When I wrote my first book, Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, which came out in 2000 in its first edition, I thought of it in many ways as a stepping stone for me to gain credibility and move on to deal with broader issues. Yet still today the themes of the book are immensely relevant to my work.
As a futurist the greatest value I can create is in helping people to think more broadly, to be more open and responsive to trends, issues, and possibilities that they have not yet fully considered. As I often say, my definition of a futurist is someone who helps people to think usefully about the future, so they act more effectively in the present.
It is in fact the same for every professional. Performing services for clients can only have a fraction of the value of actually changing the client, to help them think more usefully and make better decisions.
Chapter 4 of Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships is titled Adding Value to Client Decision-Making: Better Strategic, Line, and Portfolio Decisions. Below are some brief excepts on the theme of adding value to mental models, which is at the heart of tranforming clients.
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Impressive startups! Report from PushStart Australian accelerator Demo Day
By Ross DawsonIncubators and accelerators are blossoming all over the world, with in Australia the seed accelerator space represented most prominently by StartMate, PushStart, and Melbourne-based AngelCube. I wrote about the Australian accelerator scene when PushStart was launched.
Yeseterday afternoon I went to PushStart’s demo day for their first intake. I was very impressed by the calibre of the startups presenting. I took notes through the presentations of the 8 startups, as below, which hopefully offer a fair representation of the companies and what they said. I expect to see more from this impressive crop of incubators.
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Singularity Business Models: The link between lean startups and exponential change
By Ross DawsonSingularity University describes itself as “a vibrant innovation and impact engine that generates leaders and start-up companies with the ability to positively impact the lives of a billion people within a decade”.
Apostle of lean startups Eric Ries recently joined Singularity University as the chair of its Entrepreneurship track.
In this video Ries is interviewed by entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa about the link between startups and the Singularity, asking him about how to students at the university can scale their initiatives.
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6 mechanisms that will help create the global brain
By Ross DawsonOne of the many reasons humanity is at an inflection point is that the age-old dream of the “global brain” is finally becoming a reality.
I explored the idea in my book Living Networks, and at more length in my piece Autopoiesis and how hyper-connectivity is literally bringing the networks to life.
Today, my work on crowdsourcing is largely focused on the emerging mechanisms that allow us to create better results from mass participation.
Some of the best work being done in the space is at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. A few of their researchers (including founder Thomas Malone) have just written a short paper Programming the Global Brain.
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Transforming clients and executives: How to enrich their mental models
By Ross DawsonWhen I wrote my first book, Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, which came out in 2000 in its first edition, I thought of it in many ways as a stepping stone for me to gain credibility and move on to deal with broader issues. Yet still today the themes of the book are immensely relevant to my work.
As a futurist the greatest value I can create is in helping people to think more broadly, to be more open and responsive to trends, issues, and possibilities that they have not yet fully considered. As I often say, my definition of a futurist is someone who helps people to think usefully about the future, so they act more effectively in the present.
It is in fact the same for every professional. Performing services for clients can only have a fraction of the value of actually changing the client, to help them think more usefully and make better decisions.
Chapter 4 of Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships is titled Adding Value to Client Decision-Making: Better Strategic, Line, and Portfolio Decisions. Below are some brief excepts on the theme of adding value to mental models, which is at the heart of tranforming clients.
Read more →
Rich insights into the state of social media today
By Ross DawsonHere is a very good compilation of statistics, perspectives, and news on social media as at the middle of 2012:
A few things in particular that I thought worth noting from these stats, apart from the usual Social Media is BIG and GROWING FAST!
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Moving the CIO to the heart of strategy
By Ross DawsonMy recent European speaking tour was divided around equally between deep dives into crowdsourcing and where it is going, and keynotes and workshops for Chief Information Officers on shifts in the business environment and how that will shape the future of the IT function.
A key theme of the CIO workshops was their opportunity and responsibility to move to the center of strategy within their organizations.
My Transformation of Business Framework provides an overview of some of the driving forces and how they are playing out across the business landscape.
Click on the image for full-size pdf
I think it is often useful to consider what the business environment might be in say five years from now, and the characteristics of organizations that will be successful in that world.
Some of the ways we are likely to describe those successful organizations include:
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The fantastic initiatives that are creating City 2.0
By Ross DawsonTED (which not many people remember was originally founded by information architect Richard Saul Wurman in 1984) has expanded dramatically over the last years, from a single annual event to activities spanning a network of thousands of TEDx events, the TED-Ed educational network, the TED Prize, and now its City 2.0 initiative.
Part of City 2.0 this year is a project of 10 awards of $10,000 being given away to support local ventures that are making a difference. We are half way through, with now 5 awards being given.
The City 2.0 project site gives a full rundown of the winners. Below is an overview of the five fantastic projects.
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The rise of micro mavens: Building business empires around personal brands
By Ross DawsonTrevor Young, aka PR Warrior, is launching a new site Micro Domination which covers the “Global Microbrand Revolution”.
The site already includes an excellent free e-book The Micro Maven Revolution. You can download it from here or by clicking on the cover below.
Trevor opens the book by practising what he preaches, highlighting his capabilities and brand in a low-key way in front of excellent content. He then describes the core idea:
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Don Tapscott: The arc of history is a positive one, towards openness
By Ross DawsonThis week’s TEDGlobal2012 event is themed Radical Innovation. The opening presentation, very fittingly, was by Don Tapscott, who spoke about Four principles for the open world. Do take the 18 minutes to see his exceptional presentation.
The four principles for openness that Don offers are:
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What will we do with the extraordinary potential of crowd business models?
By Ross DawsonI was just interviewed by Martin Metzmacher as part of his Netrepreneurs series. The 30 minute video interview is below.
While the broad topic of the conversation was about how to use crowds effectively, Martin focused through the interview on my motivations for what I do. At the end of the interview he asked me to summarize what I felt was most important in what we’d covered.
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