StartupCamp Sydney: Review of six excellent Startups created in 24 hours

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This is actually extraordinary. Today it is possible to create an operating service that can have real market value within 24 hours. This is a fairly new phenomenon, enabled very significantly by the platforms such as widespread APIs, programming libraries, application stores, aggregated advertising, and other elements that can be combined and recombined in ways limited only by the imagination.

Last night I attended the presentations from the teams that worked at Startup Camp Sydney II to create viable start-ups in a touch over 24 hours.

VIDEO OF STARTUP PRESENTATIONS

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

BACKGROUIND

StartupCamp started in Australia last September with StartupCamp Sydney, followed by Startup Camp Melbourne in October. This weekend StartupCamp Sydney II was held.

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Timewarp discovered: What daily life will be like in the year 2049

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Have you ever wondered what life will be like in the year 2049?

Amazingly I seem to have stumbled across a timewarp. The blog p40y is being written every day in the year 2049, and each blog post appears daily 40 years earlier. Since the blog began on New Years Day 2049 (and 2009 via the timewarp) some fantastic insights into the future 40 years from now.

Here are a few excerpts that give a flavor for what we can expect at the end of this half-century.

Claytronics

Today I sat in a meeting with some people and some Claytronic replicas of other people that were unable (couldn’t be bothered?) to make the meeting in person. Now I know this is a new technology but it’s total rubbish. In theory you just pmail or gfax over some instructions to a giant programmable lump of clay sitting in one of the spare chairs and it automatically morphs into a life size 3-D, walking, talking replica of the real person.

However, it didn’t. In this instance the millions of tiny microprocessors didn’t seem to be communicating with each other correctly – or the electrostatic forces weren’t working because someone left an AiPhone™ on – and what we got instead was a giant brown talking turd. “Different day, same old talking shit” as one wit observed.

This is particularly interesting. Kil’n People by David Brin, one of my favorite science fiction books, describes a world in which people create animated clay replicas of themselves. I have also blogged about a Japanese professor who has created a doppelganger of himself – though not in clay…

DNA Hacking

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SkyNews Interview: Mobile and web collaboration build high-performance organizations

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I was recently interviewed on SkyNews about how mobile and web technologies are relevant to organizations today – the video of the interview is below.

A few points that I made in the interview:

* Technology should be focused on getting effective contribution and participation from staff, and building efficiencies and productivity.

* Critical technologies include mobility, web 2.0, and video.

* Business value includes discovering resources in the organizations, getting products to market quicker, and enabling richer business conversations.

* Today many larger organizations are seeking to tap the energy of their younger staff, who expect their employees to use current technologies.

* The key issue today is building collaborative, high-performance organizations that will be successful in challenging times and be positioned for the next economic upturn when it comes.

The state of enterprise software: Andrew McAfee and Leo Apotheker of SAP with Charlie Rose

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Here Charlie Rose interviews Leo Apotheker, co-CEO of SAP, and Andrew McAfee from Harvard Business School (who spoke at our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum last year) about enterprise software. The interview begins at 33:00.

It’s interesting that enterprise software is seen as a topic of relevance to a broad audience. Of course it should be, for many reasons, though it is usually seen as an arcane topic. Also good to see that McAfee’s views are getting a broader airing.

A few particularly interesting comments in the interview:

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Internet car radio is here – internet radio may supplant broadcast

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At CES 2009 Blaupunkt is showing the world’s first in-dash internet car radio, powered by technology from Australian-based company miRoamer. The radio accesses the internet via Bluetooth to any mobile phone in the car which has 3G internet access.

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Two key issues:

Parthimos said a 2GB monthly data plan would be required to power the internet radio for a month on the average drive to and from work.

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Video excerpts of keynote speech for Sun Microsystems Partner Executive Forum: The Future of the Network Economy

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I recently gave the keynote speech for a Sun Microsystems Partner Executive Forum, where Sun brought together the top executives from its extensive partner network for an update and relationship building session.

Below is an 8 min video containing brief excerpts from my keynote, titled The Future of the Network Economy.

Topics covered in the video include:

* In the Depression of the 1930s there was little structural change in the economy; in the current downturn there will be massive change.

* In a connected world you can – and must – reposition yourself across boundaries.

* Scale-free networks provide a common structure across society, web, infrastructure and more.

* Collaborative filtering is where the web is going: it enables us to find what is most relevant to us from infinite content.

* Open innovation requires identifying and stimulating the social networks where relevant ideas are proliferating.

* Our individual and organizational reputations will precede us, giving us and others insights into our expertise, reliability, and credibility.

