Do you want to have your brain vigorously shaken? Those in search of serious provocation on what the future holds need look no further than Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years, by the inimitable Richard Watson, Chief Futurist at Future Exploration Network. The book is not out until next week, so you’re privileged to get a sneak preview at the book website. Don’t miss the free download of Chapter 1 of the book.
The heart of the book is 11 chapters, each exploring the future of a key aspect of our lives and future.
1 Society and Culture: why we’ll take longer baths in the future
2 Government and Politics: us and them
3 Science and Technology: the rise of the machines
4 Media and Entertainment: have it your way
5 Money and Financial Services: everyone is a bank
6 Automotive and Transport: the end of the road as we know it
7 Food and Drink: faster and slower
8 Retail and Shopping: what we’ll buy when we’ve got it already
9 Healthcare and Medicine: older and wiser
10 Travel and Tourism: ‘Sorry, this country is full.’
11 Work and Business: the new right-brain economy
Each chapter is filled with startling facts from the present, from which Richard derives staggering insights about the future. As with much of Richard’s work, it shouldn’t all be taken overly seriously, but being prepared to make a few supersonic flights of logic is what helps take us into new ways of thinking about the future, and responding to it more effectively.
Read more →
The many varieties of networks in business: Net Work – A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World
By Ross DawsonI’ve known Patti Anklam for many years now, as she has played a central network role in the global knowledge management and social network communities. After creating much content in the form or articles and reports, Patti has finally released a book which provides a comprehensive view of how networks are applied business and organizations, titled Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World
My summary thoughts on the book appear on the back cover:
What most attracts me to the book is that it so pragmatic. There are far too many business books that ultimately offer few insights into specific actions to take. Net Work both provides a deep understanding of the nature of networks, and also practical steps on how to tap their value.
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Ross Dawson: keynote speaker video – future, technology, business, leadership
By Ross Dawson[UPDATE]: This and other videos, with many other resources, are available at my newly launched speaker website: rossdawson.com.
Conference organizers and meeting planners always want to get a good idea of the style of the keynote speakers they’re considering booking for their events. I usually get booked through reputation, recommendations, or people who have seen me speak already, but to reach beyond that audience it’s essential to have a speaking video.
My new speaking video below is a sorely overdue update from the last one, which was created several years ago now. From now on I’ll keep the video updated with new footage and improved design as we go. We’re also shortly going to launch a new website for my speaking and strategy facilitation activities – details soon.
The eight-minute video contains a smorgasbord of interesting ideas, including snippets on the attention economy, forecasts for the next doubling of the global economy, the development of infinite content, sex and work in Second Life, outsourcing to India, and the role of energy in organizational networks.
Gaining insights from storytelling: a study on volunteering
By Ross DawsonDave Snowden has been one of the most innovative and outspoken players in knowledge management for many years. Since he left IBM he has spent much of his time developing and applying a software platform, SenseMaker, which uses stories from people in various forms as its primary input to understand what the primary drivers and leverage points are in organizations or systems.
The SenseMaker tool is now being applied in a study on the future of volunteering, driven by Meals on Wheels and NSW Department of Disability and Aged Care, with support from Deloitte, Cognitive Edge, and the Society of Organisational Learning Australia.
The study is urgently looking for stories on volunteering, so if you have any thoughts or experiences on volunteering, or want to experience the inputs to the storytelling software, click here to participate. It takes around 20 minutes.
Tapping the Zeitgeist: Powerful tools for spotting online trends
By Ross DawsonOne of the most fabulous aspects of the online world is that trends are visible as never before. Since people’s interests are visible in what they search for and where they go, the zeitgeist becomes visible. Here is a brief review of some of the tools that give us insights into up-to-the-minute views on what we are collectively thinking and following.
Google Trends
Google’s original Google Zeitgeist was replaced in May by the current Google Trends, which allows you to compare searches made on terms, correlates these with news and events, and enables you to drill down to activities in regions, cities and specific languages. The Hot Trends feature shows the hottest searches (as in most increased relative to usual levels) of the day.
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Sneak preview: Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years by Richard Watson
By Ross DawsonDo you want to have your brain vigorously shaken? Those in search of serious provocation on what the future holds need look no further than Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years, by the inimitable Richard Watson, Chief Futurist at Future Exploration Network. The book is not out until next week, so you’re privileged to get a sneak preview at the book website. Don’t miss the free download of Chapter 1 of the book.
The heart of the book is 11 chapters, each exploring the future of a key aspect of our lives and future.
1 Society and Culture: why we’ll take longer baths in the future
2 Government and Politics: us and them
3 Science and Technology: the rise of the machines
4 Media and Entertainment: have it your way
5 Money and Financial Services: everyone is a bank
6 Automotive and Transport: the end of the road as we know it
7 Food and Drink: faster and slower
8 Retail and Shopping: what we’ll buy when we’ve got it already
9 Healthcare and Medicine: older and wiser
10 Travel and Tourism: ‘Sorry, this country is full.’
11 Work and Business: the new right-brain economy
Each chapter is filled with startling facts from the present, from which Richard derives staggering insights about the future. As with much of Richard’s work, it shouldn’t all be taken overly seriously, but being prepared to make a few supersonic flights of logic is what helps take us into new ways of thinking about the future, and responding to it more effectively.
