This is a very interesting report by Gartner recently issued.
"A Nexus of converging forces — social, mobile, cloud and information —
is building upon and transforming user behavior while creating new
business opportunities.
Research over the past several years has identified the independent
evolution of four powerful forces: social, mobile, cloud and
information. As a result of consumerization and the ubiquity of
connected smart devices, people's behavior has caused a convergence of
these forces. This user-centric convergence was highlighted at
Symposium/ITxpo 2011, where the keynote touched on the story emerging
around the Nexus and raised a warning to senior IT leaders: Their
existing architectures are becoming obsolete"
While this is well worth reading, keep in mind that the basic assumption behind this analysis is that the consumerization of the economy is sustainable. This is an assumption that I'm not all sure is true. But, we've demonstrated no strong candidate to replace it, and we seem to have limited desire to change. As we concentrate more and more wealth at the top, we are destroying the consumer market.
And, there are smaller assumptions like, "Through the window in their palm, they are never alone, never lost, and never bored." I seriously doubt that this statement is true.
And, they confuse complicatedness with complexity. "Most technology goes through cycles of development and change in both
internal and external complexity. Often, the very first device is
simple, but crude. As the device undergoes the early stages of
development, its power and efficiency improve, but so does its
complexity. As the technology matures, however, simpler, more effective
ways of doing things are developed, and the device becomes easier to
use, although usually by becoming more complex inside."
So, read it, but with your critical thinking hat on.
The Nexus of Forces: Foundational Research for the Technical Professional, Chris Howard, David Smith, Daryl Plummer, Yvonne Genovese, David Willis and Jeffrey Mann, Gartner, Inc., June 22, 2012
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Friday, June 10, 2011
A Moral Operating System for Technology?
At TEDxSiliconValley, Damon Horowitz reviews the enormous new powers that technology gives us: to know more -- and more about each other -- than ever before. Drawing the audience into a philosophical discussion, Horowitz invites us to pay new attention to the basic philosophy -- the ethical principles -- behind the burst of invention remaking our world. Where's the moral operating system that allows us to make sense of it?
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Books Ngram Viewer and Technology Substitution
I'm wondering if Books Ngram Viewer can be used for technology substitution analysis:
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Design Fiction
I heard Bruce Sterling briefly speak last night at Plutopia 2011, SXSW in Austin about "design fiction". It's an intriguing concept, a concept that is searching for its meaning. Sterling has blogged on the subject.
Sterling quotes Dr. Stuart Candy's definition of design fiction. “Design fiction has emerged as a pre-eminent tool for designing, challenging and understanding speculative future realities. However, design fiction aims to make the extraordinary ordinary. It merges the elastic creativity of science fiction with everyday matter of fact reality. Furthermore, in using current media conventions as a way to express ideas about the future, design fiction is able to twist reality and trick us into accepting the fantastic as possibility.
“This process seems to afford us a moment in which we can reframe our expectations of reality. Consequently, it alters our conditional assumptions and stories we are using to define our future…”
Jullian Bleeker, Near Future Laboratory, blogged a definition of design fiction. "Design Fiction is making things that tell stories. It’s like science-fiction in that the stories bring into focus certain matters-of-concern, such as how life is lived, questioning how technology is used and its implications, speculating bout the course of events; all of the unique abilities of science-fiction to incite imagination-filling conversations about alternative futures. It’s about reading P.K. Dick as a systems administrator, or Bruce Sterling as a software design manual. It’s meant to encourage truly undisciplined approaches to making and circulating culture by ignoring disciplines that have invested so much in erecting boundaries between pragmatics and imagination
When you trace the knots that link science, fact and fiction you see the fascinating crosstalk between and amongst ideas and their materialization. In the tracing you see the simultaneous knowledge-making activities, speculating and pondering and realizing that things are made only by force of the imagination. In the midst of the tangle, one begins to see that fact and fiction are productively indistinguishable.
Design is about the future in a way similar to science fiction. It probes imaginatively and materializes ideas, the way science fiction materializes ideas, oftentimes through stories. What are the ways that all of these things — these canonical ways of making and remaking and imagining the world — can come together in a productive way, without hiding the details and without worrying about the nonsense of strict disciplinary boundaries?"
Sterling quotes Dr. Stuart Candy's definition of design fiction. “Design fiction has emerged as a pre-eminent tool for designing, challenging and understanding speculative future realities. However, design fiction aims to make the extraordinary ordinary. It merges the elastic creativity of science fiction with everyday matter of fact reality. Furthermore, in using current media conventions as a way to express ideas about the future, design fiction is able to twist reality and trick us into accepting the fantastic as possibility.
