Video excerpts of keynote speech for Sun Microsystems Partner Executive Forum: The Future of the Network Economy

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I recently gave the keynote speech for a Sun Microsystems Partner Executive Forum, where Sun brought together the top executives from its extensive partner network for an update and relationship building session.

Below is an 8 min video containing brief excerpts from my keynote, titled The Future of the Network Economy.

Topics covered in the video include:

* In the Depression of the 1930s there was little structural change in the economy; in the current downturn there will be massive change.

* In a connected world you can – and must – reposition yourself across boundaries.

* Scale-free networks provide a common structure across society, web, infrastructure and more.

* Collaborative filtering is where the web is going: it enables us to find what is most relevant to us from infinite content.

* Open innovation requires identifying and stimulating the social networks where relevant ideas are proliferating.

* Our individual and organizational reputations will precede us, giving us and others insights into our expertise, reliability, and credibility.

* Strategy in an economy based on the flow of information and ideas requires us to rethink alliances and identify opportunities in new domains.

* The law of requisite variety means we must be at least as flexible as our environment.

* Studying ants’ collective behavior can help organizations understand how to tap emergence to create value.

Our trend map for 2009: The vital Trends, Risks, and Red Herrings you must know

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Following our extremely popular Trend Blend 2007 and Trend Blend 2008 trend maps comes…. Trend Blend 2009!

Created by Future Exploration Network’s Chief Futurist Richard Watson, also of NowandNext.com, the 2009 trend map moves on from the subway map theme of the last years to show the multi-tentacled hydra that is the year ahead.

TrendBlend2009_500w.jpg

Click on the map to download the pdf (810KB)

To pick out just a few noteworthy elements of the trend map:

CORE THEMES include:

Uncertainy

Ageing

Global Connectivity

Anxiety

Power Shift Eastwards

SUBJECT THEMES include:

SOCIETY: Search for control, enoughism

TECHNOLOGY: Simplicity, Telepresence, Gesture based computing

ECONOMY: De-leveraging, 2-speed economies, Shorter product lifecycles

ENVIRONMENT: Bio fuel backlash, Negawatts, Nuclear power

POLITICS: Virtual protests, Globalisation in retreat, Immigration backlash

BUSINESS: Networked risk, Transparency, Asset price uncertainty

FAMILY: Debt stress, Allowable luxuries, Middle class unrest

MEDIA: Flight to quality, Facebook fatigue, Skimming, Micro boredom

POSSIBLE RED HERRINGS include:

Climate change crisis

Fall of US Empire

Nuclear power

Device convergence

GLOBAL RISKS include:

Major Internet failure

Influenza pandemic

Major earthquake in economic centre

Obesity

Electricity shortages

People taking trend maps too seriously

As usual, this is released on a Creative Commons license, so feel free to play with it, adapt it, and improve it!

Wishing everyone a fabulous 2009 – be sure to take advantage of these upcoming trends!

Keynote at Direct Selling Association conference in March

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I’m giving the keynote, titled Embracing the Future, at the Defining our Future conference in the Gold Coast 22-24 March, run by the Direct Selling Association. Below is an introductory video on the event, briefly reviewing the event and main speakers.


DSAA 2009 from Tom Walter on Vimeo.

I’ve never spoken to the direct selling industry before, but certainly the themes I often cover of the evolving network economy and media landscape is highly relevant to the audience. I’ll go into more detail later on what I’ll be covering in my keynote.

Interviews: Six important forces that will shape 2009

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I’ve done two radio interviews this morning, asking me for forecasts for the year ahead.

The broader issue I am emphasizing in my current interviews and speaking is that 2009 will bring more change than any other year this decade.

Perversely, a slowing economy will accelerate the pace of change. Many companies will take advantage of the downturn to use technology in innovative ways. Technology ranging from mobile applications to online gaming will become an everyday part of our work lives.

Social change tends to be faster in a downturn. Our attitudes to what is acceptable behavior by the government and companies will rapidly evolve. Technology is shaping society, but society is also shaping technology, particularly in how it allows us to express forcible opinions.

In these interviews for non-professional audiences I briefly covered six important forces that will shape business and society in 2009:

1. Constant partial attention. 2009 will see more people consuming 20 hours or more of media a day. And no, it’s not just the insomniacs. It is due to a phenomenon called Constant Partial Attention, or CPA, in which our attention is constantly divided between a massive array of channels now including mobile Internet, video screens on buses, and more. Over two-thirds of people watch TV while reading. To be successful, we need to thrive on constant interruption.

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Upcoming Keynote at MegaTrends in Abu Dhabi: Four trends transforming society

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[UPDATE:] The conference was rescheduled to 25 May – my keynote presentation is here.

In early February I am delivering a keynote at the MegaTrends conference in Abu Dhabi, one of three international keynote speakers together with John Naisbitt, who sold over 9 million copies of MegaTrends and created an industry, and Dr Lynda Grattan, author of Living Strategy and Professor at London Business School.

I recently did a press briefing by video for journalists in the UAE, touching on some of the themes I’ll cover in my keynote at the conference. I chose to speak briefly about four massive trends that will impact business globally and in the Gulf region in years to come. I’ll give more details on the speech content before and after the event.

