March 2008 Archives

On Friday I caught up with Euan Semple in London. It was great to meet, as we’d just conversed over email, voice, and video up until then, and of course had him present over video at our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum in February.

It recently occurred to me that when I catch up with interesting people, I should make a brief video at the end of the meeting to summarize the most intriguing ideas that had come up in the course of our conversation. This is the first time I have tried it, though I hope to do this a lot more regularly now. One of the biggest benefits is capturing for myself the most interesting insights from the conversations I have. It’s also great to share these with others.

In this case I did a very poor job of making the video. First the tape ran out in the middle of the conversation. Then I rewound the tape, and ended up going over the beginning of the earlier conversation. Hopefully I have learned my lesson from this – there are still some very interesting points made by Euan in the video. Forgive the discontinuities.

For the last ten years I have believed that collaborative filtering will be one of the most fundamental platforms for business and society. In a world of massively increasing information overload, the only way we will cope is to collaborate to filter what will be most relevant to us. Early this decade I was finding myself very surprised by how slow progress had been over the last five years, despite some interesting research and initiatives. However the last five years on the Internet could almost be characterized as the rise of collaborative filtering. Our Web 2.0 Framework is in a sense a description of how we collectively filter information. Almost all the significant developments on the web I would interpret as related to this evolution of collaborative filtering.

An article out a few days ago in the New York Times titled Finding Political News Online, The Young Pass It On described how young people share political news they are interested in by email and on social networks. In the same way, many young people primarily read articles that has found them in this way. In short:

“..they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.”

Japan and Singapore are examples of nations that have had highly interventionist industrial policies and industry support through the second half of the twentieth century, with great success. However once economies become developed, the key issues are far less about manufacturing prowess. Today the buzzwords in national economic development are knowledge, creativity, media, content, entertainment, design, and the like. All of these flow easily across boundaries. Moreover, the educational and social structures required to support them are dramatically different to those that support the creation of an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse.

When I was in Singapore this Monday I met with the Media Development Authority, a government agency devoted to building Singapore’s capabilities in the media and content space. Among other activities, it actively encourages interactive media companies, gaming ventures, and content development. Initiatives include media education, supporting PC games, and developing a research ecosystem .

This morning I was interviewed on the Australian national breakfast television program the Today show, together with our new family pet, the robot dinosaur Pleo. The video is below.

[UPDATE:] This TV segment is also available on the NineMSN website in better quality.

While it makes for a nice fun TV segment, I actually think that there is something fundamentally important at work here. As a futurist, one of the most important issues I consider is the evolving relationship between people and technology. Throughout history, that relationship has often been problematic, with notably the Luddites smashing machines, and more recently just about everyone having experienced immense frustration with their computers not doing what they’re supposed to do.

Following the ground laid by Sony’s robotic dog Aibo, Pleo is the first generation of commercial robotic pets that acts so we can form genuine emotional ties with it. I’ve written before about emotional robots such as Paro the seal and been interviewed in Newsday on how emotional robots are used to great effect in therapy and aged care. Pleo has reached the threshold of being a fun and interactive “lifeform” (as the manufacturer Ugobe describes it), and also is highly affordable at US$350 (which may seem expensive for a toy, but is very cheap compared with for example visits to the vet for real live pets).

Over the last week FriendFeed has being the hot topic of the online world, soaring in popularity after an already strong start from its launch on February 25. FriendFeed allows you to see all of the online activities of the people you like or admire, who choose to share that data. So for example I have created a FriendFeed for Ross Dawson that brings together a summary of blog posts I’ve written, what I’ve bookmarked on del.icio.us, shared on StumbleUpon and Google Reader, videos I’ve posted on YouTube, pictures on Flickr, profile changes on LinkedIn, and songs I’ve loved on Last.FM. There are currently a total of 28 services that people can include in profiling what they are doing online.

On one level, this provides a quite staggering depth of visibility into what people are doing, and ultimately who they are as people. I’ve written before about the role of exhibitionism in allowing Web 2.0 to flourish, and this is evident once again in FriendFeed. Of course, it is supposed to be primarily about keeping track of your friends’ rather than strangers’ lives, and the reality is that all of this information is available anyway. It’s just that it has been brought about into one place. Not just that, it is a community itself, allowing comments and other ways to respond to people’s content directly, rather than going back to the source.

While there are other competitors in this space, including SocialThing! (see ReadWriteWeb’s comparison), the availability – and success – of these services is a fundamentally important transition in the online world. The reason why Facebook has been so successful is that it allows people a quick way of keeping in touch with what their friends are up to. Once either all the feeds are available from people’s current social network activities, or people start updating their profiles and activities in a more open format, social networks will be a completely different space.

A few days ago I attended a morning of the second Adtech Sydney, after last year chairing the keynote panel on the new media mix and the panel on blogs as a marketing tool last year. The event has progressed over its very promising start last year, with apparently around 30% more attendees, and an exhibition sprawling into new rooms. It is certainly a major convening point for the industry in Australia, with most of the major players involved or attending.

