Recently I gave the keynotes at the Sydney and Melbourne relaunch events of Nextgen Group, which has restructured and rebranded with the acquisition of 70% of the group by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) from Leighton Holdings. The group provides networks, data centers, and hosting services, including a 100Gbps link between major Australian cities, and is building a submarine fibre cable linking Australia to Singapore.
The theme of my keynote was The Future of a Connected World, showcasing some of most interesting implications and potential of connectivity.
To provide some context for the future I spent a moment looking at the past of connectivity, which unfortunately is not always as happy a story as the future. Following is a brief excerpt from my keynote speech:
One of the most important dates in our connected world was January 1, 1984, when the US communications monopoly AT&T was forcibly broken into 8 ‘Baby Bells’. In the following 12 years 44 state-owned telecommunications companies were privatized and exposed to competition for the first time.
Yet even after all of this deregulation and heightened competition it was still an enormously lucrative business.
In 1997 Qwest President and CEO Joseph P. Nacchio was quoted by BusinessWeek saying: “Long distance is still the most profitable business in America, next to importing illegal cocaine.”
The truth is that prior to 1990s connectivity pricing was insanely high relative to true costs, driven by a combination of national telecoms monopolies and excessive international exchange costs.
This was an extraordinary crime, holding humanity back from its potential.
People who were far from their family members could only afford to speak perhaps once a year, often trying to call on Christmas day for a few minutes but not getting through because the lines were jammed. The potential of human connection was cut off.
Businesses were severely constrained in being able to communicate with – or even set up – remote offices. Communication was often by mail, leading to massive lost opportunities on all fronts.
As new, cheaper communications technologies have emerged, telecoms firms in the main have tried to do all they can to maintain their super-normal profits, with a few last holdouts such as international roaming only now finally being normalized.
So fortunately, extortionate telecoms pricing is now largely history.
However, lest we forget, it was long an extraordinary crime holding back human potential.
What is the future of robots in human society?
By Ross DawsonLast week I was delighted to speak alongside Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro at the SAP APJ Leadership Summit in Singapore, and spend time with him as we did video interviews to support the event.
I have followed Prof. Ishiguro’s work for many years, first writing about him on this blog in 2006 in a post Being in two places at the same time when he launched his first Geminoid robot. Below is a video of more recent versions of his Geminoid robots that duplicate real humans.
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Will real-time big data feedback transform sports?
By Ross DawsonThis evening I was at SAP’s Asia-Pacific Japan 25th Anniversary Leadership Summit in Singapore, which brought together a small group of leaders of SAP’s major customers in the region for an exclusive dinner at the Shangri-La hotel.
The guest speakers were myself, speaking on How Hyperconnectivity Will Fuel Asia’s Growth, and Stacey Allaster, President of the Women’s Tennis Association.
Stacey, together with WTA founder Billie-Jean King and last year’s Wimbledon winner Marion Bortoli, fielded questions about this week’s announcement that the WTA is allowing in-game coaching using real-time data from the match.
Billie-Jean King, Women’s Tennis Association President Stacey Allaster, and Marion Bartoli at the SAP APJ Leadership summit in Singapore
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A positive view on the future of human work as intelligent machines rise
By Ross DawsonI recently delivered a keynote on the Future of Work and Jobs at the Youth in Technology conference organized by the Australian Computer Society.
An article in CIO magazine titled Humans versus machines: Who will be employed in future? reviewed some of the highlights of Dawson’s speech. After the article’s opening it quotes:
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Study: Decentralized organizations will win, especially in challenging times
By Ross DawsonFor decades management theorists have argued over whether and when organizations should be centralized or decentralized.
However the situation is now dramatically different than it was before, as we become richly connected and the world we live in becomes increasingly complex and interdependent.
A new paper reviewed by Stanford Graduate School of Business examines the relative success of firms through the recent global “Great Recession”, depending on their degree of centralization.
The authors, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, Philippe Aghion of Harvard University, Raffaella Sadun from Harvard Business School, and John Van Reenen from London School of Economics, reportedly found that:
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4 important implications of us reaching Crunch Time
By Ross DawsonA little while ago we released our “Crunch Time” framework, looking at the 14 domains where we are hitting dramatic disruption, including work, money, privacy, government, education, media, climate and more. You can see the full Crunch Time framework on the Future Exploration Network website.
