Recently in Living Networks book Category

Here's a brief excerpt from Chapter 1 of Living Networks on the sexual life of ideas - I've always had a good response to this and it remains a relevant metaphor :-)

Ideas don't like being alone. In fact they like copulating promiscuously with any other idea in sight. There is no such thing as a virgin birth in the world of ideas. Ideas are always born from other ideas: interacting, mating, and procreating. This often orgiastic coupling takes place in the fertile substrate which is the human mind. Our minds are hotbeds of unspeakable activities—ideas have a life of their own, but they need somewhere to carry on their flirtations and breeding.

In her book The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore suggested that humans are purely and simply carriers for memes, which means ideas or behaviors that can be passed on to others. Our species has evolved to become a more refined vehicle for propagating ideas. One result is the desire to produce and consume mass media that seems so intrinsic to our race. Another is our drive to implement communication technologies, to engage more richly with others, and to publish on the Internet.

A just got an email from Tiffany Schlain, who had just seen my post on how hyper-connectivity is literally bringing the networks to life. I know of Tiffany as the Founder of the very influential Webby Awards. What I didn't know is that she is also a filmmaker. Tiffany pointed me to the film she's currently working on: Connected: A Declaration of Interdependence. The awesome trailer is below - well worth watching. It simply poses the question we are all facing.

When I started writing my book Living Networks in early 2002 I thought that it was important to demonstrate that the concept of 'living networks' was not just a metaphor, but a reality: we, together with the networks that connect us, are literally a new life form.

To show this I drew on the literature on autopoiesis, which was proposed as a new way of understanding the nature of life, and wrote a lengthy introduction to the book. My editor, very rightly, thought it was the wrong way to begin the book, and the introduction never saw the light of day.

This morning when someone mentioned living networks to me I remembered that this was a literal phrase that I had never explained, so here is the introduction, seen for the first time. We are indeed part of an emerging higher-order life form, and that is a wonderful thing...

Introduction: How Connectivity is Bringing Our World to Life:

We who are privileged to be alive today are participating in the birth of a new lifeform: the global networks. All the talk of the "new economy" in the late 1990s reflected many of the changes at play in our world. In truth they may well have underestimated the importance of the juncture we are at, which represents a complete change in the nature of society and business. Since the dawn of humanity people have been the dominant force on our planet, for better and—sometimes—for worse. Now people as individuals are being transcended by a higher-order lifeform, which is connecting and merging most of the people and all the digital devices on the planet into a single entity.

When I wrote the book Living Networks the content distribution landscape was in the early stages of unfolding. Yet the strategies I prescribed then seem to be just as valid today.

Here they are, excerpted from Chapter 8 on Next Generation Content Distribution: Creating Value When Digital Products Flow Freely.

POSITIONING FOR CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
1. Build evolutionary business models
2. Define and refine strategies for standards and interfaces
3. Develop and implement aggregation strategies
4. Enable versatile syndication models
5. Rework your product versioning

Some of my most interesting work in in helping clients create effective processes for participative strategy. The traditional approach to strategy is that it is generated in the executive suite or by highly-paid consultants, then it is communicated to staff, usually rather ineffectively.

There is an increasing recognition that many people across the organization have invaluable insights into industry change, competition, client requirements, innovation and other issues that will help shape strategy. The challenge is in establishing processes that enable broad-based participation in a useful way, tapping ideas and generating positive energy for change.

In some cases, for example as I helped a global real-estate development company to implement, this can be framed in a fun competition format, assisting teams to generate visions of where the company can go. In other cases, a formal process can be created to expose staff across the company to strategic issues, then generating, capturing, filtering, and applying their insights to corporate strategy, as I did for a large financial services company.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of my book Living Networks providing some of the broader issues to address in implementing participative strategy.

CREATING PARTICIPATIVE STRATEGY

The Work-Out process is one of General Electric’s standard practices. This brings together 40 to 100 people in a “town meeting” to discuss specific issues, and make firm recommendations. Once the issues that need to be addressed have been identified, these are clearly defined by a team, and attendees for the meeting are selected from a range of functions and managerial levels. The team meet in an offsite location for usually three days, commencing with a briefing by the relevant executive, who then leaves. The participants break into a number of teams, and in a structured process come up with clear recommendations. At the end these are presented to the senior manager, who must make a decision on the spot whether to proceed. Work-Out sessions are routinely run across General Electric’s divisions, and often include customers and suppliers.

