Recently in Technology trends Category
The most recent Kochie’s Business Builders program focused on online business. It started with an interview with me about the big picture, after which I went out to interview two of Australia’s most successful online businesses: Freelancer.com and BigCommerce. Below are the videos of the interview I did with Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, together
Continue reading Freelancer.com: There has never been a better time to start an online business
The Newspaper Extinction Timeline below was launched one year ago today. It received plenty of attention, getting published in newspapers and other mainstream media in over 30 countries, and being seen well over a million times. Click on image to download full framework Today a commenter on the original post asked me if anything had
Continue reading Revisiting the Newspaper Extinction Timeline on its first anniversary
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has just released some great research on how people use tablets (still mainly iPads) to consume news. The infographic below summarizes the findings – click on the image to go through to the original full-size version. The very short summary is that those who own tablets usually
Continue reading How tablets are changing how we consume news
Earlier this week I was interviewed on ABC TV about the future of cars, in a program to coincide with the start of World Solar Challenge, the annual solar car race covering the 3,021 km from Darwin to Adelaide. I talked about several facets of the future of cars, including changing energy sources and their
This is very, very good. This video created by Apple in 1987 shows how a ‘Knowledge Navigator’ would work, depicting a university professor interacting with a tablet computer through voice. The system’s animated avatar summarizes emails, responds to voice commands, extracts and displays data, provides intelligent information retrieval, and provides message filtering. This video was
Continue reading [VIDEO] In 1987 Apple predicted it would launch Siri in 2011
This awesome video from New Scientist TV shows a surgical robot with a human operator peeling a grape. This technology greatly augments what human surgeons can do, and also provides a platform for telesurgery. The New Scientist article Watch a surgical robot peel a grape, says:
I caught up with fellow futurist Kristin Alford last week, yet another first time face-to-face meeting after a long time interacting online. It seems most of the people I meet these days are people I know from Twitter. Kristin pointed me to some of what her company Bridge8 is doing in creating animated videos about
Continue reading Animated excursions into the future: the extraordinary implications of utility fog
I recently gave the opening keynote at Local Government Association of Tasmania‘s annual conference. On the occasion of their 100th anniversary, they wanted to look forward to the future as well as to their past. Incidentally, the event was just two days after I gave the opening keynote at the Institute of Public Administration NSW’s
We have just posted an ad on Elance, looking for editors/ writers/ project managers for some of our existing and forthcoming online publications. Please apply on Elance if this seems like a match, or pass it on to others if you think it might be of interest. If you have questions before applying you can
Chris Espinosa has written a very interesting piece about the Silk browser that comes on Amazon’s freshly announced Fire tablet. The “split browser” notion is that Amazon will use its EC2 back end to pre-cache user web browsing, using its fat back-end pipes to grab all the web content at once so the lightweight Fire-based
On Friday a journalist from the Herald Sun called me to ask for my response to an ‘analysis’ suggesting that $1.4 billion of worker productivity is lost to playing Angry Birds. It seems that my answers turned the story around from what could have been yet another populist headline to Is Angry Birds the new
Continue reading Angry Birds and productivity at work: why distractions can help
In this final video in the series of ‘futurist conversations’ between myself and Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency, we discuss the future of Nokia as a keyhole on where the mobile phone market is going. Here are a few of the points we make in the conversation:
I was just interviewed by ABC TV for tonight’s 7pm news about Steve Jobs’ resignation as CEO of Apple. My initial reaction is that is as close to a non-event as it could be. It was absolutely major news when Jobs announced his first medical leave for a life-threatening disease. It underlined that he would
This month’s Qantas Business Radio has a technology focus, including interviews with Nick Leeder, Managing Director of Google Australia, Simon Hackett, Managing Director of Internode, Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital, Charis Palmer, Editor of Technology Spectator, Ian Hogg, CEO of FremantleMedia Australia, as well as myself. There are some great insights in the various
Continue reading Qantas Business Radio: why crowdsourcing will drive the future of organizations
Financial services is one of the most industries in which the use of social media is the most relevant, not least because customer service is a critical differentiator between highly commoditized offerings. While financial services and banking were traditionally highly relationship-based, the shift to online has significantly eroded those relationships. Social media, used well, provides
Continue reading Research: The acceleration of Australian banks’ use of social media
Yesterday I was interviewed on ABC TV about Google’s bid for Motorola Mobility. The interview segments aired were on the value to Google of Motorola’s patent portfolio and the implications for the Android ecosystem. Below are excerpts from the transcript of the interview on ABC.