We have created a short video to introduce the concept of Crunch Time, and the four major implications that apply across the board.
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5 uncertainties that will shape the future of wearable technology
By Ross DawsonThe rise of wearables is one of the biggest emerging trends in consumer technology. Over the last decade our primary interfaces with connected technology have shifted from fixed computers to devices that we can carry in our pockets or bags. The next phase is for our interfaces to be worn on our body.
While it is always hard to predict consumer response to new technologies, it is safe to say that any early adopters will take to the next generation of devices with alacrity. While traditionalists will remain, certainly over time many who now choose to wear a wristwatch will replace it with a device that does far more than tell the time.
As the wearables landscape emerges there are 5 major uncertainties to consider:
How fast and far will we shift how we access information?
The rise of smartphones as an interface to information has been dramatic. It has been largely foreseeable in terms of the power of the technology available at an accessible cost, however what was less certain was people’s willingness to use a small screen to access information.
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Mobile and design are shifting to the center of technology and work
By Ross DawsonToday I am giving a keynote at the The Youth Festival of ICT (YITcon14) in Melbourne, with participation from over 1,000 students and young professionals.
The Australian newspaper yesterday featured an article titled Mobile exposes need for design skills, programming languages: Ross Dawson based on an interview with myself and Alan Patterson, CEO of the Australian Computer Society, which is organizing the conference.
The article begins: Read more →
It’s an attitude: Embracing the future
By Ross DawsonOn my RossDawson.com site I list some of the more popular topics for my keynote speeches.
Particularly for internal corporate events, one of the most popular themes is ‘Embracing the Future‘, in which I not only point to the dramatic shifts underway and the potential of the future, but show that the attitude of embracing those changes will bring the greatest personal opportunities.
I recently created a short video to help describe the main themes of the keynote, shown below.
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The focus of big data should be creating value FOR customers
By Ross DawsonBig Data is one of the hottest trends at the moment, as shown in this Google Trends chart below.
However much of the big data discussion is about how to market better to customers, gathering data ABOUT them so companies can sell more to them.
This seems to me to be the wrong way to think about it. Big data should be used to CREATE VALUE FOR CUSTOMERS. From that good things will flow to everyone, including of course attracting the most customers.
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The crime of the century: Stopping the potential of connectivity
By Ross DawsonRecently I gave the keynotes at the Sydney and Melbourne relaunch events of Nextgen Group, which has restructured and rebranded with the acquisition of 70% of the group by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) from Leighton Holdings. The group provides networks, data centers, and hosting services, including a 100Gbps link between major Australian cities, and is building a submarine fibre cable linking Australia to Singapore.
The theme of my keynote was The Future of a Connected World, showcasing some of most interesting implications and potential of connectivity.
To provide some context for the future I spent a moment looking at the past of connectivity, which unfortunately is not always as happy a story as the future. Following is a brief excerpt from my keynote speech:
One of the most important dates in our connected world was January 1, 1984, when the US communications monopoly AT&T was forcibly broken into 8 ‘Baby Bells’. In the following 12 years 44 state-owned telecommunications companies were privatized and exposed to competition for the first time.
Yet even after all of this deregulation and heightened competition it was still an enormously lucrative business.
In 1997 Qwest President and CEO Joseph P. Nacchio was quoted by BusinessWeek saying: “Long distance is still the most profitable business in America, next to importing illegal cocaine.”
The truth is that prior to 1990s connectivity pricing was insanely high relative to true costs, driven by a combination of national telecoms monopolies and excessive international exchange costs.
This was an extraordinary crime, holding humanity back from its potential.
People who were far from their family members could only afford to speak perhaps once a year, often trying to call on Christmas day for a few minutes but not getting through because the lines were jammed. The potential of human connection was cut off.
Businesses were severely constrained in being able to communicate with – or even set up – remote offices. Communication was often by mail, leading to massive lost opportunities on all fronts.
As new, cheaper communications technologies have emerged, telecoms firms in the main have tried to do all they can to maintain their super-normal profits, with a few last holdouts such as international roaming only now finally being normalized.
So fortunately, extortionate telecoms pricing is now largely history.
However, lest we forget, it was long an extraordinary crime holding back human potential.