On Youtube you'll find an interesting bunch of video's of the Web2.0 Summit last week... You can find the interviews with CEO's from Google, Twitter, Facebook etc, as well as an interesting view of 2 of the most successful Venture Capitalists in Cilicon Valley (just search for 'Web 2.0 Summit' on Youtube and you'll get all the videos).
The one most useful for my Megatrend exercise is the speech of Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley, who provides a very valuable overview of the major Internet trends, covering Mobile, Social Ecosystems, Advertisements etc. Some key learnings from my part:
Tencent vs Facebook: we tend to refer to Facebook when talking about social media, but the Chinese social community site Tecens already has more users than Facebook, and is quite different in some aspects (people are virtual, for instance -and for obvious reasons);
Smartphones will outpace PC's in 2 years from now... clearly if this happens this will ignite a complete set of innovative applications (and consumer behavior shifts);
Not so sure I like this one: but advertisement will invade social media in the years to come (more clicks for less $$);
Innovation don't necessarily come from new entrants any longer... incumbents like Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix etc are showing ability to develop very disruptive business models as well...
As you know from my previous posts, McKinsey is performing some thorough research on global trends and how they impact business and society. In this video, senior McKinsey people discuss why and how companies should adapt to these trends... worth following up (which I'll do in this blog as well):
"Today’s biggest business challenge involves knowing how to respond to a world in which the frame and basis of competition are always changing. Against that backdrop, any effort to set corporate strategy must consider more than just traditional performance measures, such as a company’s core capabilities and the structure of the industry in which it competes. Managers must also gain an understanding of deep external forces and the narrower trends that they can unleash.
In a major research effort, McKinsey identified five global forces whose impact—individually and in confluence with other trends—is rewriting the list of opportunities and challenges facing global business. They include the rise of emerging markets as centers of consumerism and innovation; the imperative to improve developed-market productivity; ever-expanding global networks; the tension between rapidly rising resource consumption and sustainability; and the increasingly larger role of the state as a business regulator and partner.
In this video, the latest installment of our ongoing examination of these global forces, McKinsey experts pinpoint the effects of trends, explore their makeup, and detail the actions that companies can take to make the most of the opportunities the trends carry along with them."
I’m in the middle of updating the Megatrends exercise within my company, this time in a completely different way –more about this to come. One of the topics we’re deep-diving into is the impact the ‘Generation Y’, or ‘Millennials’ will have on our business.
Our business is rather B2B, but I suspect the new generation will not only leave its marks on consumer habits (for sure they will), but might also impact the way work is organized, and the way companies do business together. The table beneath gives a pretty good idea about the changes in expectations and attitude the new generation is adopting (I picked the table from the Internet, not sure about the exact source I’m afraid):
Some people commented that these chances are unlikely to happen because of the recent crisis. With regard to work, for instance, the crisis would have made the next generation go back to the ‘traditional’ views of security and lifelong employment.
This remark is a showcase of the ‘zeitgeist bias’, as discussed by Adam Gordon in his book ‘Future Savvy’ (discussed in a previous Blog post). Trends, and especially if related to generational changes, last much longer than the memory of a crisis.
No doubt the next generation will think differently, and will have different expectations of life. They will even learn differently, in that the Internet provides ways to educate oneself which were unimaginable just a few years ago. And this doesn’t account solely on the fortunate ones who got their first laptop at the age of 2. As Sugata Mitra shows through a number of experiments, the Internet profoundly increases the ability to learn in a meaningful way. It also shows that, if we can provide Internet access to an increasing amount of people globally, this might reduce the educational deficit that ‘poor’ countries have. Okay, I might sound naïve, or ideological at best, but I don’t see this as an insult ;-)
At any rate, the presentation of Sugata Mitra is worth watching, since it provides a complete new picture on the abilities of our kids:
