Availability in Europe in March and Latin America in April

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I have a very busy travel itinerary coming up, with keynotes scheduled on 5 continents in the next 4 months.

While I often travel for a single engagement, I look where possible to fit in other client work when I am travelling.

I currently have availability in Europe the week of March 10 before the Congres Intranet in Utrecht, Netherlands, which is apparently the largest intranet conference in the world, where I am running a pre-conference workshop on Tapping the Power of Internal Crowdsourcing and doing a keynote on The Future of Work and Organisations.
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In the future we will have relationships with our homes

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Today I was interviewed on The Daily Edition about the homes of the future.

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

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The future of homes is a very rich topic that goes far beyond the usual chatter about internet-enabled refrigerators and integrated entertainment, and we weren’t able to cover much in a TV panel format.

However the main point that I made is that in the future we will have a very real relationship with our homes. Now homes are somewhere that we reside, and while we can shape them to our personalities, it is not currently a two-way relationship.

As we move forward, our relationship with our homes will comprise many elements.
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The age of self-creation: why ethics must be central to how we create the future

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One of my flurry of media appearances over New Year was on the Sunrise show, talking about what to expect in 2014.

Click on the image to see a video of my interview.

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We discussed emerging consumer technology trends, shifts in retail, and the idea of “self-creation”, which was one of my 14 themes in our 2014: Crunch Time report.

As I wrote in the report about the theme:
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The top 30 Thought Leaders in crowdfunding

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There is no doubt that crowdfunding has been one of the major trends evolving over the last couple of years in particular. It has caught the imagination of the public, and already had a large impact on how artists, startup ventures, and many others consider their funding options. The trend of crowdfunding has a long, long way further to go.

Israeli-based equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd has just launched a list of the top 30 influential thought leaders in crowdfunding, those who have shaped how the industry is seen and understood.

They commissioned Evolve Inc to do the study, which took into account “a variety of factors including social footprint, popularity among industry insiders, engagement frequency, citations by influential writers in venture finance and other factors” to create a ranked list of the top 30 influencers from a pool of 800 people studied.

The top 5 are Perry Chen of Kickstarter, Naval Ravikant of AngelList, Slava Rubin of IndieGogo, Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz and Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, followed by a variety of entrepreneurs, regulators, politicians, media commentators, academics, and others.

I made the list (just!) at #29, probably mainly due to the success of my book Getting Results From Crowds and the crowdsourcing workshops I’ve been running around the world over the last couple of years.
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Why children (and adults) need to be on social media or get left behind

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Yesterday the West Australian newspaper began a five-part series on children and social media, beginning with a feature article introducing the topic.

The article’s title, Get online or ‘be left behind’ quotes an interview with me. It is very easy for journalists to focus on the negative when covering children and social media, so I’m very glad they took a more balanced stance.

The article began with an introduction to the issue, to the point of mentioning that English secondary school Eton has banned Snapchat. It goes on:

Sydney-based Ross Dawson, founder of think tank Future Exploration Network, said social networking was still in its early days. “We’re still fairly early on into what will become simply communication – life as we know it,” he said.

“Rather than logging on to Facebook and sharing some messages we are going to be in a world where we are sharing vast degrees (of information) with those who are close to us and to the world at large, and this communication will be intrinsic to life, our personal life and our work life.”

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Today Show: What to expect in the year ahead

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Early on January 1st this year, after a great New Year’s party and no sleep, I went into the studio to talk about what we should expect in the year ahead. The video is below

A few notes from what I discussed:
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Awesome video: we are building transparent machines of business exploiting society

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This fabulous video brings together a succinct telling of the privacy story of today with some exceptional 3D graphic animations and great sound. Watch it! (preferably full screen)

Transparent Machines™ from beeple on Vimeo.

In the Privacy section of our 2014: Crunch Time report we wrote:
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On the importance of energizing holidays for entrepreneurs

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I have just returned from holidays in Jervis Bay, a stunning region set in a marine national park a few hours drive south of Sydney. It is one of those places scattered around the world that feels magical in some inexpressible way.

Summer is Here | Jervis Bay
Image credit: Hadi Zaher

It was just a one week holiday, my first proper break in the last year, which has been perhaps the most intense year in my life. Victoria and I did take a little time off between this last Christmas and New Year but I ended having to do a some urgent client work and many interviews including Sunrise, Today, and Morning Show over New Year so it wasn’t a real holiday.

Switching off

During the holiday I was almost completely switched off from digital world, with limited connectivity where we were staying helping me avoid more than very briefly glancing at email or Twitter every day or so, though I did need to respond to a couple of enquiries.
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Launch of 2014 Crunch Time report: 14 domains hitting the crunch and responses

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At the end of each year we share some thoughts about current trends and what to expect next year and beyond.

Some of our past frameworks include Trend Blend 2007+, Trend Blend 2008+, Map of the Decade: 2010s, Zeitgeist 2011, 12 Themes for 2012, and 2013 – Life Next Year and Beyond: Appearing and Disappearing.

Today Future Exploration Network launches our 2014: Crunch Time mini-report. It explains why we are reaching Crunch Time, the implications, descriptions of 14 domains in which we are hitting the crunch, and how we need to respond.

The graphic slideshow of Crunch Time is embedded below. You can also read the full text in one page at 2014: Crunch Time on the original posting on the Future Exploration Network website.

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Timeframes for the future of work: trends and uncertainties in this decade and beyond

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I recently ran an internal workshop on the future of work for a large company. In the next couple of years it will shift its headquarters into a new building and adopt Activity Based Working across the organization.

The key executives understand that in their planning they need to engage with the broader issues of how the world of work is changing, and not just the immediate issues of office space and workforce structure.

In the first phase of the workshop, before delving into the specific issues for their business, I used my Future of Work Framework to provide a big-picture view of the forces of change and the major shifts in play.


Click on the image to download the full framework.
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