“This process seems to afford us a moment in which we can reframe our expectations of reality. Consequently, it alters our conditional assumptions and stories we are using to define our future…”
Jullian Bleeker, Near Future Laboratory, blogged a definition of design fiction. "Design Fiction is making things that tell stories. It’s like science-fiction in that the stories bring into focus certain matters-of-concern, such as how life is lived, questioning how technology is used and its implications, speculating bout the course of events; all of the unique abilities of science-fiction to incite imagination-filling conversations about alternative futures. It’s about reading P.K. Dick as a systems administrator, or Bruce Sterling as a software design manual. It’s meant to encourage truly undisciplined approaches to making and circulating culture by ignoring disciplines that have invested so much in erecting boundaries between pragmatics and imagination
When you trace the knots that link science, fact and fiction you see the fascinating crosstalk between and amongst ideas and their materialization. In the tracing you see the simultaneous knowledge-making activities, speculating and pondering and realizing that things are made only by force of the imagination. In the midst of the tangle, one begins to see that fact and fiction are productively indistinguishable.
Design is about the future in a way similar to science fiction. It probes imaginatively and materializes ideas, the way science fiction materializes ideas, oftentimes through stories. What are the ways that all of these things — these canonical ways of making and remaking and imagining the world — can come together in a productive way, without hiding the details and without worrying about the nonsense of strict disciplinary boundaries?"
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
We are all cyborgs now
Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on "external brains" (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.
Amber Case studies the symbiotic interactions between humans and machines -- and considers how our values and culture are being shaped by living lives increasingly mediated by high technology.
Amber Case studies the symbiotic interactions between humans and machines -- and considers how our values and culture are being shaped by living lives increasingly mediated by high technology.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Restoring the American Dream
Fareed Zakaria, GPS, CNN
This is an excellent video.
Restoring the American Dream (entire video of program)
Is the American Dream dead? And what can be done to revive it? You can see a special edition of "Fareed Zakaria GPS" dedicated to restoring the dream and building the American middle class back up.
This is an excellent video.
Restoring the American Dream (entire video of program)
Is the American Dream dead? And what can be done to revive it? You can see a special edition of "Fareed Zakaria GPS" dedicated to restoring the dream and building the American middle class back up.
For a glimpse on what the four CEOs think about how to restore the American dream check out their video excerpts below:
- To watch former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner on the state of the U.S. worker click HERE 
- To watch Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld on why Alcoa had to learn to do more with fewer workers click HERE
- To watch Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent on whether jobs will come back to America click HERE
- To watch Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the innovation war being fought with other nations click HERE
And don't forget that this was also the topic of Fareed's first TIME Magazine cover story which you can read HERE.
Watch the podcast HERE
And you can find the transcript for the entire show HERE.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Complexity and Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
"Tad Patzek, chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas, testified in Congress last month about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. His comments included observations on broad, long-term trends in industry, government and academia; excerpts of his prepared remarks on those issues are below.
Patzek covered a range of other topics, including recommendations on specific avenues of research for improved drilling and cleanup methods."
Austin American Statesman, 7/4/10
Dr. Patzek briefed the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee on June 6, 2010
He reported, "Horrible things happen when complex technologies and procedures overtake humans, who service the technologies falsely assuming complete control.
In this briefing, I attempt to explain the blowout of the BP exploratory well in terms of complexity, technology and science. I argue that organizational structures and human behavior have not kept pace with the complex technologies we — the engineers and scientists — have created.
Given the structural changes in the industry, academia and government, this tragedy has been at least 20 years in the making. It seems that the human inability to grasp and execute the complex steps of a deepwater drilling procedure led to the tragic outcome."
This briefing is well worth reading as he introduces the concept of complexity to explain accidents in large, complicated systems of man and technology. This is an extremely important area for research and understanding.
I think his assertion that BP exploratory well Mississippi Canyon Block 252-01 is a complex system is valid, although he does not prove it so. And, without good historical data on wells of this type, it is difficult to determine what type of complex system it is.
Patzek asserts that it is a complex system with emergent properties. I doubt that this is true. I think it most likely a complex system in a critical state. I suspect its behavior is more like an earthquake (criticality) than a termite mound (emergence). (It probably has some characteristics of both as the human (intelligent agents) in the system could exhibit some characteristics of emergence.)
However, his conclusions are valid: large events like this will occur, and we can't predict when they will occur or prevent them. Understandably, he never states this as directly as I did. How can you tell that to politicians or business people? (See 1, 2, a Few, Many for more information)
Using earthquakes as an example: How do we deal with them? We build structures that will sustain their integrity through high impact, low probability events. We research the history and determine the probability of an event in different geological zones. And, while we don't have an early warning system for earthquakes, in many cases we do for tsunamis. We monitor the ocean and warn of a tsunamis presence and path.
Patzek is correct in discussing the philosophical impacts of complexity science, and how our technology has informed us, leaving us scotomas in our perception of the systems we are constructing.
It's time to start perceiving, recognizing and understanding the complex systems we live in. They are everywhere once you know what to look for.
Patzek covered a range of other topics, including recommendations on specific avenues of research for improved drilling and cleanup methods."
Austin American Statesman, 7/4/10
Dr. Patzek briefed the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee on June 6, 2010
He reported, "Horrible things happen when complex technologies and procedures overtake humans, who service the technologies falsely assuming complete control.
