Today I participated in a Future Directions Forum at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, which after 20 years in its current location is looking to the future.
To provide some context, the Powerhouse is specifically branded as a science and design museum, implicitly being about technology and it’s impact on people’s lives. It’s worth looking at the excellent online resources section of the Powerhouse Museum website, which provides value to many people who never visit the museum. I’ve previously written abouut the very interesting Web 2.0-style initiatives of the Museum (and listed them in the Top Australian Web 2.0 applications), which among other features enables user tagging of the museum’s collection. In a number of cases visitors to the website have corrected or provided more detailed information on the museum’s collection, exemplifying how to tap collective wisdom.
The session raised many interesting questions and thoughts for me. I haven’t been significantly involved with museums in the past, and was struck by many of the issues raised. The points below represent my perspectives as well as reflections on issues raised by people at forum. While the issues below were raised in the context of museums in areas like science, technology, and design, I think they apply across most kinds of museum.
Below are fourteen key issues in the future of museums.
What is a museum?
On the face of it, a museum records and makes accessible artefacts the past that have cultural value. The curatorial process is one of showing people things that enrich them. Museums need to have a clear idea of why they exist. In most cases (in addition to any financial imperatives) the objective is to benefit society, by educating and creating culturally richer and more well-rounded members of society.
Entertainment vs. education and onto experience.
Entertainment and education are quite different intents, but they can be integrated to achieve both aims. Certainly the demand from younger people has shifted strongly to only paying attention if content is truly entertaining. Beyond that, museums are fundamentally about providing experiences. People will seek engaging and powerful experiences, and if museums can provide them, their can fulfil their roles.
Read more →
Radio National interview: The state of Australia startups and major online media players
By Ross DawsonLast Thursday’s Media Report on ABC Radio National features an extended interview with me on the state of Australian Web 2.0 and major online media (there is both a podcast and transcript available from the link). Some of the points we covered:
Major online media players
* The well-publicized challenges of NineMSN (the Australian 50/50 jiont venture between Microsoft and PBL Media) are partly company-specific, and partly a reflection of the difficulties of the incumbent position.
* Australia’s major media companies have done far better than their international peers in dominating online news (and other aspects of the online space including classifieds). Blogs and micro-publishing are now finally taking off, taking market share from the majors, leading to the major online publishers losing readers in a growing market. The long tail is the natural distribution of readers, and it has always been inevitable that the majors would lose their dominant market share.
* In media conglomerates that are experiencing revenue challenges in traditional channels such as TV, newspapers, and magazines, expectations for growth in the online business are often unrealistic, leading to disappointments when budgets are not met.
* PBL Media, which owns 50% of NineMSN, is 75% owned by private equity company CVC Capital Partners. Private equity companies, for reasons including their debt structure, are often biased to short-term over long-term revenue, relative to their listed company peers. This leads to pressures on management and staff, which can make attracting and retaining staff more difficult when other companies are enjoying participating in a rapidly growing market. The 50/50 ownership structure doesn’t make things easier.
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Registrations open for Future of Media Summit 2008 – Sydney early bird still on
By Ross DawsonThe Future of Media Summit 2008 is now open for registration in both Sydney and Silicon Valley. After the great success of the Future of Media Summit 2006 and Future of Media Summit 2007, the third annual event is quickly rolling up!
See Future of Media Summit 2008 website for full details.
Note that there is an early bird offer for the Sydney Summit until June 16, then full price applies.
There’s too much to cover in one blog post, so I’ll be providing more detail on everything that’s happening in coming days and weeks. However some of the key features of the event include:
* Simultaneous events in Silicon Valley and Sydney merged seamlessly by video, online discussion, and cross-continental panels and conversations
* Highly participatory Conference AND Unconference formats at both Sydney and Silicon Valley events
* Discussions on global media strategies, future of journalism, future of privacy, and the future of TV and video
* Peer video discussions by participants across continents (world-first)
* Prediction markets on the future of the media before and during the Summit to tap collective wisdom of event participants and global media leaders
* Future of Media Summit blog for insights and discussion by all speakers and participants
* Detailed content and analysis, including the Future of Media Report 2008
Read more →
Early insights from the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list
By Ross Dawson[UPDATE:] The complete Top 100 list is now up.
The compilation of the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list has now been completed. It will be made public on 19 June, when it will be the cover story on BRW magazine, accompanied by feature stories on some of the leading applications. It will be released the same morning on the Future Exploration Network website and this blog.
The Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications Launch Event at KPMG will include a panel discussion by Australian online notables, a showcase of five leading Australian Web 2.0 applications (3eep, BookingAngel, Engagd, Plugger, RedBubble) (Note that the showcased applications are NOT the top five on the top 100 list, but have been selected to demonstrate the diversity of successful Australian Web 2.0 ventures; companies that were showcased in last year’s Web 2.0 in Australia event won’t be duplicated in this year’s showcase), a panel of the founders of these applications, and one-hour of semi-structured roundtables for participants to discuss current issues in Web 2.0 in Australia. IBM, Adobe, and Starfish Ventures are sponsors. We are getting close to fully booked, so register soon if you’d like to attend.
No information about who is on the list or rankings will be released until 19 June, so don’t ask! :-) However it’s probably worth clarifying the scope and criteria for the list.
Read more →
Jay Cross in Australia on Making Informal Learning Work
By Ross DawsonJay Cross, who has been on the leading edge of learning for well over a decade, will be running one-day workshops on Making Informal Learning Work in Melbourne on 17 June and Sydney on 19 June. Jay has been a leading light of elearning since the outset, was CEO of eLearning Forum for five years, and has more recently been driving the informal learning movement, recently publishing a book titled Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance, in which he says that ‘Most corporations invest their training budget where it will have the least impact.’ I’m sure these will be great workshops (but don’t overlook our Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications Launch Event on the same day as Jay’s Sydney workshop :-) )
I first met Jay many years ago, probably when we were both speakers at KMWorld, and we’ve kept in touch and regularly bounced ideas around. He is one of a handful of people in the world who are consistently pushing learning into new spaces. I still refer to his ideas on workflow learning, while he is now integrating the lessons of Web 2.0 into how organizations support learning.
Jay and I will catch up for a drink on the evening of 19th – I may post details here for others to join us if they’re interested.
Thomas Stewart leaves Harvard Business Review
By Ross DawsonI just got an email from Tom Stewart saying he is leaving Harvard Business Review – this was announced today with the press release below. He has been editor-in-chief for six years, during which time he maintained a strong consistency in HBR’s established editorial approach, but also injected his own highly innovative perspectives. I find HBR an essential read, not least through the pronounced focus on forward-thinking perspectives. I sincerely hope HBR doesn’t move away from this style with Tom’s departure.
I first met Tom in 1998, when I was organizing an Intellectual Capital seminar in Sydney, primarily intended for the funds management community. Tom had published his landmark book Intellectual Capital in 1997, after writing cover stories for Fortune magazine, where he was a writer for many years, on Brain Power in 1991 and on Intellectual Capital in 1994. At the time, drawing on my background in capital markets, I saw an immense opportunity in applying the nascent ideas of intellectual capital to financial markets and investor relations. (Some of these ideas are described in a 2002 speech I gave at KMWorld titled “A Financial Markets Perspective on Intellectual Capital”). I took Tom to visit many of the top fund management teams in Australia. At the time it was great to see the very positive reaction to his ideas, but the reality is fund managers globally have been rather slow to take up the ideas. The response from the broader investment community is improving, but it’s slow going.
Read more →
Trends in the Living Networks ranked #27 business blog in the world by Wikio
By Ross DawsonTwo months ago Wikio launched a ranking mechanism for the top blogs in the world, appearing to use a more sophisticated algorithm than the incumbent leading blog search engine Technorati. In the latest monthly reclassification by Wikio, Trends in the Living Networks has been ranked #27 of all business blogs. In part the high ranking is due to the fact that there are relatively few blogs about business, with technology and politics the dominant subjects. In fact the blog is ranked #761 out of all blogs for this month, still not bad considering I don’t get to post on here nearly as much as I’d like – a few posts weekly recently. However I intend to start posting quite a lot more as our research for this year’s Future of Media Summit gets under way. Thanks for being a reader!
Registrations now open for Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications Launch Event
By Ross Dawson[UPDATE:] The complete Top 100 list is now up.
The Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list I wrote about earlier is being readied, and the launch event on 19 June is now open for registrations.
A few exciting developments:
* A great cast of panellists to uncover the state of online innnovation in Australia, including John Butterworth, Duncan Riley, Foad Fadaghi, and Malcolm Thornton
* Showcases of five leading Australian Web 2.0 applications
* The Web 2.0 list will be featured on the cover of BRW magazine that morning
* Sponsors including KPMG, Adobe and Starfish Ventures – a Gold sponsor will be announced shortly
* 10% of ticket proceeds to be donated to the Layne Beachley Aim for the Stars Foundation
Click here for full details on Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications – Launch Event.