How much value do you get from the web? A lot more than you pay for it. We may quibble about the cost of bandwidth and online services, and in some cases we should, but the reality is the value we get from connectivity and web-based services is massive. Earlier this year McKinsey & Co
Continue reading The extraordinary personal value of the web: $140 billion is the tip of the iceberg
Continuing our series of conversations between fellow futurist Gerd Leonhard and myself, here is our session on the future of television. Here are a few of the ideas we share in the session:
On Tuesday I gave the opening keynote on The Future of Information Infrastructure at the Implementing Information Infrastructure Symposium. CIO magazine did a nice article titled IIIS: Big Data driving new trends which reviews my keynote and the one immediately after from Steve Duplessie, one of the world’s top analysts on data and storage. It
Continue reading Reality mining, pervasive data capture, and how Big Data can create value
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (slogan: Creating and Preventing Strategic Surprise) is offering $42 million in funding for “revolutionary” research into social media in strategic communication. The DARPA announcement states: The conditions under which our Armed Forces conduct operations are rapidly changing with the spread of blogs, social networking sites, and media]sharing
Continue reading DARPA offers $42 million for ‘revolutionary’ research on social media analysis
This morning I am giving the opening keynote at Implementing Information Infrastructure Symposium, organized by the Storage Network Industry Association and Computerworld. Here are the slides to my keynote on The Future of Information Infrastructure. My usual warning applies: these slides are intended as visual support to my keynote, not as stand-alone slides. In this
Continue reading Keynote slides: The Future of Information Infrastructure
The Smithsonian Institute and Pew Research Center recently did a survey of Americans on what they thought would happen by the year 2050. Good created a nice infographic, below, summarizing some of the data. Click on the image for the full size version. Image source: Good The Smithsonian magazine has also created a nice animation
Continuing our series of conversations with Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency, and myself, here is the one we kicked off with: what is the role of a futurist? Here are a few of the topics we discuss:
In my recent keynotes I have frequently used variations on my Transformation of Business framework, which looks at how Technology Drivers and Social Drivers lead to a changed Business Landscape, and in turn New Drivers of Success.
The vast majority of my work over the years has been in the business sector, however I am increasingly being pulled into government and the public sector. As I spend more time in the government space, it is becoming increasingly evident to me that the public sector can lead fundamental positive structural shifts in society
Continue reading Launch of the Transformation of Government framework
Tomorrow morning I am giving the opening keynote at the annual conference of Institute of Public Affairs New South Wales, on the topic of The Transformation of Government. Originally I was scheduled to follow the recently elected NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, but he has had to travel to Beijing, so he will present at the
Continue reading Keynote slides on The Transformation of Government
A critical point in the MegaTrend of Creative Enablement: DSLRs are revolutionizing video production
One of the biggest, broadest, most important trends of the last few decades has been how technology has democratized the tools of creation and production. From early desktop publishing applications and screen-based sequencers in the 1980s, through to 3D printing of prototypes today, the production of professional quality output in just about every creative endeavor
News just in that Elias Bizannes of Startup Bus fame is helping setting up Startup House, a 36,000 square foot space in San Francisco’s hopping SoMa district where entrepreneurs will live as well as run startups. There will be 150 desks in the lower floor, with upper levels including offices of the StartUp Bus and
Continue reading ‘Aussie mafia’ sets up the “biggest startup hub in Silicon Valley”
I have long believed that the evolution of man-machine interfaces is at the heart of our future. In Living Networks I described better Interfaces as one of the three fundamental shifts that are bringing the networks to life. For over a decade I have ranted about how the mouse is antediluvian technology for interacting with
Continue reading The next generation of computer interfaces will drive better remote collaboration
This morning I gave the keynote at the MyBiz Expo 2011, on Business Opportunities of the Future. I had been interviewed for the cover story of February edition of MyBusiness magazine on which industries will prosper and shrink in the decade ahead. I shared some thoughts on the blurring boundaries of industries, and some specific
Continue reading Keynote: The Business Opportunities of the Future
When I posted a little while back about using an external keyboard with the iPad, I promised to share how I use the iPad for work. When I bought the iPad I found it quite frustrating for a while in trying to use the iPad as I wanted, but I managed to work it out,
Continue reading 9 great ways to make the iPad a useful work tool: structures, setup, apps
Last Friday I was at the opening party for the Vivid Sydney festival, on East Circular Quay directly opposite the Opera House. The opening speeches concluded by triggering an absolutely awesome light show on the Opera House, called Lighting the Sails. The Opera House has been lit up for the last two festival, but this
Continue reading Awesome 3D visual mapping on Sydney Opera House
I am at the launch of Digital Sydney, part of the Vivid Sydney and Creative Sydney festivals. The reality is that for much of the last decade and more, the New South Wales government has been among the least supportive of the Australia states for the digital and creative industries, with in contrast Victoria, Queensland,
Continue reading Launch of Digital Sydney: Ideas, energy, success stories, and massive potential
I gave my keynote on How Technology is Transforming Business for Australian Institute of Company Directors this morning here in Beijing. Based on the responses of the 500+ company directors in the audience, they absolutely understand the need for change. Here are their answers on audience response units to questions I posed during my presentation.
I am at the annual conference of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, held this year in Beijing. It is fantastic that Australian company directors are choosing to meet here rather than at home, broadening vistas and opportunities. The Grand Ballroom at China World Hotel is full, with around 500 people here. While I don’t
Continue reading Notes from the Australian Institute of Company Directors in Beijing
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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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