In this briefing, I attempt to explain the blowout of the BP exploratory well in terms of complexity, technology and science. I argue that organizational structures and human behavior have not kept pace with the complex technologies we — the engineers and scientists — have created.
Given the structural changes in the industry, academia and government, this tragedy has been at least 20 years in the making. It seems that the human inability to grasp and execute the complex steps of a deepwater drilling procedure led to the tragic outcome."
This briefing is well worth reading as he introduces the concept of complexity to explain accidents in large, complicated systems of man and technology. This is an extremely important area for research and understanding.
I think his assertion that BP exploratory well Mississippi Canyon Block 252-01 is a complex system is valid, although he does not prove it so. And, without good historical data on wells of this type, it is difficult to determine what type of complex system it is.
Patzek asserts that it is a complex system with emergent properties. I doubt that this is true. I think it most likely a complex system in a critical state. I suspect its behavior is more like an earthquake (criticality) than a termite mound (emergence). (It probably has some characteristics of both as the human (intelligent agents) in the system could exhibit some characteristics of emergence.)
However, his conclusions are valid: large events like this will occur, and we can't predict when they will occur or prevent them. Understandably, he never states this as directly as I did. How can you tell that to politicians or business people? (See 1, 2, a Few, Many for more information)
Using earthquakes as an example: How do we deal with them? We build structures that will sustain their integrity through high impact, low probability events. We research the history and determine the probability of an event in different geological zones. And, while we don't have an early warning system for earthquakes, in many cases we do for tsunamis. We monitor the ocean and warn of a tsunamis presence and path.
Patzek is correct in discussing the philosophical impacts of complexity science, and how our technology has informed us, leaving us scotomas in our perception of the systems we are constructing.
It's time to start perceiving, recognizing and understanding the complex systems we live in. They are everywhere once you know what to look for.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Open Space Technology
What is an Open Space Technology meeting?
Open Space Technology has been defined as:
* a simple, powerful way to catalyze effective working conversations and truly inviting organizations -- to thrive in times of swirling change.
* a methodological tool that enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time.
* a powerful group process that supports positive transformation in organizations, increases productivity, inspires creative solutions, improves communication and enhances collaboration.
* the most effective process for organizations and communities to identify critical issues, voice to their passions and concerns, learn from each other, and, when appropriate, take collective responsibility for finding solutions.
The goal of an Open Space Technology meeting is to create time and space for people to engage deeply and creatively around issues of concern to them. The agenda is set by people with the power and desire to see it through, and typically, Open Space meetings result in transformative experiences for the individuals and groups involved.
What is Open Space Technology best used for?
Open Space Technology is useful in almost any context including strategic direction setting, envisioning the future, conflict resolution, morale building, consultation with stakeholders, community planning, collaboration and deep learning about issues and perspectives.
When is Open Space Technology the best meeting format to use?
Any situation in which there is:
* A real issue of concern
* Diversity of players
* Complexity of elements
* Presence of passion (including conflict)
* A need for a quick decision
Open Space will work under all of these circumstances. It is only inappropriate when the outcome of the meeting is predetermined or if sponsors are not prepared to change as a result of the meeting.
What outcomes can I expect from an Open Space Technology Meeting?
Open Space Technology meetings can produce the following deliverables:
* Every single issue that anybody cares about enough to raise will be "on the table".
* All issues will receive as much discussion as people care to give them.
* All discussion will be captured in a book, and made available to the participants.
* All issues will be prioritized.
* Related issues will be converged.
* Responsibility will be taken for next step actions.
In meetings of one and a half or two and a half days duration, all of these deliverables will be achieved with deep conversation and commitment to action. Meetings of a shorter duration will have many of these positive effects, but typically in meetings of a day or less, there is more emphasis on conversation and less on action.
How does an Open Space Technology meeting work?
Open Space operates under four principles and one law. The four principles are:
* Whoever comes are the right people
* Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
* When it starts is the right time
* When it's over it's over
The Law is known as the Law of Two Feet:
"If you find yourself in a situation where you are not contributing or learning, move somewhere where you can."
The four principles and the law work to create a powerful event motivated by the passion and bounded by the responsibility of the participants.
From Chris Corrigan, Consulting in Organizational and Community Development, web site.
Oliver Markley brought Open Space to my attention. I have to read and study it before I can apply it to an Innovation Commons, but this web site summarized the process so well that I wanted to pass it along quickly.
There is also a Wiki.
Open Space Technology has been defined as:
* a simple, powerful way to catalyze effective working conversations and truly inviting organizations -- to thrive in times of swirling change.
* a methodological tool that enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time.
* a powerful group process that supports positive transformation in organizations, increases productivity, inspires creative solutions, improves communication and enhances collaboration.
* the most effective process for organizations and communities to identify critical issues, voice to their passions and concerns, learn from each other, and, when appropriate, take collective responsibility for finding solutions.
