How soaring expectations of beauty are shaping technology and society

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I recently travelled to Provence in the hills above Nice to give the keynote at the annual EuroCIO conference.

I used my framework for the future of the CIO to point to the macro drivers of change in technology and society, and how these are shaping the technology function in organizations, and in turn the role of the CIO.

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The single most important shift in society is that we expect more on just about every front that we can imagine. We expect more in everything around us, in terms of excellence in quality and service, opportunity for ourselves and our children, flexibility in our work, and openness and transparency from business and government.

We also expect beauty.
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How technologies will expand and replace human work

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The Australian Financial Review is today running a special feature on the world to 2100, including an article on technology trends titled Connecting to a rising tide of data.

The article covers a number of themes, including the expansion of connectivity, data, and devices, and the impact of technology on healthcare, drawing on interviews with a wide range of experts including Australian of the Year Dr Fiona Wood.

It begins by quoting me on the impact of technology on the world of work.
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I’m available in Europe 17-20 June

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As a quick shout-out in case anyone is interested, I will be Europe with availability 17-20 June between engagements. I am currently intending to be in London for connections and meetings, but this isn’t yet fixed.

Let me know if you’re interested for any keynotes, executive briefings, strategy workshops, mini-workshops on crowdsourcing or the implications of the future of work, or anything else that takes your fancy. Contact me on the RossDawson.com website.
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We are on track for 518% global economic growth this half-century

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Yesterday I gave an executive briefing to a senior team tasked with generating major new revenue opportunities for their organization.

My presentation delved into the drivers of change in economic structure, individual and societal behaviours, the shape of cities, the role of government, and the implications for the elderly of demographic change.

However to kick off I wanted to put the group into a bigger mental frame than they would usually think in, so I ran through the following chart:

Growth1550-2050
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The future of travel and tourism: safe adventures, real-time guidance, and new frontiers

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Last week, as part of the ongoing weekly future series on the Morning Show, I spoke about the future of travel and tourism.

Click on the image below to watch a video of the segment.

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Some of the things I talked about:
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Can cyber-crime result in global financial systemic risk?

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On Saturday I was interviewed on SBS World News about the ATM heist that netted $45 million from 40,000 withdrawals over 26 countries. The video of the TV news segment (start at 09:05) is available online until 19 May.

It was an extremely sophisticated attack, involving not just hacking credit card payment processors and banks, but also eliminating the limits on prepaid debit cards before creating thousands of copies. Not surprisingly there are strong safeguards around tampering with the limits on cards, yet the gang managed to circumvent these.
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The latest in 3D printing trends: guns, ears, body parts, and now in your local store

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It’s been a busy day in the world of 3D printing. Below is a roundup of the latest developments, all announced in the last 24 hours or so. 3D printing is one of those trends that has been visible for a long time, is just beginning to have a real impact, and in the long run could transform many aspects of our lives.

Different issues are raised by each of these stories, showing the breadth of the impact of 3D printing. I have made brief comments under each story.

Anyone looking at the future must keep abreast of the growing scope of capabilities of 3D printing and what it could mean for industries and society.

First completely 3D-printed gun shown
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The future of analogue people in a digital world

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I recently gave the keynote at Bridge Point Forum on Future Directions in the Digital Age, the title riffing off the conference’s theme of The Rise of the Digital Age.

I opened by making the critical point that, while the digital world is rising around us at an extraordinary pace, humans are completely analogue. Nothing about humans is digital. While we can conceive of and enact digital processes and thoughts, these are created from fully analogue neural networks.

This means that one of the most important frames on our future is understanding the interface between analogue humans and our increasingly digital external environment.

I illustrated the idea with segments of this movie of three Geminoids – essentially robot replicas of humans – together with their human models.


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Crowdsourcing Week in Singapore promises to help catalyze the global potential of crowdsourcing

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Epi Nekaj, the founder of crowdsourcing innovator Ludvik + Partners, first got in touch with me in early 2012 to discuss his plan to run a landmark global event focused on crowdsourcing.

On June 3-7 Crowdsourcing Week will be held in Singapore, bringing the Crowdsourcing Week team’s vision to fruition.

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Distributed Internet infrastructure results in weaknesses as well as strengths

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Last week the BBC reported that the Global internet slows after ‘biggest attack in history’, with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on spam-fighting organization Spamhaus said to be impacting the broader Internet. This was big news across global media until later in the day it became clear that the impact was minimal. Despite naysayers, the attack was in fact substantially the largest in history, and did result in slower Internet performance in the UK, Netherlands, and Germany.

At the height of coverage of the story I was invited into the ABC studios to explain live on the midday news what was happening. You can click on the image below to see the video clip.

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