I spoke on the panel session on Innovation in the Digital Marketplace, together with Karim Temsamani, General Manager of Google Australia/ NZ, Simon Smith, Managing Director of eBay Australia, and Warren Lee, CEO of APN Online. Matt Whale, Director of ?WhatIf!, moderated the panel. I think it was a good session, with us managing to address some of the important points in what is a rather sprawling topic, though perhaps we agreed a bit too much…

A few of the points that I made were:

* Levels of innovation. There is much focus on innovation at the product (new services) and channel (new uses of combinations of digital channels for marketing such as Coke Studios, linking outdoor with SMS, Dell’s Ideastorm etc.) levels. However all of this happens in the context of business model innovation, and ultimately industry structure innovation (for example the shift of the primary platform to social networks). While only a few are able to play effectively at the industry structure level, actually changing the game, any innovation at lower levels needs to take into account the state of industry structure or platform innovation.

The winners of Vishal Sharma’s Startup Carnival have been announced.

The first three prize winners are:
1. Scouta
2. GoodBarry
3. Suburbview

The three judges (Duncan Riley, Justin Davies and myself) scoured through the 24 applications to identify the winners.

My formal comment after judging the field was:

It was very encouraging to see many exciting new market entrants as well as more established firms in the carnival. The depth and breadth of entrepreneurial talent in Australia is rapidly growing, and taking advantage of the massive opportunities emerging in the online space. Hats off to the drive and initiative of the entrepreneurs behind the very impressive array of entries.

Tuesday’s edition of The Australian has an article titled Business yet to harness Web 2.0. Overall it takes a rather sceptical approach to the topic, though it does include some positive comments.

Beginning with an overview of what Web 2.0, and suggesting it is confusing, it goes on:

Business strategy analyst Ross Dawson says Web 2.0 systems are becoming part of everyday business processes, like it or not.

"Virtually every large organisation is using these tools and in many cases it's not sanctioned as part of an overall technology strategy.

"However, partly in recognition that many users are doing this anyway, large organisations are deciding this is something they need to think about, develop a strategy, and understand the value and the risks," Dawson says.

The article then quotes IDC research that 50% of companies in the Asia Pacific see Web 2.0 as a business opportunity, while 8% see it as a threat. It says that Australian corporate giants Telstra, Westpac, Lend Lease, AMP, and Suncorp are all active in Web 2.0, though apparently the last three declined to comment for the article, saying it is too early to speak about their initiatives. This is rather disappointing, since I know that for at least two of these companies their activities are absolutely advanced enough to share with comfort.

Robots have been perhaps the most-predicted and least-realized aspect of our future. Decades ago we believed that robots would soon be part of the household, doing useful tasks for humans finally able to laze about rather than doing chores. This has not yet come to pass, though washing machines, for example, are arguably task-specific robots. What was not so expected was that robots would be something we would bond to emotionally.

I’ve written and been interviewed about a variety of aspects of the future of robots, including therapeutic robots, emotional robots in aged care, and the economic role of robots. Now that robots have reached a sufficient level of maturity, we have our very own robot pet in the family.

My wife Victoria Buckley, inspired by Where’s My Jetpack, a book she gave me for Christmas, recently bought a Pleo, the latest generation of robotic pet. Pleo is a robotic dinosaur that behaves like a domestic pet – curious, cute, cuddly, and responsive to interaction and people’s emotions.

The makers of Pleo, Ugobe, have a neat site where users can set up their own Pleo blogs (plogs). Victoria has been writing the adventures of our Pleo (named Titus) on her plog, worth reading for the cute photos of Titus with our eighteen-month old daughter Leda alone!

Below is a brief video (1:36 min) of my thoughts on the role of robot pets in our lives.

The week before the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum, Future Exploration Network and IBM hosted a roundtable of senior executives discussing Enterprise 2.0.

Highlights of the discussions were written up in a report which is being made openly available, to assist other executives in considering the key issues involved. Download the report here:

Executive Insights into Enterprise 2.0:
Lessons from the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Roundtable

INTRODUCTION
Enterprise 2.0 – the application of Web 2.0 approaches inside organisations - is one of the most topical issues today for senior technology executives. To eludicate the concepts and to enable experiences to be shared, Future Exploration Network and IBM invited a select group of senior executives to Sydney’s Level 41 restaurant on 13 February 2008. In a free-ranging discussion overlooking Sydney’s harbour, the executives discussed Enterprise 2.0 and its implications and potential for large organisations.

CONTENTS
Roundtable Participants
Introduction to Enterprise 2.0
Defining Enterprise 2.0
Identifying Business Value
Risks and Concerns
Social Networks in the Enterprise
The Shifting Role of IT
Organisational Culture in Enterprise 2.0
The Role of Governance

There has been some great media coverage of the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum. Below is a summary of some of the articles and media that are available online. It is very encouraging that the mainstream media is not only taking up these themes, but giving it such positive coverage - the articles are well worth a read.