Since 2006 I have owned and written about video glasses, including in my Six Trends that are transforming Online and Future of Media Lifecycle framework.

Despite my predictions, we still don't see many people around wearing video glasses. However I still think it's going to happen, as I predicted earlier this week.

In the many radio interviews I've done this week I was asked a lot about the video glasses. As I explained, there are many applications for video glasses, but augmented reality is the most powerful.

The recent swathe of augmented reality apps on iPhone have shown us the very beginning of the potential of AR. However people don't want to be always holding up their phone in front of their face.

A case in point is ID tagging, in which facial recognition software identifies people in your field of vision and provides additional information about them. This is something far more easily and less obviously done using video glasses.

The classic scenario is that you see someone you've met before and don't remember their name, but your AR glasses displays their name and any other publicly available information or things that you've noted previously next to them.

Imagine when the technologies in this video can be embedded into your glasses. This kind of information could easily get people to start wearing glasses when they go out into social situations.

Download Chapter 9 of Living Networks on the Flow of Services

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 9: The Flow of Services
Reframing Digital and Professional Services

OVERVIEW: Digital connectivity and integration are dramatically shifting the role of services in the economy. Software is being provided as a service, business processes are readily outsourced, and the functions of the firm can be broken down into defined modules. Professional services now range across a spectrum of business models ranging from digital services to traditional face-to-face delivery. The same drivers are resulting in the rise of professional networks as viable competitors to established firms.

Chapter 9 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

Download Chapter 8 of Living Networks on Next Generation Content Distribution

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 8: Next Generation Content Distribution
Creating Value When Digital Products Flow Freely

OVERVIEW: In a hyper-connected world digital products flow freely, unless safeguards are put in place. Providers of content - including entertainment and high-value information - must balance protection and promotion to maximize value. All content industries are in a state of massive flux, and evolutionary strategies are required to succeed in this time of transition.

Chapter 8 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

Download Chapter 7 of Living Networks on the Flow Economy

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 7: The Flow Economy
Opportunites and Risks in the New Convergence

OVERVIEW: Devices, communications, and industries are all converging into one vast space for doing business. This is the flow economy, in which almost all value is based on the flow of information and ideas. Companies must continually reposition themselves in this flow economy, both to meet new competitive challenges from unexpected quarters, and to take advantage of the massive emerging opportunities.

The Flow Economy Framework

Chapter 7 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

Download Chapter 6 of Living Networks on Network Presence

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 6: Network Presence
Harnessing the Flow of Marketing, Customer Feedback, and Knowledge

OVERVIEW: Today, your company’s success depends on how well it builds its network presence in three key domains:
• Marketing, which is now mainly about influencing the flow of messages through consumer networks;
• Customer feedback loops, that tightly link a company and its customers, enabling them together to constantly create more value;
• Work processes and knowledge, that flow through the networks of workers within and beyond the firm.

The idea of the ‘network presence’ of organizations is still very relevant today. Still today not many companies truly have a strong presence in the social networks of consumers and customers, even though much progress has been made over the last five years.

The first space, where there probably has been the most movement so far, is in marketing. Marketing using social network approaches is now mainstream, though a nascent idea back in 2002. I opened with the example of the online marketing for Lord of the Rings, which took advantage of the strong social cohesion of the book’s fan base. While the concept of the ‘meme’ seems to have lost traction over the last years, I still think it is enormously relevant. I wrote:

Download Chapter 5 of Living Networks on Emerging Technologies

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 5: Distributed Innovation
Intellectual Property in a Collaborative World

OVERVIEW: Innovation and intellectual property increasingly dominate the economy. As technology advances, no firm has the resources to stand alone, and collaboration with others is becoming essential. This means that new business models are needed for developing intellectual property and sharing in its value. Open source software provides us with valuable lessons that can be applied to many other aspects of business and innovation.

This chapter on innovation and intellectual property was one of the most important in Living Networks, I thought, and is absolutely as relevant today as five years ago. Innovation is the source of the majority of value-creation in a networked world, and how we deal with intellectual property can either enable or block human progress, on every level.

The nature of the intellectual property landscape is that the structures are highly rigid, by definition being set by legislation. However attitudes are rapidly changing, and new approaches such as Creative Commons have gained enormous traction over the last years. Certainly innovation is seen more today than as something that happens across boundaries, though most organizations are still hesitant to open up. The critical next phase is in innovation in innovation models.

