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Marshall McLuhan very often provides an instructive reference point for how we understand our changing world. As I wrote in my Chapter 1 of Living Networks: The brilliant visionary Marshall McLuhan accurately described the media as an extension of our senses. Your eyes can see what’s happening in your immediate vicinity, your ears can hear
Continue reading Why crowds are an extension of our capabilities
Below is a brief interview I did when I spoke at TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam recently. Some of the points I cover:
[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website] Over the last two weeks I have delivered 8 keynotes or workshops on crowdsourcing across Western Europe. Most of them have been highly interactive sessions, bringing out new ideas or highlighting common issues or concerns. Part of the intent has been to gather
Continue reading 8 crowd insights from 8 crowdsourcing workshops
TheNextWeb produced a good quality video of my keynote at TheNextWeb Conference 2012, shown below. It doesn’t show all of my full motion graphics presentation, though it frequently cuts to show segments of the visuals through my keynote. I will create and share a full video of my motion graphics presentation along with the audio
Continue reading Video of TheNextWeb keynote on The Future of Crowds
Internet dystopian Andrew Keen, author most recently of Digital Vertigo, has just spoken at TheNextWeb Summit and Conference. He and his arguments are intensely annoying because his case is blindly and obtusely one-sided, though it is useful to have his voice to provide a counterpoint to digital utopianism. Part of his argument is that we
Continue reading Why Andrew Keen is fundamentally wrong about crowds
On April 28, immediately after my keynote at TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam, I will travel to Cologne to run a workshop on the Future of Crowdsourcing. Unfortunately I will miss what looks like an excellent Crowdsourcing Summit on April 27 as I will be speaking in Amsterdam that day. I’ve made a short video to
Continue reading Future of Crowdsourcing workshop at Crowdsourcing Summit in Cologne
Yesterday I ran Getting Results From Crowds and Crowd Business Models workshops in Sydney, the first in a global series of crowdsourcing workshops. In opening the Crowd Business Models workshop, I ran through some of the driving forces that are shifting business models to crowds. I had quickly drawn up the list the evening before
Continue reading The MegaTrend of Distributed Attention is driving everything
In Chapter 2 of Getting Results From Crowds on The Rise of Crowdsourcing we included a Crowdsourcing Timeline, showing a selection of some of the important events in the world of crowds over the last couple of hundred years. Tapping crowds has a long and illustrious past, with of course an acceleration over the last
Continue reading Infographic: Timeline of the acceleration of crowdsourcing
This evening I spoke at the Crowdfunding for Change event run by Avis Mulhall‘s Think Act Change. The event kicked off with a presentations by Adam Chapnick, head of business development at seminal creative crowdfunding platform IndieGogo, and award-winning film director Gillian Leahy, followed by a panel consisting of myself together with Alan Crabbe, co-founder
Continue reading Insights and real-life case studies in effective crowdfunding for change
This morning I appeared on Channel 7′s The Morning Show talking about the world 10 years from now. A few of the things I mentioned in the interview include:
The future of libraries is a rich and fascinating topic. It’s over 10 years now since I first gave a keynote on the topic, to an an audience of over 1,200 members of the Australian Libraries and Information Association conference. In 2007 I gained notoriety on the topic when Richard Watson and I put libraries
Continue reading In the future libraries may die, but they will be reborn
I’m a big fan of Tim Stock‘s work, which weaves together a deep network perspective with a rich view of how culture is changing informed by semiotic analysis. I earlier shared one of his presentations in a post on how the culture of luxury is changing. The slides to his presentation at SXSW today on
Continue reading Using network perspectives to visualize changing culture and meaning
The role and prominence of online markets for work have soared dramatically over the last few years, but this is just the beginning. I have been following the rise of online markets for work since Elance was founded in 1999, writing about them in my 2002 book Living Networks and dedicating a large chunk of
It strikes me that in these these confused and confusing times we should lay down clear thoughts about what we believe in. I am mustering my thoughts across a number domains to express what I think is important. However one of the questions is what to call these statements. On the face of it ‘Manifesto’
Pew Internet & American Life Project’s latest study on the future of the internet examines how young people will be affected by technology. The study selected 1,021 “experts” and asked them to choose between one of the following statements, with no other choices, with these results:
We released our Map of the ExaTrends of the Decade a while ago now. However the decade is still young, and all of these ExaTrends (which is a MegaTrend cubed) have a long way yet to play out. We have created a set of slides to make the 14 ExaTrends easier to read and understand.
For many who come across the idea of crowdsourcing in its many forms, their first thoughts are about the ethical issues. As such, in writing Getting Results From Crowds, it was important to address the ethical domain rather than ignoring or glossing it. We address the ethical issues of crowdsourcing in Chapter 5 on Relationship
Our online magazine FutureofSex.net explores this fascinating aspect of the intersection of technology and society. The rise of our connected world has implications that reach into almost every aspect of our lives. I did many Valentine’s Day interviews back in 2003 and 2004, talking about proximity dating, one way in which technology is changing how
Continue reading Remote Sex: the perfect Valentine’s Day present
Richard Watson of NowandNext.com and I have collaborated extensively over the years, including on numerous client projects. Richard is very well-known for his Trend Blend annual series of maps (here are the 2007-2010 trend maps). I collaborated with Richard on several of them but not on the more recent ones, partly as he is now
For any student of potential disruptive technological advances, life extension inevitably looms as one that could completely change the condition of humanity. While there is heated debate about whether the current proposed approaches to life extension being proposed have any merit, there is no question that major advances are possible in the field.
A year ago I shared a visualization of our AHT Group Business Model. Following that, I am now sharing our group 2012 Priorities. This comes from the principle of Open Business you can see in the 7 Enablers for our strategy. Our intention is to share more about the drivers of our business. The 2012
Continue reading Open business: Sharing our group priorities for 2012 – Why not?
In December I created a list of 12 themes to frame the year ahead, and then explored the ideas in a number of media interviews. The slides for the 12 themes have been seen almost 50,000 times now, suggesting they struck a chord somewhere. It’s now interesting to reflect on these, especially the response from
Continue reading Dominant themes for 2012: transformation and beyond
[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website] Research firm IDC has forecast that there will be 1.3 billion ‘mobile workers’ in the world by 2015, representing 37.2% of the global workforce. This points to the massive explosion of what I call the ‘global talent economy’, in which talent can be
Continue reading In the global talent economy over 50% will be mobile workers
Yesterday I appeared on the Australia national breakfast program Today, talking about what we can expect in social media and technology in 2012. I was on holidays in Melbourne so spoke from the studio there. You can see the clip below, or on the Today Show Video page, under the title Social Trends for 2012.
Continue reading Today show: Social media and technology trends for 2012
I believe strongly in visual frameworks as a way of communicating and engaging with complex ideas. I share these on the web, sometimes use them as central frames for my keynotes, apply them in strategy workshops, use them to shape my own thinking on the topics they cover, and sometimes create private custom visual frameworks
It’s almost the end of the year, so I’ll try to do a few compilations of my most popular posts of the year. Today, on the general theme of the future, here are 12 (+1 for next year) that have attracted the most interest… 1. Zeitgeist 2011: anxiety, mobility, blending, indulgence, immersion, wrath, nudity and
Continue reading 12 most popular posts of the year on the future
For those who love rich data on the world of media and telecoms, the release of a report by UK telecommunications regulator Ofcom is always a cause for celebration. Last year I covered some of Ofcom’s report on key trends on communication and media usage. Here I will excerpt a few of the highlights from
Continue reading Fantastic international comparative data on media, social media, and mobile
There are many themes and ideas threaded through our rich and complex times, so when I choose concepts to represent the heart of the year ahead, there is a lot to sort through and select. There were many dozens of ideas competing for the 12 themes I chose to represent what awaits us in 2012
Continue reading Why luxury defines our society and what to expect in 2012
This morning I appeared on the Australian national breakfast TV program Sunrise in their ‘Ask an Expert’ segment, talking about the year ahead. Here is the 4 minute clip. In the brief segment I draw on a number of the 12 Themes for 2012 I recently released. The key topics we discussed were:
We recently launched our 12 Themes for 2012, shown below, in which the third of the 12 themes is ‘Privacy vanishes’. 2012: 12 Themes View more presentations from rossdawson One of the drivers of privacy vanishing is the rise of facial recognition. As the 2012 themes document notes, while Facebook has prominently launched its facial
Continue reading Will your privacy completely vanish? It depends how we use facial recognition
Today we are launching my new book Getting Results From Crowds: The definitive guide to using crowdsourcing to grow your business! This has been, in all, many years in the planning and making, and I’m extremely happy with how it has come out. It is definitely my most useful book, and while it’s hard to
Continue reading Launching my new book today! Getting Results From Crowds
Last week I participated in and spoke at an Education Roundtable organized by Telstra, which brought together a small group of very senior executives in all layers of education in Australia. In the same way that I have been drawn into discussions on the future of government over the last 18 months, I am finding
Continue reading Tech-savvy children are driving the future of education
Towards the end of each year I share some thoughts on what awaits in the year ahead. It is actually a lot easier to look years into the future than just a single year, as while we can readily discern broad trends, the major events in a year are usually unforeseeable, though they may express
Continue reading 12 Themes for 2012: what we can expect in the year ahead
This year I have been drawn significantly into the retail industry, being the lead technology advisor for a major study on the long-term future of shopping centers, and giving keynotes at a number of public and in-house retail industry events on topics including the future of retail shopping districts and social media in retail. We
Continue reading The future of retail: the rise of omnichannel marketing and sales
In Chapter 1 of my 2002 book Living Networks I wrote: When did you last say or hear someone say “what a small world”? People have an unquenchable fascination with how richly we are connected, never ceasing to be amazed by the seeming coincidences of how one friend knows another through a completely different route.
Continue reading Our shrinking degrees of separation: heading down from 6 to 3
AHT GROUP VENTURES & FEATURED CONTENT
About the Blog author
Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of AHT Group, which consists of 3 companies: consulting, publishing, and ventures firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy firm Future Exploration Network, and events company The Insight Exchange.
Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.
Books By Ross Dawson (Incl. Free Chapters)
Articles and Reports
Future of Media Report 2008
Future of Media Report 2007
Future of Media Report 2006
Executive Insights into Enterprise Social Network Strategy
Future of the Media Lifecycle
Future of Media: Strategy Tools
Executive Insights into Enterprise 2.0
Web 2.0 Framework
Trend map 2007+
Extinction Timeline
SAP White Paper: Service Delivery Innovation
White Paper: The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services
CNET/ University of Virginia White Paper: How Technology Purchasing Decisions Are Really Made
PM Network magazine's lead article on virtual teamwork (440KB), featuring Ross Dawson on the cover
Microsoft Strategic White Paper: How To Lock-in Your Clients (1.1MB)
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- Apr 27, 2012 – 20 minutos April 27, 2012
- Apr 26, 2012 – TheNextWeb April 26, 2012
- Apr 18, 2012 – Le Monde April 18, 2012
- Apr 7, 2012 – The Age April 6, 2012
- Apr 5, 2012 – Sky Business April 5, 2012
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