Designing content for the reality of multi-screen access: smartphone, tablet, PC, TV

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The relatively recent rise of smartphones and tablets has changed how we use tech and how we consume news. However, while they have eroded usage of the long established interfaces of PCs, laptops, and TVs, they certainly haven’t supplanted them.

This has lead us to the dawning of new phase in which a large proportion of people in the developed world consume content and use applications across four different primary screens: smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs, and TV (or more generally the primary large screen in the household).

Google is clearly interested in understanding how people use these four screens on their own and together, and has sponsored an interesting study The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior, also embedded below.


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The law of requisite variety: Why flexibility and adaptability are essential for success

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I first came across the law of requisite variety almost 20 years ago. Ross Ashby proposed the idea in his 1956 book An Introduction to Cybernetics (see p.202-218), and expanded on it in his paper Requisite variety and its implications for the control of
complex systems. The idea became one of the foundational concepts of the field of Cybernetics.

The law is developed mathematically, using essentially what we would now consider game theory. Ashby states it as:
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Prediction: Video-conferencing will help drive increased business travel

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Yesterday I gave the opening keynote at Global Business Travel Association Australia/NZ’s annual conference, on The Future of the Global Economy: The Opportunities.

My keynote focused on the major economic, technological, and social shifts under way and how they impact business travel and how it is managed in organizations.

Clearly a particularly pointed issue in the world of business travel today is the rise of video-conferencing, which many companies in recent years have latched onto as a substitute for travel, largely for cost-saving.
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Looking for a genius projects/ marketing/ web/ publishing manager in Sydney (PT)

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We have recently launched our We’re Looking For Talent website, which represents a new phase in the growth of the companies in the AHT Group.

The first role we are very actively recruiting for is a genius projects/ marketing/ web/ publishing assistant or manager. The ad says in its capabilities section:
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How 3D printing will transform the retail industry: The opportunities

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Power Retail magazine has just published a very nice piece on 3D Printing: The Next Retail Revolution, drawn primarily from an interview with me.

It is worth reading the entire article, but I have below excerpted some of the quotes from me with some additional commentary. The piece begins by discussing the news that a company is developing technology for the 3D printing of meat. It goes on:

“One of the major constraints currently and in the future will be the materials used in these devices,” says Dawson. “There are currently a few particular plastics that can be used and we’re beginning to see some metals and metal-plating appearing – but we still don’t have a full spectrum of materials.”

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Apple’s platforms for success and why it is worth 76% more than when Steve Jobs died

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I did a couple of interviews today about the news that Apple’s market capitalization of $622 billion is the highest ever in absolute dollars (though not in inflation-adjusted terms). In the interview below I discuss some of the current landscape for Apple.

I was also interviewed for a segment on the 7pm News.

Here are a few of the thoughts I shared in my interviews, not all of which were included in the segments above.
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Research on the declining credibility of established news organizations – this creates opportunities for new ones

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Pew Research Center has just released the latest results in an study that has been running since 1983 on the credibility of US news organizations under the title Further Decline in Credibility Ratings for Most News Organizations. Some of the data is shown below.


Source: Pew Research Center for the People & The Press
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Launch of We’re Looking For Talent – the foundation of a crowd business model

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We have just launched our new recruitment site We’re Looking For Talent.

Crowd business models are a major theme for us in our publishing and events. They are also at the heart of the AHT Group business model. As we build our businesses we want to see how far we can take the use of distributed work.

We currently tap work and talent on a wide variety of crowdsourcing sites, but we have reached the stage of creating our own platform in finding the best people to work with.

The principles for how we seek to attract talent are described in detail on the page Why Work For Us?, which is the best place to read about what we are doing, however I’ve provided a brief summary below.
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Data: What the Fortune Global 100 are doing (and not doing) on social media

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A recent study from Burson-Marsteller looks in depth at what the Fortune Global 100 are currently doing on social media.

Some of the interesting insights from the study include:
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Insights into the evolution of Klout’s algorithm

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The rise of the reputation economy is one of the most important trends of our time. As such, like it or hate it, Klout’s role as probably the most prominent influence engine today means it is useful to track its structure and mechanisms.

Klout today unveiled a major change to its algorithm and scores. Here are some thoughts on the changes.
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