The goal of an Open Space Technology meeting is to create time and space for people to engage deeply and creatively around issues of concern to them. The agenda is set by people with the power and desire to see it through, and typically, Open Space meetings result in transformative experiences for the individuals and groups involved.
What is Open Space Technology best used for?
Open Space Technology is useful in almost any context including strategic direction setting, envisioning the future, conflict resolution, morale building, consultation with stakeholders, community planning, collaboration and deep learning about issues and perspectives.
When is Open Space Technology the best meeting format to use?
Any situation in which there is:
* A real issue of concern
* Diversity of players
* Complexity of elements
* Presence of passion (including conflict)
* A need for a quick decision
Open Space will work under all of these circumstances. It is only inappropriate when the outcome of the meeting is predetermined or if sponsors are not prepared to change as a result of the meeting.
What outcomes can I expect from an Open Space Technology Meeting?
Open Space Technology meetings can produce the following deliverables:
* Every single issue that anybody cares about enough to raise will be "on the table".
* All issues will receive as much discussion as people care to give them.
* All discussion will be captured in a book, and made available to the participants.
* All issues will be prioritized.
* Related issues will be converged.
* Responsibility will be taken for next step actions.
In meetings of one and a half or two and a half days duration, all of these deliverables will be achieved with deep conversation and commitment to action. Meetings of a shorter duration will have many of these positive effects, but typically in meetings of a day or less, there is more emphasis on conversation and less on action.
How does an Open Space Technology meeting work?
Open Space operates under four principles and one law. The four principles are:
* Whoever comes are the right people
* Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
* When it starts is the right time
* When it's over it's over
The Law is known as the Law of Two Feet:
"If you find yourself in a situation where you are not contributing or learning, move somewhere where you can."
The four principles and the law work to create a powerful event motivated by the passion and bounded by the responsibility of the participants.
From Chris Corrigan, Consulting in Organizational and Community Development, web site.
Oliver Markley brought Open Space to my attention. I have to read and study it before I can apply it to an Innovation Commons, but this web site summarized the process so well that I wanted to pass it along quickly.
There is also a Wiki.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs?
BusinessWeek
From kurzweil.net
The root of the current lack of new, high-quality job creation is the massive scaling back of science and engineering research, which has in the past made enormous contributions to science, technology, and the economy, including the creation of millions of high-paying jobs, says management consultant Adrian Slywotzky.
Here's what's needed to get that model back on track, he suggests:
• Clear national goals in two or three key areas, such as carbon-free energy and preventive medicine.
• Government commitment of $10 billion a year above and beyond spending for national agencies to jump-start new industrial research labs.
• Government tax credits for corporations that commit to spending 5% to 10% (or more) of R&D on basic research.
More
I have some mixed feeling about this article. Most of my life I would have agreed strongly with the sentiments of the author. I am a graduate of 30 years with IBM as a technologist, technology manager, internal entrepreneur and cultural change agent. And, now 20 years as a futurist and consultant. My instinctive reaction would have been "right on". But, now I'm not sure.
For years we have worshiped at the altar of economic value created for the stockholder. In business this means the rationalization of all its operations to achieving that goal. And, with that, and globalization, comes the stockholder's short term perspective. Investment in research with uncertain and long term payback gets reduced or cut off.
Unfortunately we've adopted a parallel belief system in education. So, we can't depend upon our universities to provide the research either. And, as we continue to inflict more measurements on education all the way down through public schools, we emphasize short term payback.
The change described in the article is either cyclical or its structural. If it's cyclical, then all we have to is wait for the economic flowering when big companies are awash in profits, and in their wisdom, they will invest these profits in research for the future.
If the change is structural, then "big research" is gone forever. There are numerous indications in many different industries that the trends of decentralization, disintemediation, openness and fragmentation are real and structural. If that is so, then what would research look like? How would it work? What kind of research could be done in a fragmented, disintermediated, open and decentralized way?
I don't know. And, I've not heard from anyone that does know.
But, isn't time that we begin to look at this issue head on. If not, and someone else does, we'll really suffer economically in the future.
It's like Morgan Freeman's character said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
From kurzweil.net
The root of the current lack of new, high-quality job creation is the massive scaling back of science and engineering research, which has in the past made enormous contributions to science, technology, and the economy, including the creation of millions of high-paying jobs, says management consultant Adrian Slywotzky.
Here's what's needed to get that model back on track, he suggests:
• Clear national goals in two or three key areas, such as carbon-free energy and preventive medicine.
• Government commitment of $10 billion a year above and beyond spending for national agencies to jump-start new industrial research labs.
• Government tax credits for corporations that commit to spending 5% to 10% (or more) of R&D on basic research.
More
I have some mixed feeling about this article. Most of my life I would have agreed strongly with the sentiments of the author. I am a graduate of 30 years with IBM as a technologist, technology manager, internal entrepreneur and cultural change agent. And, now 20 years as a futurist and consultant. My instinctive reaction would have been "right on". But, now I'm not sure.
