The growing demand for ‘organic workplaces’: Hubs and work spaces that are good for us

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This evening I went to an event at Hub Sydney. I’m a big fan of the global Hub network of co-working environments, am an ‘Ambassador for Awesome‘ for Hub Sydney, and have visited a number of Hubs around the world including running a crowdsourcing workshop at Hub Westminster last year.

Interestingly, in every Hub I have visited I have immediately got a very positive sense about the space, something indefinably common across the Hubs, a feeling that there are good people and good things happening there.

As I left the event I had a conversation with the new Hub Sydney Space Host Emma Higgins. She was describing how from her perspective the people who work in the Hub are healthier, they look better, they have a better color, they’re fitter, you can basically see in their faces and bodies that they are simply more well than people who work in corporate environments.
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The democratization of creativity: the most important aspect is greater human expression

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When I was recently in Stockholm my friend Magnus Linkvist introduced me to Einar Bodström of House of Radon, a young and innovative production company that is exploring the possibilities of online video.

Much of the group’s work is commercial, including recent TV ads for Electrolux and Sainsbury’s, and a series of 20 minute videos on the future for Ericsson, notably including the excellent The Future of Learning, Networked Society.

However House of Radon also likes to create interesting videos for their own sake, and is perhaps best known for PressPausePlay, an 80 minute film available for free online, which explores the recent extraordinary democratization of creativity enabled by technology, and the implications. It’s embedded below, well worth taking the time to watch.

The narrative is told through a series of interviews with fascinating creators, including Moby, Seth Godin, Robyn, and many others.
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Carving out the middle: how we must respond to the dangers of the polarization of work

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One of the consistent themes in my Future of Work framework is the polarization of work and value.

In a number of the keynotes and workshops I’ve run recently, including at the Richmond Financial Services Forum in Interlaken, the Institute of Chartered Accountants conference in Melbourne, and for the executive teams of various corporate clients, I’ve pointed to research from noted labor economist David Autor that brings into focus what is happening.

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Source: The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market, David Autor
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The rise of crowdsourcing in Malaysia

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I was recently in Kuala Lumpur to do twin keynotes at the National Crowdsourcing Conference organized by Digital Malaysia, and meet with government officials to discuss how Malaysia can best tap the potential of crowdsourcing.

The Star of Malaysia, the largest English-language newspaper in the country, interviewed me while I was there for a feature section on crowdsourcing. Here are excerpts from some of the articles:

The main article Captivate the crowd looks at the big picture of crowdsourcing and its potential:
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Personalization and the future of retail: Knowing your taste better than you know yourself

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One of my recent series of interviews on the future on the Morning Show was on the future of retail and shopping.

Click on the image to see a video of the segment:

MorningShow2May13

One of the examples I gave is of Trunk Club, which regularly sends a trunk of clothes to its male customers. They can pick anything they like in the trunk, and ship the rest back free of charge.
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The immense role of national and ethnic diaspora in driving global innovation

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For over a decade I have been working with various facets of the idea of Global Innovation Networks: connections around the world that facilitate new endeavors.

Innovation always stems from diverse connections between ideas and people. Bringing in different viewpoints from around the world necessarily provides more opportunities for the new. Moreover, in the many stages of the innovation process there are almost certainly points where resources or capabilities from other countries can create better outcomes.

In my travels I have often seen how national and ethnic diaspora have been at the heart of the connections between nations. The TiE network began in Silicon Valley as The Indus Entrepreneurs, with innovators from the Indian subcontinent creating an organization that is now well and truly global, facilitating connections not just between Indians but also people of any nationality.

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Source: The Economist
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Keynote slides: Crowds and the future of creativity and innovation

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Earlier this month I gave the opening keynote at Crowdsourcing Week on Connecting the Crowd: The Future of Creativity and Innovation.

Here are the slides for my keynote. As always, be aware that my slides are intended as visual support to my presentation, and are not designed to be meaningful on their own. However they may still be useful or of interest to those who did not attend the keynote.

Here are a few quick notes on what I covered:
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Passion and the future of work

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Earlier today I spoke in the keynote session of the Richmond Financial Industry Forum in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Three of us – Jean Claude Biver, Chairman of watchmaker Hublot, Zeno Staub, CEO of Bank Vontobel, and myself – gave 10 minute presentations, followed by a panel discussion between us.

I spoke on Passion and the Future of Work. Below are some distilled thoughts from my keynote presentation.
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Crowdsourcing and building models for sharing value from intellectual property creation

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I’m currently at Crowdsourcing Week where I gave the opening keynote and have been participating in and moderating a number of panel discussions.

One of the panels was written up in ZDNet as Crowdsourcing faces ethical, legal risks

The article is well worth a read, capturing part of what was a very rich discussion on the challenges and opportunities from crowdsourcing.

One of the questions from the audience was on addressing intellectual property issues in crowdsourcing. The article quoted me:
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The evolution of parallel entrepreneurship exemplifies today’s experimental economy

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In today’s world planning is close to obsolete. Companies small and large must experiment to find what works and what doesn’t work. The lean startup movement has provided a clear model of how to iterate through trial, error, and finally success.

There have been many discussions around parallel entrepreneurship and whether it diffuses resources and energy rather than focusing entrepreneurial capabilities on a single endeavor, its rise is a sign of the times.

Entrepreneurs do not want to try a single venture, however many times they can pivot or iterate within that model. They want to try multiple ventures in which they can learn, cross-pollinate, and find what will succeed across the broadest possible domain.

An article in today’s New York Times titled Entrepreneurs Help Build Start-Ups by the Batch provides a good summary of the movement.
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