* Strategy in an economy based on the flow of information and ideas requires us to rethink alliances and identify opportunities in new domains.

* The law of requisite variety means we must be at least as flexible as our environment.

* Studying ants’ collective behavior can help organizations understand how to tap emergence to create value.

Wealth Adaptation Syndrome (WAS): a defining malaise of our times and the opportunities that stem from it

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I was interviewed last week on social trends in 2009 for a feature story in the Sunday Times magazine in Perth. In order to illustrate my ideas, I coined a term, Wealth Adaptation Syndrome, or WAS.

(One of the great things about the growth of Internet content and search engines is that when you invent a phrase you can check whether anyone has ever written it before. This post is the first ever appearance of the phrase ‘Wealth Adaptation Syndrome’. However note that Sudden Wealth Syndrome (a quite different phenomenon) was commonly referred to during the dot-com boom.)

Wealth Adaptation Syndrome is, quite simply, the process of adjusting to significantly different perceptions of your personal wealth. This applies quite differently depending on starting levels of wealth, but in all cases requires adjustment of not just wealth status, but also social status, and usually behaviors including spending patterns.

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What business books I’m buying and reading

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I just received my latest book shipment from Amazon.com – it’s a tasty pile and I thought I’d share the list in case people are interested. Friendfeed is a nice way to share my various activities, but doesn’t include book purchases, which I’d probably prefer to share on an ad-hoc basis anyway.

Below are the books, together with brief comments. In most cases I haven’t read them cover to cover yet, but I’ll offer my thoughts either through reputation or having had a browse.

The predominant themes of Enterprise 2.0 and influencer marketing are obvious. We are writing our own Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report, as well as running our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum soon, and it’s good to see what else has been written on the topic. As any regular readers of this blog will soon discover, influence will be a major theme for my companies in 2009.

Enterprise 2.0

By: Niall Cook

A succinct report-style overview of Enterprise 2.0 from an executive perspective, written by Niall Cook of PR firm Hill & Knowlton.

ENTERPRISE 2.0 IMPLEMENTATION

By: Aaron Newman, Jeremy Thomas

An extensive examination of Enterprise 2.0 implementation. It is written primarily for technical people, including some code examples, though is certainly accessible to non-technical people.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

By: Yochai Benkler

I’ve been long overdue to get this on my bookshelf. Already a classic, it covers the political and economic implications of a networked world.

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Our trend map for 2009: The vital Trends, Risks, and Red Herrings you must know

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Following our extremely popular Trend Blend 2007 and Trend Blend 2008 trend maps comes…. Trend Blend 2009!

Created by Future Exploration Network’s Chief Futurist Richard Watson, also of NowandNext.com, the 2009 trend map moves on from the subway map theme of the last years to show the multi-tentacled hydra that is the year ahead.

TrendBlend2009_500w.jpg

Click on the map to download the pdf (810KB)

To pick out just a few noteworthy elements of the trend map:

CORE THEMES include:

Uncertainy

Ageing

Global Connectivity

Anxiety

Power Shift Eastwards

SUBJECT THEMES include:

SOCIETY: Search for control, enoughism

TECHNOLOGY: Simplicity, Telepresence, Gesture based computing

ECONOMY: De-leveraging, 2-speed economies, Shorter product lifecycles

ENVIRONMENT: Bio fuel backlash, Negawatts, Nuclear power

POLITICS: Virtual protests, Globalisation in retreat, Immigration backlash

BUSINESS: Networked risk, Transparency, Asset price uncertainty

FAMILY: Debt stress, Allowable luxuries, Middle class unrest

MEDIA: Flight to quality, Facebook fatigue, Skimming, Micro boredom

POSSIBLE RED HERRINGS include:

Climate change crisis

Fall of US Empire

Nuclear power

Device convergence

GLOBAL RISKS include:

Major Internet failure

Influenza pandemic

Major earthquake in economic centre

Obesity

Electricity shortages

People taking trend maps too seriously

As usual, this is released on a Creative Commons license, so feel free to play with it, adapt it, and improve it!

Wishing everyone a fabulous 2009 – be sure to take advantage of these upcoming trends!

Keynote at Direct Selling Association conference in March

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I’m giving the keynote, titled Embracing the Future, at the Defining our Future conference in the Gold Coast 22-24 March, run by the Direct Selling Association. Below is an introductory video on the event, briefly reviewing the event and main speakers.


DSAA 2009 from Tom Walter on Vimeo.

I’ve never spoken to the direct selling industry before, but certainly the themes I often cover of the evolving network economy and media landscape is highly relevant to the audience. I’ll go into more detail later on what I’ll be covering in my keynote.