Nice vision of how personal technology might evolve in the future... I'm not a gadget man, nor an early adopter, but this but the use of personal technology such as in this video looks appealing even to me.
And, perhaps more importantly, it also shows how personal technology and professional technology ultimately will blend with each other... food for thought for all technology providers -especially at a time when 2 Dutch cities decided today to give budgets to their civil servant to purchase their own technology to use at work (IPads included)... a blunt move, especially for the Public Sector, and certainly a sign of the times ahead.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The future of technology according to a bunch of experts
An interesting overview of the major trends in technology, from various scientific angles and people from different backgrounds, filmed at Google's headquarters in California as part of Science Foo Camp 2010...
glad I have my list of major technology trends more or less confirmed, although the smartest comment probably comes from the woman around 2:30 minutes through the video: 'I don't know'.
glad I have my list of major technology trends more or less confirmed, although the smartest comment probably comes from the woman around 2:30 minutes through the video: 'I don't know'.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Keynote speech on future of media (Gerd Leonhard)
Pretty valuable keynote from media futurist Gerd Leonhard, 27 minutes well spent looking ahead of where mobile, advertisement and media in general is going... I particularly liked the 'non linear' business thought, as well as the notion of 'Return on Involvement' (as opposed to Return on Investment) which is a concept I never heard of yet, but it's appealing...
(PS: The Wall Street Journal calls Gerd ‘one of the leading Media Futurists in the World’. Gerd Leonhard is considered a leading expert on topics such as social media, mobile content and m- commerce, innovation and entrepreneurship, UGC and peer production, copyright, licensing and IPR issues, next-generation advertising, marketing and branding, digital content strategies and the development of next-generation business models in the content, communications & technology industries)
TeleMedia Futures: Megatrends, Scenarios, Challenges and Opportunities In the Next 3 Years - Mr. Gerd Leonhard, Media Futurist from comverse on Vimeo.
(PS: The Wall Street Journal calls Gerd ‘one of the leading Media Futurists in the World’. Gerd Leonhard is considered a leading expert on topics such as social media, mobile content and m- commerce, innovation and entrepreneurship, UGC and peer production, copyright, licensing and IPR issues, next-generation advertising, marketing and branding, digital content strategies and the development of next-generation business models in the content, communications & technology industries)
TeleMedia Futures: Megatrends, Scenarios, Challenges and Opportunities In the Next 3 Years - Mr. Gerd Leonhard, Media Futurist from comverse on Vimeo.
Are the Arab revolts a megatrend?
Some people recently asked me whether the revolts in the Arab countries can be considered as a megatrend. My answer might have disappointed them: no.
I have a couple of rules when looking at megatrends, let’s see if they pass the test with regards of the Arab revolutions:
1) does it last for more than 5 years? Regardless of the outcome, there are good reasons to believe the revolution in itself won’t last for multiple years. There’s an important distinction to be made here: while the consequences of the revolt will probably last for multiple years, the revolt in itself will likely not.
2) does it have an impact, is it disruptive? Here the answer is a clear yes, the events in Northern Africa and the Middle East clearly provoke a shift in society.
3) does it impact a substantial part of society? This one is less clear. The Arab revolts directly impact the populations of these countries, of course, but it’s the consequences (at a geopolitical level) that will have a more general impact, not the event in itself.
4) does it look inevitable, could it easily be reversed? Theoretically, it could, and the ultimate outcome within a few years could still be a return to the ‘old order’.
For all these reasons my answer is ‘no’ to the question whether this is a megatrend, but obviously it is a very important event that will have consequences well into the next decade.
And, as often, this event can in itself hide an underlying trend. Looking at it from a longer perspective, and combining the events in the Levant with what happened in Russia, in Eastern Europe and in some countries in Asia, a trend is emerging: populations are making themselves heard, and are getting organized to make things change according to their will. Both these elements can in themselves be seen as a consequence of the ‘global grid’, since it’s the ease of communicating with each other and the increased knowledge of what happens globally, that might have initiated these movements.
The underlying trend might be a general movement towards more democracy, although this democracy might reveal pretty different then the concept we have of it now. An Arabic democracy is likely to be different from a Western one, just in the way that China is inevitably moving towards its own way of democracy. Fukuyama’s vision of ‘The End of History
’ has never been further away…
I have a couple of rules when looking at megatrends, let’s see if they pass the test with regards of the Arab revolutions:
1) does it last for more than 5 years? Regardless of the outcome, there are good reasons to believe the revolution in itself won’t last for multiple years. There’s an important distinction to be made here: while the consequences of the revolt will probably last for multiple years, the revolt in itself will likely not.
2) does it have an impact, is it disruptive? Here the answer is a clear yes, the events in Northern Africa and the Middle East clearly provoke a shift in society.
3) does it impact a substantial part of society? This one is less clear. The Arab revolts directly impact the populations of these countries, of course, but it’s the consequences (at a geopolitical level) that will have a more general impact, not the event in itself.
4) does it look inevitable, could it easily be reversed? Theoretically, it could, and the ultimate outcome within a few years could still be a return to the ‘old order’.
For all these reasons my answer is ‘no’ to the question whether this is a megatrend, but obviously it is a very important event that will have consequences well into the next decade.
And, as often, this event can in itself hide an underlying trend. Looking at it from a longer perspective, and combining the events in the Levant with what happened in Russia, in Eastern Europe and in some countries in Asia, a trend is emerging: populations are making themselves heard, and are getting organized to make things change according to their will. Both these elements can in themselves be seen as a consequence of the ‘global grid’, since it’s the ease of communicating with each other and the increased knowledge of what happens globally, that might have initiated these movements.
The underlying trend might be a general movement towards more democracy, although this democracy might reveal pretty different then the concept we have of it now. An Arabic democracy is likely to be different from a Western one, just in the way that China is inevitably moving towards its own way of democracy. Fukuyama’s vision of ‘The End of History
’ has never been further away…
Monday, February 21, 2011
How Smart Grids will change energy consumption
No doubt the electricity delivery and by extension the whole utilities market will be subject to profound changes in the next decade. For those of you who wonder why and how, here's a very simple and easy explanation from the World Economic Forum:
Friday, February 18, 2011
The impact of crowdsourcing on the economy
I’ve been thinking a lot about the consequences of Crowdsourcing lately. For sure, crowdsourcing has the potential to change the nature of work, but how will it affect the economy as a whole, and government finance more specifically?
Just follow me in a though experiment…
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the total economy of country X is made of 2 record companies making a total Turnover of 500$ and a profit of 20%. If profits are taxed at 50%, this generates a government income of 50$.
Suddenly two ‘fan-funding’ companies arise (like Sonicangel.com, or Sellaband.com), taking a 20% market share. Typically these companies take less margin (let’s take 5%), since they have less overhead to finance. What happens is that governments now only have 42,5$ income, a decrease of 15%.
But let’s go one step further.
Let’s say the economy of country X only consists of 2 advertisement companies doing nothing else than inventing brand names. Creating a brand name takes multiple workshops, brainstorms, testing etc. Each project is worth 10$, and there is a market of 50 projects a year.
Suddenly two crowdsourcing initiatives like for instance ‘NamingForce.com’ enter the market, and offer a platform for the creative crowd to brainstorm on Brand names and test them out. The person that submitted the Brand name that is ultimately selected by the client gets a reward of 1$. Let’s assume again that these crowdsourcing initiatives get 20% of the market.
What happens now? Not only does the government income drop 20%, but the total market (equivalent to the economic size if the country’s GDP only consists of this activity) also drops, by 18%! Crowdsourcing effectively lowered the total size of the economy!
Before you ask: no, this should not necessarily be alarming. The ‘real’ world (as opposed to the theoretical world in my examples) has seen such waves of innovation and productivity increases in the past, and this has never been catastrophic. It obviously would have a short term impact on the labor market (crowdsourcing tasks by definition take less employees to perform), but the wave of innovation will most probably create new jobs as well…
Food for further thought nevertheless.