The chapter begins by explaining a few basic shifts:

Download Chapter 4 of Living Networks on Emerging Technologies

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 4: Relationship Rules
Building Trust and Attention in the Tangled Web

OVERVIEW: Connectivity allows companies to integrate their systems more deeply and form many more business ties, but these opportunities are often neglected. In an increasingly transparent world, trust is becoming more rather than less important, and organizations must take steps to develop trusting relationships with their partners. The one scarce resource today is attention, so you must earn it from your clients and partners in order to create and maintain profitable relationships.

Chapter 4 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

I opened the introduction to my first book Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships with the words: “Knowledge and relationships are where almost all value resides in today’s economy.” For the last decade I have explored the apparent paradox that in an increasingly digital world, human relationships, particularly trusted relationships, are becoming ever more important. At the same time, as the amount of information available swells, attention is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity. It is commonplace to talk of the attention economy, where value is based primarily on attention.

The feedback loop of customer attention and personalization
(See below for description)

Since trust and attention are so fundamental to where business is going, this chapter is absolutely as relevant today as when it was written. Arguably the underlying principles will become even more important in coming years.

Download Chapter 3 of Living Networks on Emerging Technologies

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 3: The New Organization
Leadership Across Blurring Boundaries

OVERVIEW: The boundaries between organizations are blurring as technology reduces the costs of transactions. It is becoming essential for companies to work closely with their customers, suppliers, and partners, however this involves very real risks. In this world leadership is required to take whole industries and supply chains into new ways of working based on transparency, collaboration, and sharing value. Those that embrace the networks and lead the way forward will reap the greatest rewards.

Chapter 3 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

From the original writing of Living Networks I felt that the issues raised in chapter 3 were at the heart of what the living networks are about. The key concept here is that of 'blurring boundaries', something we are experiencing across every domain of society and business, including organizations, industries, and countries.

A quotation I discovered since writing the book, and have used extensively over the last years in my presentations, expresses this perfectly:

"Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries."

This quote comes from the delightful and wise book Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse, which looks at how we either limit ourselves or open ourselves to infinite opportunity in our lives. While it was published in 1986, its messages are more relevant than ever today.

Download Chapter 2 of Living Networks on Emerging Technologies

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 2: Emerging Technologies
How Standards and Integration Are Driving Business Strategy

OVERVIEW: Standards are the foundation of communication, and of all networks. Building on the existing foundation of powerful standards and connectivity, there are three sets of emerging technologies that are driving the next stage of the networks: XML and web services; peer-to-peer; and network interfaces. In the connected economy, standards and network strategy are at the heart of all business.

Chapter 2 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

It would seem likely that a chapter written in 2002 about emerging technologies would date very quickly. However the emphasis of this chapter was on standards and integration, which have absolutely been at the foundation of technological change over the last five years, and continue to be firmly at the center of what dominates technology today.

The (very) gradual shift to open, accepted standards (see below in the text for explanation)

I selected three sets of emerging technologies to focus on in this chapter: XML and web services, Peer-to-peer networks, and Network interfaces.

Download Chapter 1 of Living Networks: The Networks Come Alive

Every chapter of Living Networks is being released on this blog as a free download, together with commentary and updated perspectives since its original publication in 2002.

For the full Table of Contents and free chapter downloads see the Living Networks website or the Book Launch/ Preface to the Anniversary Edition.

Living Networks - Chapter 1: The Networks Come Alive
What the Changing Flow of Information and Ideas Means for Business

OVERVIEW: Connectivity is shrinking our world, and in the process transforming business. As communication between people becomes more fluid and pervasive, it is creating what looks like a global brain, in which ideas procreate freely and we collaborate to filter an ever-expanding universe of information. But just a small proportion of the planet’s population is connected. It is critical that we extend participation as broadly as we can.

Chapter 1 of Living Networks - Commentary and updated perspectives

As for almost all the book, the underlying messages in Chapter 1 are as relevant today as they were over five years ago. The five key issues outlined at the outset: collaboration with clients and partners; organizational performance; innovation and intellectual property; strategy and positioning; and individual leadership are still today the most relevant issues for business in our extraordinarily networked world.

The opening words of Living Networks were “Macromedia, the company best known for Flash software, is blogging.” In 2002 companies were already using blogs to communicate more effectively with their customers. After the launch of the book, in my speeches I used the story of how this initial foray into blogging evolved, with Macromedia (since bought by Adobe) aggregating now almost 2000 approved blogs, including those of its staff, partners, and customers. This entire community spanning inside and outside the organization is engaged in a conversation on how to use the software tools, bugs, fixes, and useful approaches.