For years we have worshiped at the altar of economic value created for the stockholder. In business this means the rationalization of all its operations to achieving that goal. And, with that, and globalization, comes the stockholder's short term perspective. Investment in research with uncertain and long term payback gets reduced or cut off.
Unfortunately we've adopted a parallel belief system in education. So, we can't depend upon our universities to provide the research either. And, as we continue to inflict more measurements on education all the way down through public schools, we emphasize short term payback.
The change described in the article is either cyclical or its structural. If it's cyclical, then all we have to is wait for the economic flowering when big companies are awash in profits, and in their wisdom, they will invest these profits in research for the future.
If the change is structural, then "big research" is gone forever. There are numerous indications in many different industries that the trends of decentralization, disintemediation, openness and fragmentation are real and structural. If that is so, then what would research look like? How would it work? What kind of research could be done in a fragmented, disintermediated, open and decentralized way?
I don't know. And, I've not heard from anyone that does know.
But, isn't time that we begin to look at this issue head on. If not, and someone else does, we'll really suffer economically in the future.
It's like Morgan Freeman's character said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
What Does Technology Want?
Tech enthusiast Kevin Kelly asks "What does technology want?" and discovers that its movement toward ubiquity and complexity is much like the evolution of life.
Kevin Kelly has been publisher of the Whole Earth Review, exec editor at WIRED, founder of visionary nonprofits, and writer on biology and business and "cool tools." He's admired for his new perspectives on technology and its relevance to history, biology and religion.
Perhaps there is no one better to contemplate the meaning of cultural change -- bad? good? too slow? too bold? -- than Kevin Kelly, whose life story reads like a treatise on the value of technology. Whether by renouncing all material things save his bicycle (which he then rode 3,000 miles), founding an organization (the All-Species Foundation) to catalog all life on earth, or by touting new gadgets in WIRED, Kelly hasn't stopped exploring the phenomena of technical and biological creation.
In articles for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among others, he has celebrated scientific breakthroughs, and at the Long Now Foundation, where he serves on the board, he champions projects that look 10,000 years into the future. Today Kelly is at work on a book that asks what appears to be his life's core question: "How should I think about new technology when it comes along?"
Kelly discusses the 7th Kingdom at length in the July 18, 2007, edition of Edge.org.
This is a very powerful, insightful and important video. It is not a complete theory of technology. But, it is a start. He introduces a number ideas that should be discussed more. I've picked a few out here either for explanation or elaboration.
The question, “What does technology want?” is derived from the thinking of Richard Dawkins' “Selfish Genes”. He asked the same question for genes and that lead him to a radical proposition: that we are primarily the caretaker of our genes. But not just for ourselves but our children, and people who care for and nurture our children, who house our genes. And, depending upon our conception of what constitutes our genes, we care for our extended family, community, nation, world, or the animal kingdom, as we share some genes with them all. Dawkins also introduced the idea of selfish memes, a meme being a concept or an idea. Our memes propagate through society “infecting” other minds, reproducing and diffusing. Our genes might be unrecognizable in a few generations, but some memes live forever. Jefferson's genes are not visible but his meme that all men are created equal with some inalienable rights lives on.
Kelly equates the question, “What do genes want?” with “What does life want?” He asserts that life wants:
* Ubiquity
* Specialization
* Diversity
* Socialization
I personally believe that life also wants beauty.
This has echoes of Margaret Wheatley's incredible book, A Simpler Way. Both dispense with the concept of the survival of the fittest or strongest, which was a misinterpretation of Darwin's work anyway.
Kelly notes that there are six kingdoms of life on earth. He posits that technology is the seventh kingdom. This is close to Dawkin's idea of memes. Technology is the realization of a meme or set of memes. A technology embodies a system of memes.
He then asserts that technology wants the same things as life.
Kelly states that life hacks its way forward. I personally don't like that connotation. The word “hack” came into common use in software development. The original meaning of a hack was someone who made furniture with an ax, according to Wikipedia. I think life progresses in a much more elegant way. According to the authors of A Simpler Way, "Life is creative. It plays itself into existence, seeking new relationships, new capacities, new traits. Life is an experiment to discover what's possible."
Anther point Kelly makes in this video is that old technology never dies. I think that he is correct on this. McLuhan proposed the four laws of technology, which he phrased as questions as well:
* What does it (the medium or technology) extend?
* What does it make obsolete?
* What is retrieved?
* What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?
McLuhan viewed these four laws operating in parallel. All four questions are being answered by technology at the same time, not in sequence. Technology is always extending, obsoleting, retrieving and reversing.
Another important idea is that “culture is an accumulation of ideas.' And since technology embeds ideas, or memes, technology becomes an artifact of the culture that produced it.
Another import idea introduced by Kelly is the concept of an infinite game.
Finite games have a definite beginning and ending. They are played with the goal of winning. Infinite games, on the other hand, do not have a knowable beginning or ending. They are played with the goal of continuing play. An infinite game continues play, for sake of play. If the game is approaching resolution because of the rules of play, the rules must be changed to allow continued play. The rules exist to ensure the game is infinite.
