Of a Saturday morning I feel like watching some nice videos and music as I work. So, as we go along, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite music videos:
Bjork – All is full of love
One of the best videos ever, exploring the future of sexuality amid humans merging with machines. If you like this kind of stuff, check out our new media site: Future of Sex.
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When we launched our Newspaper Extinction Timeline I noted that tablets similar to the iPad of today will cost less than $10 and given away for free by the end of the decade, a prediction that interviewers have frequently questioned me on since.
I have since realized that tablets are likely to be given away far earlier than this, probably first bundled with content subscriptions. However it is not just publishers who would consider subsidizing the cost of a free tablet. Marketers may find it less expensive than traditional advertising to reach the right audience by giving them tablets which embed carefully presented messages. Consumer services companies such as banks could provide handy interfaces within tablets to embed and broaden relationships with select customers.
The following chart comes from John Walkenbach’s blog via Kevin Kelly, suggesting that Kindles will be given away for free by November 2011.
Source: John Walkenbach
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John Winsor, founder of Victors & Spoils, the world’s first crowdsourced agency, gave the opening keynote at our Future of Crowdsourcing Summit in September last November.
It was fascinating to hear about how he had brought together an extraordinarily talented distributed team, and convinced major brands such as Harley-Davidson, GAP, Levi’s, and Virgin America to use a crowdsourcing approach.
Harley-Davidson moved on from its long-standing agency Carmichael Lynch last year, shifting to Victors & Spoils for its creative work. The first work from the agency for Harley-Davidson, based on an idea from “passionate amateur” Whit Hiler, has just been launched:
AdAge interviewed Harley’s Chief Marketing Officer Mark-Hans Richer, who said about the ad:
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I very occasionally send out email updates on what I’ve been up to and the most interesting content generated by our companies. I thought it was worth sharing the one I sent last week, as below.
Please go to our newsletter signup page if you’d like to receive our future updates.
Update and most popular frameworks: business models, predictions, media landscapesHappy New Year! I hope it’s a stunningly good 2011 for you. In what are now very occasional emails I will share the most interesting content and resources from my work and across our companies. This email includes:: – a visual overview of our companies’ activities and business models [NOTE: click on any of the images below for more details. The section links above only work if you are viewing the complete post] |
New York Times today examines the interesting question of Why Some Twitter Posts Catch On, and Some Don’t, starting from the fact that frivolous hashtags such as #worstpickuplines get far more attention than commentary on current affairs such as ‘Mubarak’, and going on to look at a range of research on influence.
The article quotes research which implies what I and a handful of others have been saying for quite a years now.
The structure of a social network — for example, whether it is made up of close friends and colleagues or of like-minded strangers who follow Lady Gaga — can have more influence than the size of a group, researchers say.
My Influence Landscape from 2009 shows the key elements of influence, including a section on ‘Influence Networks’ showing the elements of social network structure that drive the dissemination of influence.
[UPDATE May 2013] The original business model below has now been updated and separated into two visuals: New AHT Group Business Model and AHT Group Strategic Overview
For the last 15 years of my life post-employment I have struggled when people ask me what I do. More recently I have managed to crystallize a simple description of myself: Futurist and Entrepreneur. However that doesn’t explain the diversity of my companies’ activities, and how they fit together. In particular people are often confused by the relationship between our primary companies: Advanced Human Technologies, Future Exploration Network, and The Insight Exchange.
A few months ago I started designing a business model diagram to help me conceptualize the relationship between our brands and activities, our scalable and less scalable business models, and our current priorities. While it included a few personal aspirations, I ended up showing it a number of job applicants to help explain what we are doing. I soon realized I needed a public version of our business model. This is what we created.
AHT Group Business model (click on the image for full-size pdf)
Some comments on a few of the features of the business model:
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A few months ago I did the opening keynote for a national roadshow run by Telstra Business on cloud computing. My big picture piece on Tapping the forces of change was followed by a more detailed presentation by Telstra’s CTO Hugh Bradlow.
It’s taken a little while to get up, but here is a complete video of my 25 minute keynote speech for those who are interested.
If you’d just like to read some of what I covered in the keynote, you can read an article on Six steps to success in a world driven by cloud computing which summarizes some of my messages.
Personal branding is one of the big themes today, for a number of reasons.
As I wrote in five key trends in how influence is transforming society, one of the dominant forces is that reputation is shifting from the corporate to the individual. People build relationships and place trust in individuals more than organizations, changing how (the best) companies organize themselves and engage externally.
In addition, professionals are increasingly shifting to independent work in a global distributed economy. As such they must build their own brands and not rely on their affiliation with the brand of the company for which they work.
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The first of my 11 themes for the Zeitgeist of 2011 was ‘Networked or Not?‘
We are all facing a fundamental choice that will shape our lives. Many dive headlong into a world of always-on connection, open social networks, and oversharing. A few cry halt and choose to live only in the old world of tight-knit personal communication. The result is a divided society.
Addressing exactly that point, a great article in The Guardian titled Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US , drawing particularly on Sherry Turkle’s new book Along Together.
The article notes:
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There is an interesting Quora discussion going on What are the distinctions between Social Business and Enterprise 2.0? As in most Quora discussions some of the top people in the field have weighed in.
I had to chip in myself – here is my comment.
Business terms have a life of their own, just as the meaning of words evolve depending on social usage. Each of these terms has a different meaning to what they did just a year ago.
I find it interesting that many people seems to think that Enterprise 2.0 is more about technology than business. My standard definition of Enterprise 2.0 has two parts:
