Creating social TV: lessons along the way

By

I recently wrote about social and participative TV, as one of the important aspects of how TV as we currently know it will evolve.

Of course, this is not to say that all TV will become social. A key characteristic of the TV format is that it is passive, and that is what many people are looking for. Part of what we need to learn is not just what the mechanisms of effective social TV are, but in what situations it works well. While the term ‘social TV’ is becoming commonly used to refer to a variety of initiatives, I distinguish between social TV as focused on a shared viewing experience, and participative TV which is about viewers contributing to the program itself.

In this context, local TV station KOMU in Columbia, Missouri has recently created an hour-long participative TV show hosted by Sarah Hill. Here is the program preview:

TVNewsCheck has a detailed review of this and similar initiatives, saying:
Read more →

The global polarization of work: what we can do about it

By

Today I gave the keynote at an invitation-only meeting of senior executives looking at the future of their industry. My role was to bring perspectives on the broader drivers of change in business.

One of the central themes of my keynote was the future of work and organizations. There are of course many facets to this, but one of the fundamentally important ones in considering the future of business and society is in how work is being polarized.

On the one hand, the elites who have outstanding talents or expertise, combined with the ability to collaborate effectively, have extraordinary choices. They can choose the employers who give them the most flexibility, the highest pay, or the greatest work satisfaction, depending on their priorities. They can work freelance for companies anywhere in the world, usually working from the comfort of their own home or local co-working space. They can live and work pretty much wherever they want in the world. As connectivity reaches deeper and broader into developing countries, a far broader pool of talented people can reasonably aspire to this lifestyle.
Read more →

More research: browsing for fun at work boosts productivity

By

My post yesterday about Angry Birds and productivity at work: why distractions can help has generated some good discussion.

Ever a source of great information, Arie Goldshlager has now pointed me to additional research that supports the National University of Singapore study I pointed to in the article.

In this brief video Dr Brent Coker at the Department of Management and Marketing at University of Melbourne presents their research findings on the productivity impact of browsing for fun at work.


Read more →

Angry Birds and productivity at work: why distractions can help

By

On Friday a journalist from the Herald Sun called me to ask for my response to an ‘analysis’ suggesting that $1.4 billion of worker productivity is lost to playing Angry Birds. It seems that my answers turned the story around from what could have been yet another populist headline to Is Angry Birds the new Solitaire or are we flying off the handle a bit too early?

I was quoted:
Read more →

Looking for Outstanding Researcher/ Writer on Crowdsourcing

By

We have just posted a job on Odesk for an Outstanding Researcher/ Writer on Crowdsourcing in a freelance role. Below is the job description. If you’re interested please respond on Odesk.

We’re very excited about our forthcoming book on how to crowdsource effectively, so if you really understand crowdsourcing, are a good researcher and great writer, we’d love to work with you!

Outstanding Researcher/ Writer on Crowdsourcing
Read more →

Why reputation, influence, and attention are becoming central to economies but are not currencies

By

This morning I gave the opening keynote for an internal future strategy session at a large insurance company. A group of 40 executives from across the organization, as part of a six month program, are spending two days immersing themselves in thinking about how the structure of the economy could change in the years and decades ahead, and the implications for their business.

My presentation gave a very big picture view of selected elements of the economic landscape that could result in a substantially different business environment.

One of the topics I covered was alternative currencies, including virtual currencies, Bitcoin and other anonymous currencies (more on that another time), and the idea of attention, reputation, and other intangibles as currencies.

Over the last years I have certainly frequently discussed the reputation economy, influence economy, and also the economics of attention.

However the idea of intangibles such as these acting as currencies is a step further, suggesting they can replace financial transactions. Is this a valid idea?
Read more →

Revisiting the future of PR

By

For many reasons PR (or perhaps rather what PR could be) is close to the center of my interests. As we shift to a world driven by social media and influence networks, arguably the PR industry has the best background and capabilities to help organizations deal with the new challenges and opportunities that are emerging.

Yet the PR industry has not markedly prospered relative to adjacent industries, which have muscled in on the new work generated in a rapidly changing landscape. ‘Public relationships’, if we take the term literally, dominate the agenda, yet PR is not dominating the discussion.

I recently recalled that I wrote the article Six Facets of the Future of PR well over 5 years ago now. It’s nice to see that it is still the #1 result on a Google search for ‘future of PR’.

As a good article about the future should be, it is still entirely relevant today. I thought it would be worth revisiting a few of the points I made, as they probably bear repeating.

Six Facets of the Future of PR

Read more →

Detailed stats: Social networks dominate Internet usage, Australia still #1

By

Research company Nielsen has just released detailed statistics on online activity, focusing on social networks and blogging, which at 22.5% of time spent online dominate Internet usage, with more than twice the next category games, at 9.8% of time spent. Below are a few highlights and comments from the full report.

Facebook completely dominates the social networking and blogging space, with over 70 times the next most prominent social networking site. Interestingly Tumblr’s dramatic rise (+183% over the last year) has taken it to overtake Twitter in time spent online. However Nielsen’s methodologies look only at website visits and don’t the majority of time spent on Twitter, which is on web and mobile clients. Facebook also dramatically surpasses the amount of time spent on Google, however Google is still mostly not a destination site. Over time initiatives such as Google+ may change that.
Read more →

Support for crowdfunding in Obama’s Jobs Bill is taking it mainstream

By

Earlier this year I wrote how the US SEC was opening the gates to crowdfunding and a new structure of capitalism with mooted regulatory changes.

Now the US President’s proposed Jobs Bill is explicitly focusing on crowdfunding as a mechanism to support entrepreneurs and startups.

A post on the White House’s Office and Science Technology blog titled The President’s American Jobs Act: Fueling Innovation and Entrepreneurship co-authored by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra focuses on five highlights of the jobs bill in supporting entrepreneurs.

The first point says:
Read more →

Creating Darwin’s Future: insights into a unique city

By

I recently gave the after-dinner speech at the annual dinner of the Urban Development Institute of Australia in Darwin.

I had never been to Darwin before, and I found my brief visit as well as my research preparing for my talk fascinating in getting a feel for the city.

In my speech I brought together some entertaining perspectives with more serious views of the global macro environment and the opportunities I see for Darwin. Among other topics I compared Northern Territory’s demographic profile with that of Australia and adjacent economies such as Indonesia and China. Many of Darwin’s challenges and opportunities are expressed in this data. The charts are created from the Australian Bureau of Statistic B Series (middle path) forecasts for Australian population.

Here are just a few insights and perspectives on Darwin I gained in preparing for my speech and during my visit:
Read more →