He comments that evolution is an infinite game. The game of life is to continue life. Ubiquity, diversity, specialization and socialization taken together continues life. Life is recognized as an infinite game.
Kelly suggests that technology's role is to facilitate life, to aid evolution.
He ends with the comment that we have a moral obligation to give each person the technology to enable them to fulfill their potential of differentness.
Kelly does not talk about the negative side of technology in the video, but he does write about this in an interview in The Edge, The Technium and the 7th Kingdom of Life. Mistakes of technology, really mistakes of humans, are a lot like evolutionary mistakes. If they don't improve life, they die out. He believes that the technium is becoming more aligned with other six kingdom's of life in all areas except species elimination. He does not believe that technology is sensitive to this problem, which he believes is real.
Great thanks to Natalie Shell for suggesting this video to me.
The following video is a reminder of evolutionary time.
Kevin Kelly has been publisher of the Whole Earth Review, exec editor at WIRED, founder of visionary nonprofits, and writer on biology and business and "cool tools." He's admired for his new perspectives on technology and its relevance to history, biology and religion.
Perhaps there is no one better to contemplate the meaning of cultural change -- bad? good? too slow? too bold? -- than Kevin Kelly, whose life story reads like a treatise on the value of technology. Whether by renouncing all material things save his bicycle (which he then rode 3,000 miles), founding an organization (the All-Species Foundation) to catalog all life on earth, or by touting new gadgets in WIRED, Kelly hasn't stopped exploring the phenomena of technical and biological creation.
In articles for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among others, he has celebrated scientific breakthroughs, and at the Long Now Foundation, where he serves on the board, he champions projects that look 10,000 years into the future. Today Kelly is at work on a book that asks what appears to be his life's core question: "How should I think about new technology when it comes along?"
Kelly discusses the 7th Kingdom at length in the July 18, 2007, edition of Edge.org.
This is a very powerful, insightful and important video. It is not a complete theory of technology. But, it is a start. He introduces a number ideas that should be discussed more. I've picked a few out here either for explanation or elaboration.
The question, “What does technology want?” is derived from the thinking of Richard Dawkins' “Selfish Genes”. He asked the same question for genes and that lead him to a radical proposition: that we are primarily the caretaker of our genes. But not just for ourselves but our children, and people who care for and nurture our children, who house our genes. And, depending upon our conception of what constitutes our genes, we care for our extended family, community, nation, world, or the animal kingdom, as we share some genes with them all. Dawkins also introduced the idea of selfish memes, a meme being a concept or an idea. Our memes propagate through society “infecting” other minds, reproducing and diffusing. Our genes might be unrecognizable in a few generations, but some memes live forever. Jefferson's genes are not visible but his meme that all men are created equal with some inalienable rights lives on.
Kelly equates the question, “What do genes want?” with “What does life want?” He asserts that life wants:
* Ubiquity
* Specialization
* Diversity
* Socialization
I personally believe that life also wants beauty.
This has echoes of Margaret Wheatley's incredible book, A Simpler Way. Both dispense with the concept of the survival of the fittest or strongest, which was a misinterpretation of Darwin's work anyway.
Kelly notes that there are six kingdoms of life on earth. He posits that technology is the seventh kingdom. This is close to Dawkin's idea of memes. Technology is the realization of a meme or set of memes. A technology embodies a system of memes.
He then asserts that technology wants the same things as life.
Kelly states that life hacks its way forward. I personally don't like that connotation. The word “hack” came into common use in software development. The original meaning of a hack was someone who made furniture with an ax, according to Wikipedia. I think life progresses in a much more elegant way. According to the authors of A Simpler Way, "Life is creative. It plays itself into existence, seeking new relationships, new capacities, new traits. Life is an experiment to discover what's possible."
Anther point Kelly makes in this video is that old technology never dies. I think that he is correct on this. McLuhan proposed the four laws of technology, which he phrased as questions as well:
* What does it (the medium or technology) extend?
* What does it make obsolete?
* What is retrieved?
* What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?
McLuhan viewed these four laws operating in parallel. All four questions are being answered by technology at the same time, not in sequence. Technology is always extending, obsoleting, retrieving and reversing.
Another important idea is that “culture is an accumulation of ideas.' And since technology embeds ideas, or memes, technology becomes an artifact of the culture that produced it.
Another import idea introduced by Kelly is the concept of an infinite game.
Finite games have a definite beginning and ending. They are played with the goal of winning. Infinite games, on the other hand, do not have a knowable beginning or ending. They are played with the goal of continuing play. An infinite game continues play, for sake of play. If the game is approaching resolution because of the rules of play, the rules must be changed to allow continued play. The rules exist to ensure the game is infinite.
He comments that evolution is an infinite game. The game of life is to continue life. Ubiquity, diversity, specialization and socialization taken together continues life. Life is recognized as an infinite game.
Kelly suggests that technology's role is to facilitate life, to aid evolution.
