10 DOs and DONTs of organizational change

By

For a recent boardroom presentation to a group of CEOs of large organizations I prepared ten ‘dos and donts’ on my topic of organizational change.

e2impl_framework_200w.jpg

Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework

I drew on the core ideas in our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report and framework (as above). Enterprise 2.0 is ultimately far more about organizational change than technology, though it happens to be driven by web technologies. As such much of my focus today is on how to change organizations, to literally create the next version of the enterprise. Far more details on how to put the ideas below into practice are in the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report.

My list got an extremely positive response from the audience, so I thought I’d share it here.

DOS

1. Create a vision

The most important aspect of your vision is that it must be compelling. Unless people are drawn to it and want to help create it, it is useless. This means it needs to be focused on the benefits to everyone in the organization.

Read more →

An Argument for Heterarchy: creating more effective organizational structures

By

The latest issue of People and Strategy Journal has an extremely interesting Point/ Counterpoint feature. Download the full article and responses here.

Karen Stephenson, a leading network theorist and practitioner, wrote an article Neither Hierarchy nor Network: An Argument for Heterarchy, examining how heterarchies, that bring together elements of networks and hierarchies, are the most relevant organizational structures for our times.

Leading people in the field were invited to respond to the article, with responses from Edgar Schein of MIT, Robert Eccles of Harvard Business School, Charles Handy, Tracy Cox of Raytheon, Patti Anklam, Barry Frew of Center for Executive Education, Art Kleiner the editor-in-chief of Strategy+Business magazine, and Ross Dawson of Advanced Human Technologies (me :-) ).

My response is below. If you are interested in how organizational structures can be more effective in a connected world, I strongly recommend reading the full article and responses – this is an extremely topical issue.

Heterarchy: Technology, Trust and Culture

Stephenson is absolutely right to emphasize both the rapid rise in interconnection that individuals, organizations, and societies are currently experiencing, and the resulting interdependence that stems from that. Relatively few have yet grasped that the degree of interdependence generated in a global connected economy significantly changes the drivers of individual and collective success. Central to these drivers are the organizational structures that coalesce value from disparate participants.

Read more →

What will Australian consumers pay for 100Mbps with the NBN?

By

Last night SBS World News ran a segment on the Australian National Broadband Network plan, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the leader of the opposition debating its merits, and a piece on how much broadband is likely to cost consumers, which took some snapshots from an interview with me.

Unfortunately the small quote they took from me and its positioning in the story seemed to imply that I thought that $100 per month was acceptable pricing. Here are the points that I made while I was being interviewed:

* While some analysts have suggested that consumers will have to pay $100 per month for broadband access to make the project commercially viable, there are highly questionable assumptions in their methodology.

* Consumer telecoms pricing has been and will increasingly driven by bundling and integration with value-add services. As I pointed out yesterday, telcos need to shift to value-add services, including content, and this will drive how services are priced.

* People will be prepared to pay a little more than they currently are for vastly superior services. Not three times as much, but a little more.

* The pricing of any service is only meaningful in a market context. Pricing has to be set relative to demand and competitive alternatives rather than the cost of provision, and the landscape for broadband offerings is rapidly evolving.

* The Australian government, if required, is likely to effectively subsidize consumer broadband access. There is no reason to think at this point that it will be necessary, but if so this will likely be an investment that will yield substantial and commensurate economic and social returns.

* This all comes back to the politicians’ argument as to whether commercial entities will want to invest in the project, which is clearly fundamental to its success. The government says they will, the opposition says they won’t. While there is still a lot of number-crunching to be done, my bet is that there won’t be a problem getting investors, not least because there will be significant strategic benefits of being involved in this project. Let’s see.

Eight key issues in understanding Australia’s National Broadband Network

By

Yesterday was a busy day. I was called early to come in to the Sky TV studies to respond to the government’s announcement from its National Broadband Network tender, got stuck in traffic and arrived half way through the announcement, and was then immediately put on Sky Business live TV to give my thoughts. I was then interviewed on the separate Sky News program, a multitude of radio stations, and my comments ended up appearing in the New York Times, Forbes, and The Guardian among other global press, fitted into a busy day of work commitments.

So just now getting a chance to write a few quick thoughts.

1. Overall this is an exciting and very promising move.

If one of the bidders had won the tender it would have been a fizzer. 12mbps by 2012? That would probably not have kept Australia at its middling to poor ranking in global broadband connectivity. Fiber to the home and 100Mbps to 90% of premises is worth playing for, and could provide the connectivity that will drive Australia’s economy forward. I have long argued that for a geographically isolated country such as Australia living in what is truly becoming a global connected economy, connectivity (both the infrastructure and the attitudes) are fundamental to our future. I now have more reason to be optimistic about our country’s future than I did early yesterday.

Read more →

Why major media will quickly resume buying innovative companies

By

The latest research from specialist investment bank Jordan Edmiston shows that M&A activity in media, information, marketing, and technology sector fell by over 90% year-on-year in first quarter 2009. While the figure seems dire, much of this is due to this being a phase of rapid price adjustment, as Jordan Edmiston points out. First valuations at new levels need to be clarified by further transactions.

The chart below shows the most active strategic acquirers over the last five years in the sector. Some of these – such as Thomson Reuters, Reed Elsevier, and WPP – will continue to be very active in years ahead. Other companies will start acquiring more rapidly.

mostactivestrategicacquirers.jpg

Read more →

Availability of talent drives entrepreneurial innovation – the story of Silicon Valley unemployment

By

The human toll of unemployment is stark, as is being experienced around the world.