Sydney Morning Herald: Facebook up to it
Excellent review of the event and the rise of Enterprise 2.0

Smartcompany: Web 2.0: Our winning ways
Interview with Ross Dawson on the state of Enterprise 2.0

MIS The Scoop podcast: Australian Enterprise 2.0 lessons revealed
Podcast of excerpts from the Enterprise 2.0 case studies presented at the Executive Forum

Internal Comms Hub: Enterprise 2.0 should be harnessed as a strategic asset
Overview of the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum and key lessons

Computerworld: Janssen-Cilag dances Enterprise 2.0 jig
Review of Janssen-Cilag case study presented at the Executive Forum

The Financial Standard: Wikis may be working for Westpac
Review of Westpac case study presented at the Executive Forum

Metaverse Journal: Enterprise 2.0 forum - Business IS getting it
Review of Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum

NineMSN: Social networking sites help boost business: expert
Ross Dawson’s on the value of social networking for organizations

Social Media Show: Podcast interviews with David Holloway and Stephen Collins

[UPDATE]
The Australian: Business yet to harness Web 2.0
Review of Web 2.0 in Australia, quoting speakers at Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum

We have been posting the speaker presentations at the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum on the event blog as they have been made available. Below is a summary of the presentations that the speakers have provided to us:

(Note: to see slide details in the slide shows, view the slides on Slideshare and put the presentation into full screen mode).

Be sure to check out the rest of the content on the Enterprise 2.0 blog - there have been some great contributions from speakers and many participants.

Ross Dawson, Chairman, Future Exploration Network

Euan Semple
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2092226/Euan-Semple-Handout

Jason Calacanis’ company Mahalo includes hundreds of interesting user submitted ‘How To’ guides. The team saw a gap, and created their own list of 17 (and growing) tips on how to save money running a startup.

It’s a good read, and eminently practical. The thrust of the tips are to save money on things that aren’t important, but to spend on the things that are important, particularly those that make staff more productive (which includes making them happy). For example, Jason says “buy cheap tables and expensive chairs” – tables are a commodity but good chairs make people more productive and effective. He also recommends buying extra screens for staff, which makes them more efficient at their work, and buying home computers for those who want to work extra hours at home. If staff are salaried, buy them lunch so they don’t leave the office, and get an expensive automatic coffee machine to keep people from wasting time going to the local coffee shop.

Some have suggested that Jason’s tips suggest a total lack of balance, and certainly all of this can be taken too far. However as long as people can go out to enjoy some sunshine when they feel it’s appropriate, this all makes sense.

The one tip that I absolutely don’t agree with is:

“Go to each of your vendors every 6-9 months and ask for 10-30% off. If half of them say yes you'll save 5-15% on fixed costs. People will give you a discount if they think they are going to lose the business.”

I'm at the PR and New Media Summit in Sydney, organised by frocomm. The delegates, drawing on frocomm's market presence, are primarily in-house PR people, with a good represention of government departments as well as corporates. The initial show of hands on how many people read blogs (a few), write blogs (almost none), listen to podcasts ( fair few), or create podcasts (reasonable smattering), indicates most here are here to learn. Australian organizations have In the main been slow to engage externally with social media, though more case studies are becoming visible.

Ross Monaghan's engaging opening presentation gave a broad overview of the scene, including showing the audience Michael Wesch's marvellous Teaching the Machine video. He also shared results from a survey the conference organizers had recently run, with notably 55% of CEOs saying they couldn't see the value from new media. He did use quite a few examples of how organizations including Southwest Airlines, General Motors, and others, though unfortunately no Australian cases.

An interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald titled Is that a computer in your pocket? examines how mobile phones, PDAs, portable computers and more are converging. It quotes me as follows:

According to Ross Dawson, chairman of the Future Networks think tank, other obstacles will also frustrate users looking for a portable mobile computing solution. The first is the limitation of existing small screen technologies to give a satisfying viewing experience. The second is the need for a more efficient means of inputting data on the device or through accessories such as fold-away keyboards.

He adds that the usability of a mobile for computing functions is also dependent on whether you must hold it to your ear or not.

"When you do that you cannot see it. Although more people are using ear buds or Bluetooth, they are still the minority. If you are making appointments when speaking to someone you need to have a separate interface".

While there are many issues at play here, the interfaces to mobile devices are probably the most important factor in how they will be used in the future. I’ve written before about the role of video glasses and portable displays in making mobile devices more embedded in our lives. Similar issues of interfaces and immersion apply in home entertainment and living online.

I absolutely believe that mobile devices will be central to our lives and even entertainment, however first the interfaces for input and output must become seamless and compelling. The current generation of mobile devices and peripherals is on the verge of that becoming reality.

The recent Slate article on the future of libraries, together with the Extinction Timeline referred to in the piece, have been slashdotted.

For those not familiar with this term, Slashdot was the first of the user filtered websites, and has always proudly sported the moniker “News for Nerds”. When I wrote about it in my 2002 book Living Networks, it was already a focus for the technology community in finding out what was hot news. To be “slashdotted” meant to be linked to from Slashdot, and the massive ensuing traffic often resulted in servers crashing.

Today servers and bandwidth are far more solid, so sites are less likely to fall over. Moreover, attention has shifted to the new generation of user filtered websites and services such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and many more. However Slashdot still has a devoted following in the tech community, it remains a great source for what is important, interesting, and quirky, and it still gives a massive boost to traffic.