He ends with the comment that we have a moral obligation to give each person the technology to enable them to fulfill their potential of differentness.
Kelly does not talk about the negative side of technology in the video, but he does write about this in an interview in The Edge, The Technium and the 7th Kingdom of Life. Mistakes of technology, really mistakes of humans, are a lot like evolutionary mistakes. If they don't improve life, they die out. He believes that the technium is becoming more aligned with other six kingdom's of life in all areas except species elimination. He does not believe that technology is sensitive to this problem, which he believes is real.
Great thanks to Natalie Shell for suggesting this video to me.
The following video is a reminder of evolutionary time.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Wave of the Future; Understanding the Present
Introduction
This webinar, jointly sponsored by the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society, presented a summary Marshall McLuhan's work and applied it to understanding the past, present and future. It covered - the medium is the message, hot and cool media, our change from pre-literate to literate to post literate, characteristics of the post literate society, and the four laws of technology. It will close with a discussion of the wave of the future.
The benefits of understanding this approach are that you:
• Will understand why our present environment is the way that it is
• Gain a greater understanding of the interrelationships of past, present and future.
• Will understand the influence of media on our perception, thinking and actions
• Will gain insight on the long term future.
Paul Schumann, a student of Marshall McLuhan, will explain in simple terms McLuhan’s work, and his extension of McLuhan's work.
This insightful presentation will suddenly make clear what we are experiencing in today’s environment and why you have to ride the wave.
Slides
The Medium is the Message Slide Show
Recording of this webinar.
Transcript of chat room.
More Information
The Wave of the Future: From Four Causes to Four Laws, or McLuhan R... article
About the Speaker
Paul Schumann is a practicing futurist with expertise in creativity and innovation. He has lived long enough to see forecasts fail and succeed, including some of his own. He had a thirty year career with IBM in three very different arenas - as a technologist and technology manager in semiconductor technology, as an internal entrepreneur creating the first independent business unit within IBM, and as a cultural change agent developing a more creative and innovative culture. Since retiring from IBM he has been consultant as a business futurist with programs in creativity and innovation. He is the founding president of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society . And he is the founder of the Insights – Intelligence - Innovation Collaborative. More information about Paul can be found on his web site.
This webinar, jointly sponsored by the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society, presented a summary Marshall McLuhan's work and applied it to understanding the past, present and future. It covered - the medium is the message, hot and cool media, our change from pre-literate to literate to post literate, characteristics of the post literate society, and the four laws of technology. It will close with a discussion of the wave of the future.
The benefits of understanding this approach are that you:
• Will understand why our present environment is the way that it is
• Gain a greater understanding of the interrelationships of past, present and future.
• Will understand the influence of media on our perception, thinking and actions
• Will gain insight on the long term future.
Paul Schumann, a student of Marshall McLuhan, will explain in simple terms McLuhan’s work, and his extension of McLuhan's work.
This insightful presentation will suddenly make clear what we are experiencing in today’s environment and why you have to ride the wave.
Slides
Wave of the Future: Understanding the Present
View more presentations from Paul Schumann.
The Medium is the Message Slide Show
Recording of this webinar.
Transcript of chat room.
More Information
The Wave of the Future: From Four Causes to Four Laws, or McLuhan R... article
About the Speaker
Paul Schumann is a practicing futurist with expertise in creativity and innovation. He has lived long enough to see forecasts fail and succeed, including some of his own. He had a thirty year career with IBM in three very different arenas - as a technologist and technology manager in semiconductor technology, as an internal entrepreneur creating the first independent business unit within IBM, and as a cultural change agent developing a more creative and innovative culture. Since retiring from IBM he has been consultant as a business futurist with programs in creativity and innovation. He is the founding president of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society . And he is the founder of the Insights – Intelligence - Innovation Collaborative. More information about Paul can be found on his web site.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Can technology save the economy?
David Rotman, Technology Review
The U.S. stimulus bill includes tens of billions to support energy and information technologies. It is intended both to create jobs immediately and to set the stage for long-term economic growth. So why are economists and innovation experts so skeptical?
By any measure, $100 billion is a staggering amount of money. That's how much the federal stimulus bill devotes to the discovery, development, and implementation of various technologies. Some $20 billion will fund the increased use of electronic medical records; another $7.2 billion will support the extension of broadband Internet access to areas currently without such services. Most impressive, roughly $60 billion will be spent on energy, funding everything from energy-efficiency programs to loan guarantees for the construction of large facilities that use new biofuel and solar technologies.
The spending is unprecedented, not only in scale, but also in the breadth of technologies it covers. For initiatives such as broadband deployment and incentives to adopt electronic medical records, the billions of dollars represent entirely new investments. And for energy technologies, the spending levels dwarf existing public and private investments. One big winner: the U.S. Department of Energy, which received $39 billion (in addition to its $25 billion annual budget). The DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, whose budget in 2008 was $1.7 billion, alone was given $16.8 billion. By comparison, venture capitalists, who often claim clean tech as their favorite growth area, invested just $4.1 billion in that sector in 2008.
