Reinvesting oil wealth with a limited lifetime into the long-term growth sectors

* A very strong construction component in the Dubai and Abu Dhabi economies among a global real-estate and credit downturn

* Strong divergence in the last six months between the Dubai economy which has slumped dramatically and the Abu Dhabi economy which is still strong

* A highly polarized labor force, with a large very low-cost employment sector populated from the region, and also many global professionals

* Taking advantage of the location between Europe and Asia

Yesterday’s Dubai Chronicle did an article titled GCC Economy could reflect strong over-performance in next economic boom, based on a pre-conference interview with me, as below.

Read more →

Keynote: Transforming Aged Care with Technology

By

Tomorrow morning I am doing the second day opening keynote at ITAC09 – Information Technology in Aged Care conference.

Here is my presentation – as always these are intended to accompany my speech, not as stand-alone slides.

Keynote: Transforming Aged Care with Technology

View more presentations from rossdawson.

I hope to write some more on this blog on this topic before long, though it depends what I can fit in…

Conversation with Juliette Powell – Sydney, 27 May

By

Fantastic news! Juliette Powell, author of the freshly launched book on social networking 33 Million People in the Room, founder of The Gathering Think Tank, and leading broadcaster and media entrepreneur, is coming to Sydney for the first time next week.

To take advantage of this there’ll be an informal gathering:

‘Conversation with Juliette Powell’

27 May, 6:00pm-7:30pm

Bar 77 (Mezzanine), Grace Hotel

77 York Street, Sydney

Juliette will share some thoughts on her book and where social networking is heading and then it will open out to conversation.

Juliette is particularly interested in learning about the implications of the National Broadband Network for her next book.

Everyone is welcome – just turn up.

Feel free to let other know. Event hashtag is #jpsyd

Juliette will be available for media interviews while she’s in town

Juliette Powell and 33 Million People in the Room

Check out the website for Juliette’s new book 33 Million People in the Room. It includes free excerpts, including an analysis of Obama’s use of social media in the presidential campaign.

Also see the Wikipedia entry on Juliette for more on her fascinating journey.

Here are a few of the fantastic reviews that Juliette’s book has received:

Read more →

Visualization: RSS in the Enterprise

By

Here continuing our series of visual representations of social media tools inside organizations, taken from our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report.

The diagram below was used in the chapter on RSS in the enterprise, to illustrate how RSS can support effective information flows in the organization.

Go to the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 downloads page for several free chapters.

More Enterprise 2.0 visualizations coming soon.

RSS_diagram.jpg

Notes from The Power of Influence

By

The Power of Influence lunch was run earlier today. This was in fact the inaugural event of The Insight Exchange. The quality of the event and the feedback augur well for The Insight Exchange future’s, and particularly for the value it will create for participants. It was a highly interactive event, with deep content and great discussion.

Below are the notes I took during the event.

influence_landscape_beta_240w.jpg

I initially presented the Influence Landscape framework we launched yesterday, after which the three panelists spoke and the event then progressed to a highly interactive discussion among all participants, from which I have taken a few notes as well.

BRIAN GIESEN – OGILVY PR

75% of people don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertising.

In the US 81% look to word of mouth (WOM) for decisions.

Trust in media Editorial is 56%.

Read more →