Read more →
Who is capturing the new industry of online classifieds? Analysis and global comparisons
By Ross DawsonIn the Future of Media Report 2007 we published some original research on the ownership of online classifieds in the US, UK, and Australia. One of the biggest industry fractures in the shift to digital media has been the emergence of online classifieds. Classifieds used to be the sole domain of print media. As classifieds have shifted to a medium that is superior in accessibility, searchability, and cost, new entrants have taken part of the pie. It has been possible for incumbent media to leverage their power and position to be successful in online classifieds, but in many cases other players have taken the opportunity and seized prominent positions.
As such we looked at the jobs and real estate online classifieds markets across the three countries, dividing the owners of properties into five groups: Traditional Media, Large New Media (e.g. Yahoo, eBay, Google), Small New Media, Industry (e.g. recruitment or real estate firms), and Other. We used traffic to the sites as a proxy for their prominence. We would also have liked to have compared online classifieds with print classifieds, but it is difficult without financial data. Perhaps a project for our 2008 Report… The analysis is below – click on the charts for full details in the Report.
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Global and regional business models for blogging: Allure licenses Gawker titles
By Ross DawsonAn article in today’s Australian title Network expects blogging to pay off notes that Allure Media, an Australian blogging network, will next week launch its fourth title, the gaming blog Kotaku. After the initial story being posted by Phil Sim in February, Allure launched Australian versions of the Gawker Media sites Gizmodo and Defamer, with Lifehacker being launched last week. All four blog titles are licensed from Gawker, meaning that blog content is reused or created under the supervision of local editors, and any visitors from Australia to the main Gawker Media sites are redirected to the local sites.
This model provides additional monetization by Gawker of their properties, traffic from the outset for the Australian blogs, and hopefully then scalability of advertising sales to encompass purely local initiatives. I’ve written before about the challenges of creating blog discussions in smaller English-speaking (or Spanish or Chinese-speaking) countries, when conversations usually get drawn back to the dominant country’s population. In addition, it is harder to monetize content in smaller economies. Allure’s approach, depending on the licensing terms with Gawker, can provide a balance between avoiding having to create all the content required, while making that content relevant to a local audience. The remaining issue is whether sufficient advertising can be sold, particularly to Australian corporates and media buyers which in the main still haven’t got their heads around blogging. Certainly the model can be applied in other media markets in adapting local content for media globalization.
Allure is owned 92.5% by web investment firm Netus, which is in turn primarily funded by News Corporation. Netus’s Craig Blair is quoted in the article:
It will be very interesting to see to what degree this enables the development of an advertising-supported blog sector in Australia, by making it perceived as a mainstream media outlet for the first time.
The measure of success: whether you can create meaningful and useful participation for customers
By Ross DawsonA recent article in Smartcompany magazine titled Sites for more eyes examines how companies can build online communities for their customers. It offers 10 tips on building communities, drawing on an interview with me for two of the tips:
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The role of specialist social networks for professionals: opening out communities of practice
By Ross DawsonIt’s one thing to discuss whether Facebook is a useful professional social networking tool. The answer is: it is if you want it to be. It’s another issue to uncover which are the most relevant social networks for your professional life, and to use these effectively. The most important connections for most professionals (who are deep knowledge specialists in their domain of expertise) are their peers. As such, it often makes sense to belong to specialist social networks.
This relates strongly to the well-established field of Communities of Practice. Many organizations have established communities of experts in specific domains who share insights into what they’re learning, answer questions, and build knowledge collectively. Less often communities of practice span organizational boundaries, for example with clients or suppliers. Certainly there is almost always some kind of boundary on who can participate. Now that, over the last seven years or so, we have worked out the fundamentals of effective online social networking platforms, these are ripe to be applied to specialist domains. This enables an opening out of what were formerly closed communities, to provide useful platforms for experts to share not just knowledge, but also social connections. It is important to recognize that the current crop of social networking tools are now highly evolved applications that go substantially beyond the tools that have previously been available. Since being a professional of any kind requires keeping on top of massive amounts of information and new developments, effective social networks are invaluable in keeping on top of that.
The
New York TimesWall Street Journal has a good article titled Social Networking Goes Professional, which outlines some of the current crop of specialist professional social networks, and their business models. The ones they mention, plus a couple of others I’m familiar with, are:Read more →
Audio stream of radio interview on Facebook, networks, connectivity, and media
By Ross DawsonI’ve just found out that there’s online audio available of the interview I did last week on the radio station 3AW about Facebook in the enterprise. It was one of the interviews I did last week that I enjoyed the most, as we covered a lot of territory in our discussion.
In the conversation with Ernie Sigley, we discussed the use of Facebook by employees, networks in organizations, the impact of technology on productivity, participation in media, the use of Internet by older people, where I was born, the role of connecting globally for the economy, and more in a seven minute segment.
Click here to access the radio interview.