Debate: The Ethics of Crowdsourcing

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For many who come across the idea of crowdsourcing in its many forms, their first thoughts are about the ethical issues. As such, in writing Getting Results From Crowds, it was important to address the ethical domain rather than ignoring or glossing it.

We address the ethical issues of crowdsourcing in Chapter 5 on Relationship Value, offering Points and Counterpoints on a number of the major ethical issues in the field.

To bring the debate to life we have created a video providing some of the arguments on each side.


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Remote Sex: the perfect Valentine’s Day present

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Our online magazine FutureofSex.net explores this fascinating aspect of the intersection of technology and society.

The rise of our connected world has implications that reach into almost every aspect of our lives. I did many Valentine’s Day interviews back in 2003 and 2004, talking about proximity dating, one way in which technology is changing how we connect romantically.

This year we thought it would be worth putting out word to media about the fascinating topic of remote sex, as it is a topic in which their audience will very likely be interested. Here is our press release:

Remote sex – how distant lovers can still be intimate this Valentine’s Day

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New! 2012+ Trends Map

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Richard Watson of NowandNext.com and I have collaborated extensively over the years, including on numerous client projects. Richard is very well-known for his Trend Blend annual series of maps (here are the 2007-2010 trend maps). I collaborated with Richard on several of them but not on the more recent ones, partly as he is now based in London.

Our Trend Blend 2007+ map based on the London subway map spawned an entire genre of trend maps based on city train lines.

Here is Richard’s Trend Map for 2012, once again breaking new ground in communicating trends and ideas. Enjoy!


Click on the image for full-size pdf

Do you want to live forever?

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For any student of potential disruptive technological advances, life extension inevitably looms as one that could completely change the condition of humanity.

While there is heated debate about whether the current proposed approaches to life extension being proposed have any merit, there is no question that major advances are possible in the field.


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The future of radio will be a personal mosaic of global and local audio

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On Tuesday I was interviewed as part of a 30 minute panel discussion on ABC Queensland on the future of radio. The podcast of the program is here.

It was a wide ranging discussion, and we covered a lot of territory. At the conclusion of the program, when we were each asked to give our vision for the future of radio, I described what I see radio becoming.

As I pointed out, just as what we have thought of as TV is shifting to multi-channel video, radio is shifting to multi-channel audio, distributed over IP to a multitude of devices, notably mobile phones. However audio will remain an important media channel forever, as there are many reasons we sometimes want just audio without visual accompaniment.
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ABC TV: Facebook’s IPO, Apple’s cash pile, and RIM’s woes

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I was interviewed last night on ABC’s The Business in a broad-ranging discussion about Facebook’s IPO, Apple’s cash pile, and Research In Motion’s future.


Click on the image to watch the interview on the ABC website

I’ll add some more comments on these very interesting topics shortly.

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.

2012: 12 Themes – What to expect in the year ahead

View more presentations from Ross Dawsn

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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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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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