1. The Rise of the Global Talent Economy

Talent – long recognized as the key driver of companies and economies – is becoming a highly dynamic global market. Top professionals are increasingly choosing to work independently, retired executives are making their skills available, and connectivity means we can access expertise from anywhere on the planet. Companies will as a matter of course engage and work with staff, professionals, and suppliers all over the planet. And those that do this better, beating their competitors to get the most from a world of available talent, will win.

For more, see writing about the global talent economy.

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The relevance of Enterprise 2.0 in an economic downturn

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Moving towards our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2009, a key issue has to be how these themes are relevant to the most prominent concerns of senior executives. In short, how will applying Web 2.0 and mobile technologies in organizations save money, increase efficiency and productivity, increase market share, and build profitability?

A number of recent blog posts have squarely addressed this issue, and are important reading in framing why Enterprise 2.0 must be a top priority for executives.

Susan Scrupski, talks about Reality Check 2.0 in writing about what the members of the Advisory Board for the next Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston are saying.

Mike Gotta of Burton Group says:

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Extinction analysis and extending the hype cycle

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Nick Gall of Gartner writes about our Extinction Timeline, saying (in jest I presume), referring to Gartner’s famed hype cycle:

I think we should enter negotiations with the author, Ross Dawson, for adding extinction analysis to hype cycles immediately!

Extinction Timeline: what will disappear from our lives before 2050

As it happens, in the wake of the enormous success of the Extinction Timeline, including being featured on Slashdot, Slate, Boston Globe, and other publications across the globe, I’ve been thinking about doing a series of features on the death and subsequent rebirth of some what we have pegged for extinction – there is sometimes life beyond extinction! Thus the cycle may get extended several phases further…

Financial transparency drives business results

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When solo developer Peldi Guilizzoni launched web design mock-up tool Balsamiq in July, he promised to disclose his revenues, reports ReadWriteWeb.

He has just announced he has hit $100,000 in revenue in the last five months, with revenue on a very significant uptrend.

I am a big believer in business transparency, absolutely for public companies, and also in many cases for private companies. Transparency is one of the Seven MegaTrends of professional services I described in 2005, one of the Six Facets of the future of PR, central to investor relations, while the naked start-up is becoming more common.

Clearly Guilizzoni is going to make a lot more money because of his financial transparency, given the attention it’s attracting.

Secrecy has its place in business, but it is highly over-rated. In most cases there is no valid reason not to share information, just a disinclination to give away things. We are going to see transparent models increasingly favored moving forward. Certainly I find the reporting and accounts of many public companies to be extraordinarily opaque, giving little insight into the real drivers of business performance (a case in point being most non-US media companies). The most significant result is that investors shy away and shareholder value is lost.

‘Open book management’ is not a new idea, but the majority of companies are slow to shift on this front. I’m toying with the idea of a business model which includes publishing all company accounts on the web – hopefully this will be becoming more common by the time I get to this.

Future Files by Richard Watson hits global markets

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A little while ago I announced that Future Exploration Network’s extraordinary Chief Futurist, Richard Watson, had released his book Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years, including a few excerpts.

Since then it has sold at a giddying pace, selling out in Australia, and has now been launched in 10 editions worldwide, including two Chinese versions. The book has now been launched in the US and UK to great fanfare. The London book launch broke RSA’s record for most books sold, exceeding that for Clay Shirky’s event (see the event video).

Publisher’s Week in the US made Future Files its Web Pick of Week, saying…

Cheaper than a crystal ball and twice as fun, this book by futurist and web creator Watson examines what “someday” could be like, based on the five key trends of ageing; power shift to the East; global connectivity; the “GRIN” technologies of Genetics, Robotics, Internet, and Nanotechnology; environmental concerns, and 50 less general but equally influential developments that will radically alter human life by the year 2050. Watson gently scoffs at Jetsons-like wishful-thinking technology and flying cars; instead he predicts the fanciful (mindwipes, stress-control clothing, napcaps that induce sleep) and the useful (devices to harness the sea to generate energy; self-repairing car paint; retail technology that helps us shop, based on past buying habits; hospital plasters that monitor vital signs). In between the fun and frivolity, he prognosticates the frightening: the “extinction” of individual ugliness and free public spaces; the creation of hybrid humans; a society made of people who are incapable of the tiniest tasks; and insects that carry wireless cameras to monitor our lives. Part Jules Verne, part Malcolm Gladwell, Watson has a puckish sense of humor and his book is a thought-provoking, laughter-inducing delight.

Great to see Richard’s thinking getting out there! His talents and provocative insights are highly valued by Future Exploration Network’s consulting clients.

Micro-blogging in the enterprise: an idea whose time has come?

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Over the last few months there has been increasing discussion of how micro-blogging tools such as Twitter could be used in organizations.

Twitter is now frequently used in external communication, with organizations as diverse as @SouthwestAir, @Comcastcares, @BigPondTeam, @SEC_Investor_Ed, and @mosmancouncil using Twitter to communicate to stakeholders and for customer service. Given the rapid rise of Twitter and how influential comments can be, this clearly needs to be on the radar for any major organization.

However there are significant constraints in using public micro-blogging services such as Twitter, Jaiku, or identi.ca for internal communication. Even with the ability to protect people’s updates to being viewed only by approved followers, few organizations would like to have this kind of information hosted externally.

As such they often look at internal tools to see how yet another consumer technology can be adapted to create value for the enterprise.

At our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum in February, Australian pharmaceutical company Janssen-Cilag described how it was implementing an internal version of Twitter.

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