The most recent unemployment statistics for Silicon Valley below illustrate how the region has greater cyclicality in unemployment than almost any other region in the US. In good times unemployment can fall to almost nil, in bad times unemployment rises faster and higher than most regions.

SVunemploymentFeb09.jpg

The recent dramatic upturn in unemployment is likely to be far from peak, with for example the mooted IBM – SUN merger potentially leading to 10,000 layoffs, a large proportion of which would likely be in Silicon Valley.

What is bad news for some is great news for others. Bringing ideas to market takes talented people. In good times those people are either not available, or cost too much for start-ups to engage. Today there are once again fantastically talented people who are looking for opportunities, and willing to work for lower – or even no – income in return for a share of what might become big later.

This balances out to a large degree the far more constrained availability of investment capital. The money may not be flowing into start-up companies at a massive pace, but they need less.

So don’t expect innovation in Silicon Valley (or anywhere else) to dry up. The spigot of one of the key enablers of innovation – talent – has just been turned up high. Entrepreneurship is being democratized as more people with ideas and energy are able to execute their vision, rather than being constrained by lack of resources.

This is just one key driver today resulting in the pace of technology innovation going up, up, up…

Six key insights into the future of the Direct Selling Industry

By

One of the things that I love the most about my work is that I’m continually exposed to new ideas, new people, new places, and new industries.

Last week I gave the opening keynote at the Direct Selling Association of Australia annual conference. The theme of the event was “Defining our Future,” so they wanted to kick off with big picture perspectives on the future of business from a leading futurist. My presentation at the conference is here.

I had never been exposed to the industry before, however in preparing for my keynote, and at the event itself where I came in for the cocktail reception the night before and stayed on for the CEO panel following my keynote, I gained a number of insights into the industry and where it stands today.

The Direct Selling industry is comprised of three major segments: personal or door-to-door sales, such as the classic Avon model; party plan, for example Tupperware; and multi-level marketing (MLM), exemplified by Amway. All of the models rely on face-to-face interaction and relationships.

The industry definitely has image issues. My general observation is that there are undoubtedly some in the industry who contribute to that perception, however any who are successful in the long-term are absolutely ethical and genuine. Distribution based on face-to-face relationships is absolutely a valid business model and economic sector.

Here are some of the things I learned or observed about direct selling:

1. Economic downturns can be great for direct selling.

What drives the industry more than anything else is the availability of talented people becoming distributors. When unemployment rises, people seek new ways to make money. The increase in motivated distributors can outweigh lower sales per individuals to create higher revenue.

Read more →

Announcing The Insight Exchange – transforming the events industry!

By

As announced a few hours ago on Twitter, Beth Etling and I have today launched a new events company, The Insight Exchange.

It’s a major step for both of us. I’ve been organizing events in various forms for the last dozen years, and started doing it more seriously three years ago, when Future Exploration Network launched the Future of Media Summit. Since then Future Exploration Network has organized the Future of Media Summit annually – which is a major production since it’s run simultaneously in Sydney and San Francisco – and we’ve also set up and run for the last two years both Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum and Web 2.0 in Australia.

Read more →

Embracing the Future: keynote speaker at Direct Selling Assocation

By

Tomorrow I am giving the opening keynote at the Direct Selling Association of Australia Conference 09 which is on the theme of ‘Defining our Future’.

The slides for my presentation are below. As always, these are intended to accompany my keynote, not as stand-alone slides.

Embracing the Future: Keynote to DSAA 23 March 2009

View more presentations from rossdawson.

The presentation includes a diverse range of examples of markets that are currently growing:

Guitars

Home renovation tools

Home gardening

Books

Cookware

Lipstick

Quality jewellery (in the case of my wife’s business www.victoriabuckley.com)

Brain fitness

Clean energy

Robots

Aged care

Mobile applications

Events (done well, in the right sectors)

I’ll write more soon about the array of growth markets that offer great opportunities at the moment.

Changing gears – onto the future of influence and new ventures!

By

My readers will have seen a massive focus on Enterprise 2.0 in this blog for the last few months, as I have been preparing, promoting and running the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum in Sydney and Enterprise 2.0 Executive Briefing in Melbourne, and writing and publishing Implementing Enterprise 2.0, which is rapidly becoming the reference in the field. Moving forward I will continue to be deeply involved in Enterprise 2.0 through my client work, and will also be releasing a lot more content from the report.

However I am now in the process of shifting gears. Last year I realized that a large proportion of my interests could be encapsulated in two key themes:

The future of the enterprise

The future of influence

The first examines how organizations will evolve and what they must do to be successful in an intensely complex and competitive world. The second looks at how messages disseminate when traditional media is being trumped by social media. Together they bring together the inside and the outside, the twin domains in which open communication is transforming business and society.

Having focused deeply for a while on the future of the enterprise, for the next period my attention will shift significantly to the future of influence.

I have studied and worked on influence networks for much of the last decade. Among other activities, I wrote about influence networks in Chapter 6 of Living Networks and published what was then the first detailed study of influence networks in B2B marketing: How Technology Purchasing Decisions are Really Made. However so far I haven’t written up most of my ongoing research and work in the space.

Read more →