Just follow me in a though experiment…
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the total economy of country X is made of 2 record companies making a total Turnover of 500$ and a profit of 20%. If profits are taxed at 50%, this generates a government income of 50$.
Suddenly two ‘fan-funding’ companies arise (like Sonicangel.com, or Sellaband.com), taking a 20% market share. Typically these companies take less margin (let’s take 5%), since they have less overhead to finance. What happens is that governments now only have 42,5$ income, a decrease of 15%.
But let’s go one step further.
Let’s say the economy of country X only consists of 2 advertisement companies doing nothing else than inventing brand names. Creating a brand name takes multiple workshops, brainstorms, testing etc. Each project is worth 10$, and there is a market of 50 projects a year.
Suddenly two crowdsourcing initiatives like for instance ‘NamingForce.com’ enter the market, and offer a platform for the creative crowd to brainstorm on Brand names and test them out. The person that submitted the Brand name that is ultimately selected by the client gets a reward of 1$. Let’s assume again that these crowdsourcing initiatives get 20% of the market.
What happens now? Not only does the government income drop 20%, but the total market (equivalent to the economic size if the country’s GDP only consists of this activity) also drops, by 18%! Crowdsourcing effectively lowered the total size of the economy!
Before you ask: no, this should not necessarily be alarming. The ‘real’ world (as opposed to the theoretical world in my examples) has seen such waves of innovation and productivity increases in the past, and this has never been catastrophic. It obviously would have a short term impact on the labor market (crowdsourcing tasks by definition take less employees to perform), but the wave of innovation will most probably create new jobs as well…
Food for further thought nevertheless.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Crowdsourcing applications in Public Sector
While looking for the most compelling examples of Crowdsourcing applications, I tumbled on this video of a lecture of Brandon Kesler, CEO of Crowdsourcing platform Challengepost.
First couple of minutes are spent explaining crowdsourcing, but after that come some interesting examples of how Public Sector can use crowdsourcing to innovate. Excellent to see this innovative way of doing business applied to governments, I wonder if there are any European examples though...
First couple of minutes are spent explaining crowdsourcing, but after that come some interesting examples of how Public Sector can use crowdsourcing to innovate. Excellent to see this innovative way of doing business applied to governments, I wonder if there are any European examples though...
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Applications of the Internet of Things
Since the 'Internet of Things' is one of the trends I included in my list of Megatrends, I have been looking for its simplest, clearest explanation. This video from IBM is definitely the most simple I could find, although it falls somewhat short in showing the real usefulness of having everything connected to everything (and everyone) else.
Of course, I can see clear benefits in terms of making energy use, health care and transport more efficient, to name just a few, but do I really want to know from a distance whether the bottle of milk in my fridge is almost empty? Once applied on a micro-scale of the individual, the concept looks a bit like gadgets to me, but maybe I'm old-fashioned...
Of course, I can see clear benefits in terms of making energy use, health care and transport more efficient, to name just a few, but do I really want to know from a distance whether the bottle of milk in my fridge is almost empty? Once applied on a micro-scale of the individual, the concept looks a bit like gadgets to me, but maybe I'm old-fashioned...
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The future of Augmented Reality, some examples
If like me you need to actually see stuff before grasping its full meaning, and if like me you are intrigued by augmented reality, here's some video's that will help you better understand the concept and the usage of augmented reality in day-to-day life:
I like the quote at the end: 'our mind is the only boundary', but nevertheless applications discussed hee look very useful:
Traveling gets some new meaning as well:
The renewed power of geographical maps:
...try before you buy...
Okay, this one freaked me out as well...
I like the quote at the end: 'our mind is the only boundary', but nevertheless applications discussed hee look very useful:
Traveling gets some new meaning as well:
The renewed power of geographical maps:
...try before you buy...
Okay, this one freaked me out as well...
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