Dominant themes for 2012: transformation and beyond

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In December I created a list of 12 themes to frame the year ahead, and then explored the ideas in a number of media interviews. The slides for the 12 themes have been seen almost 50,000 times now, suggesting they struck a chord somewhere. It’s now interesting to reflect on these, especially the response from the media.

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In the global talent economy over 50% will be mobile workers

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[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]

Research firm IDC has forecast that there will be 1.3 billion ‘mobile workers’ in the world by 2015, representing 37.2% of the global workforce. This points to the massive explosion of what I call the ‘global talent economy’, in which talent can be and will be anywhere.

The forecasts suggest that the bulk of the growth will be in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), which will see 838 million mobile workers in 2015, up 237 million from 2010, representing well over half the global mobile workforce.
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Harley-Davidson goes direct to the crowd after initial success with creative crowdsourcing

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[This article first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]

Harley-Davidson has been in the vanguard of using crowdsourcing to fuel its creative marketing initiatives. That initial success has fueled its appetite, with its latest initiative a Facebook app that takes idea generation to a far broader crowd.

Last year I wrote about how Harley-Davidson had launched a major advertising campaign using Victors & Spoils, an agency built on crowdsourcing principles.

Harley-Davidson was initially cautious, saying:
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Top 10 posts on the future of media

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Another quick selection of my most popular posts from 2011, this time on the topic of the future of media:

1. Predictions for media industry in 2011

Social news curation, crowd sourced journalism, multi-platform distribution, personalized advertising and tablet media will be just some of the key trends shaping the year ahead.
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The spirit of Sydney: an extraordinary New Year’s Eve celebration

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Last night I was privileged to see in the New Year at the harbour-side broadwalk of the Sydney Opera House, at the Lord Mayor Clover Moore‘s party.

Personally, it was probably the best New Year’s Eve that I’ve ever had, not least because it was an absolutely fantastic party.

I wish I could do justice to the evening with an in-depth review, not least of the extraordinary fireworks and spectacle master-minded by designer Marc Newson, whose work I wrote about last year. Below is a brief excerpt of the display.


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Today show: Social media and technology trends for 2012

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Yesterday I appeared on the Australia national breakfast program Today, talking about what we can expect in social media and technology in 2012. I was on holidays in Melbourne so spoke from the studio there. You can see the clip below, or on the Today Show Video page, under the title Social Trends for 2012.

It is always hard to fit in a lot of content into a breakfast TV format, however I managed to cover thoughts on Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, augmented reality glasses, Siri and voice interfaces among other topics.

From news-on-paper to news-on-many-channels

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I’m officially on holidays, but back at home between a family Christmas and beach sojourn and doing quite a few interviews as I go, so I’ll slip in a quick blog post or two. :-)

Yesterday I was interviewed by Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010 about the future (or lack thereof) of newspapers, coming off the news that New York Times has sold its regional newspapers.

They of course wanted me to talk about my Newspaper Extinction Timeline from last year, and I ran through some of the economic reasons why remnant demand for newspapers doesn’t necessarily mean there will continue to be supply.
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New frameworks of 2011: Connected Success, Transformation of Business and Government, Crowdsourcing

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I believe strongly in visual frameworks as a way of communicating and engaging with complex ideas. I share these on the web, sometimes use them as central frames for my keynotes, apply them in strategy workshops, use them to shape my own thinking on the topics they cover, and sometimes create private custom visual frameworks for clients to define and articulate their strategy.

I will be shortly launching a more complete review of all the public visual frameworks I’ve created. For now, here is a review of the public frameworks I’ve created this year.

Success in a Connected World

I have used this in many keynotes and workshops this year to help individuals and small to mid-sized businesses to work out what they need to do succeed in a connected world, usually going into detail on the specific tools they can use in each area.

Success in  a Connected World
Click on the image for full size
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12 most popular posts of the year on the future

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It’s almost the end of the year, so I’ll try to do a few compilations of my most popular posts of the year. Today, on the general theme of the future, here are 12 (+1 for next year) that have attracted the most interest…

1. Zeitgeist 2011: anxiety, mobility, blending, indulgence, immersion, wrath, nudity and more

The spirit of the times for 2011

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The most contagious marketing memes of 2011

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Contagious Magazine has just launched its annual Most Contagious 2011, “reviewing the most innovative exercises in branding, technology, and popular culture,” taking a marketer’s perspective on what has succeeded this year.

The slides are below (you really need to view in full screen as it’s very detailed), or you can also see the Most Contagious website or the pdf version.

As a brief highlight of the report, here are four of Contagious’ favorite promotional YouTube videos of the year. Great viewing! I particularly like Nissan’s Damned Ponies…
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