Note that every event run by Future Exploration Network has been sold out (last year’s Web 2.0 in Australia was fully booked two weeks before the event), so register soon if you’d like to attend!
More details on the event, including the showcased companies, coming soon.
There is still an opportunity for applications to be considered for the list – please get in touch in comments or by email to submit if you think we might not be aware of you.
The rise of professional-quality user generated media
By Ross DawsonThe launch of Blogger in August 1999 opened the door to anyone and everyone creating media. Since then platforms to share writing, photos, video and more have enabled an extraordinary volume of content to be made available to the world. The media world has at least doubled in size this decade, adding many new content formats to the existing professionally produced media on channels such as TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers.
Despite cries from many that all user generated content is crap, that’s not true. It’s just that most user generated content is crap, and a small proportion is outstanding. Anyone who has browsed through the best photos on Flickr, for example, will see some extraordinary images they never would have seen otherwise. The best industry blogs are certainly considered on a par with mainstream reporting and analysis.
There are now some compelling examples of businesses that are based on professional-quality submissions from their users. A great article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle titled Everywhere, JPG – magazines for the future describes how these glossy magazines are compiled from people submitting their travel stories and photos, with the promise of being paid $100 and a year’s subscription to the magazine if their contributions are published. The selections are in fact made by the readers by voting on the site.
Read more →
Enterprise 2.0 in Financial Services: upcoming keynote
By Ross DawsonI have long been interested in how collaboration technologies are applied in financial services, having come from a career largely at Merrill Lynch and Thomson Financial, and spent much time consulting to the instittutional financial services sector.
A few years ago now I ran the Collaboration in Financial Services conferences in New York and London, and wrote a white paper on How Collaborative Technologies are Transforming Financial Services. Since then I’ve been heavily involved in the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 spaces, and I’m finding that these are extremely relevant to the financial services sector.
I will be doing the opening keynote at this year’s annual Financial Services Technology forum on Enterprise & Web 2.0 for Financial Services in Sydney on 29 May. In my presentation I will look at the big picture of the history and relevance of these technologies in the sector, and drawing on my recent work helping organizations with the governance issues of Enterprise 2.0.
Financial services are certainly very diverse, however many of the sectors within it handily illustrate the themes I have been discussing for some time: there is a deep layer of highly process-driven work, supplemented by a layer of connecting expertise to make highly time-sensitive decisions. Enterprise 2.0 technologies and approaches are outstanding in supporting the latter, which is where there is the most potential for competitive differentiation – which can be very fleeting in the world of money.
I’ll provide more details later on what I cover in my keynote.
Thinking about the future of museums: fourteen key issues
By Ross DawsonToday I participated in a Future Directions Forum at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, which after 20 years in its current location is looking to the future.
To provide some context, the Powerhouse is specifically branded as a science and design museum, implicitly being about technology and it’s impact on people’s lives. It’s worth looking at the excellent online resources section of the Powerhouse Museum website, which provides value to many people who never visit the museum. I’ve previously written abouut the very interesting Web 2.0-style initiatives of the Museum (and listed them in the Top Australian Web 2.0 applications), which among other features enables user tagging of the museum’s collection. In a number of cases visitors to the website have corrected or provided more detailed information on the museum’s collection, exemplifying how to tap collective wisdom.
The session raised many interesting questions and thoughts for me. I haven’t been significantly involved with museums in the past, and was struck by many of the issues raised. The points below represent my perspectives as well as reflections on issues raised by people at forum. While the issues below were raised in the context of museums in areas like science, technology, and design, I think they apply across most kinds of museum.
Below are fourteen key issues in the future of museums.
What is a museum?
On the face of it, a museum records and makes accessible artefacts the past that have cultural value. The curatorial process is one of showing people things that enrich them. Museums need to have a clear idea of why they exist. In most cases (in addition to any financial imperatives) the objective is to benefit society, by educating and creating culturally richer and more well-rounded members of society.
Entertainment vs. education and onto experience.
Entertainment and education are quite different intents, but they can be integrated to achieve both aims. Certainly the demand from younger people has shifted strongly to only paying attention if content is truly entertaining. Beyond that, museums are fundamentally about providing experiences. People will seek engaging and powerful experiences, and if museums can provide them, their can fulfil their roles.
Read more →