More
The U.S. stimulus bill includes tens of billions to support energy and information technologies. It is intended both to create jobs immediately and to set the stage for long-term economic growth. So why are economists and innovation experts so skeptical?
By any measure, $100 billion is a staggering amount of money. That's how much the federal stimulus bill devotes to the discovery, development, and implementation of various technologies. Some $20 billion will fund the increased use of electronic medical records; another $7.2 billion will support the extension of broadband Internet access to areas currently without such services. Most impressive, roughly $60 billion will be spent on energy, funding everything from energy-efficiency programs to loan guarantees for the construction of large facilities that use new biofuel and solar technologies.
The spending is unprecedented, not only in scale, but also in the breadth of technologies it covers. For initiatives such as broadband deployment and incentives to adopt electronic medical records, the billions of dollars represent entirely new investments. And for energy technologies, the spending levels dwarf existing public and private investments. One big winner: the U.S. Department of Energy, which received $39 billion (in addition to its $25 billion annual budget). The DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, whose budget in 2008 was $1.7 billion, alone was given $16.8 billion. By comparison, venture capitalists, who often claim clean tech as their favorite growth area, invested just $4.1 billion in that sector in 2008.
More
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
This is a very good book. It provides structure, process, anecdotes and histories for the rapidly changing practice of using social technologies for marketing. It’s primarily written for consumer marketing, but some of the ideas can be used for B2B.
The authors use the term “groundswell” to mean a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies. The technologies they refer to are the social technologies that I like to put into the category of web 2.0. Web 2.0 technologies enable many to many communication and conversation.
The authors believe as I do that this groundswell effect, or by any other name, is real, here to stay for awhile and transformative or disruptive; that all attempts to thwart its spread will likely fail; and while all attempts to foster a groundswell will not succeed, not using the web 2.0 technologies for consumer marketing is a failing strategy.
There are a lot of barriers to the diffusion of this type of marketing, not the least of which is letting go of the illusion of message control. The marketing arms of companies passionately attempt to control the brand message. These techniques turn that concept over and returns the “control” of the message over to customers.
Why should you have to relearn all you know about marketing? The authors’ research clearly supports the trend. My research on the social impact of the web 2.0 technologies is inline with the conclusions of this book. Furthermore they assert, as examples, that:
“If you work for a media company, look out. Advertisers are shifting more and more of their money online. The groundswell is creating its own news sites (like Google News or Digg). The very idea of news is changing, as bloggers jostle with journalists for scoops. People take entertainment properties like TV shows and movies, rip them off the airwaves and DVDs, hack them, and repost new versions on YouTube or Dailymotion.
If you have a brand, you're under threat. Your customers have always had an idea about what your brand signifies, an idea that may vary from the image you are projecting. Now they're talking to each other about that idea. They are redefining for themselves the brand you spent millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions of dollars, creating.
If you are a retailer, your lock on distribution is over. People are not just buying online; they are buying from each other. They are comparing your prices with prices all over the Internet and telling each other where to get the best deal on sites like redflagdeals.com. As Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail has pointed out, shelf space creates far less power when there's nearly infinite selection online.
If you are a financial services company, you no longer dominate flows of capital. Trading happens online, and consumers get financial advice from message boards on Yahoo! Finance and the Motley Fool. Companies like Prosper allow consumers to get loans from each other, instead of from banks. PayPal makes credit cards unnecessary for many transactions.
Business-to-business companies are, if anything, more vulnerable to these trends. Their customers have every reason to band together and rate the companies' services, to join groups like ITtoolbox to share insights with each other, or to help each other out on LinkedIn Answers.
Even inside companies, your employees are connecting on social networks, building ideas with online collaboration tools, and discussing the pros and cons of your policies and priorities.
The groundswell has changed the balance of power. Anybody can put up a site that connects people with people. If it's designed well, people will use it. They'll tell their friends to use it. They'll conduct commerce, or read the news, or start a popular movement, or make loans to each other, or whatever the site is designed to facilitate. And the store, or media outlet, or government, or bank that used to fill that role will find itself far less relevant. If you own that institution, the groundswell will eat up your profit margins, cut down your market share, and marginalize your sources of strength.”
Web 2.0 technologies are being created at an incredible pace. What technologies will be part of a groundswell effect. As the authors point out, it’s not the technology but the relationships. The authors suggest the following questions when evaluating a new technology:
• Does it enable people to connect with each other in a new way?
• Is it effortless to sign up for?
• Does it shift power from institutions to people?
• Does the community generate enough content to sustain itself?
• Is it an open platform that invites partnerships?
The groundswell has two ingredients – technology and people. To understand what types of people would play what roles in the groundswell, the authors introduce the social technographics profile. It characterizes people by creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives. Once you know what the profile is for your customers, you can plan the appropriate social media approach.
If you’re not involved in any groundswell activities, you may wonder, “Why do people participate/” The authors give several reasons why:
• Keeping up friendships
• Making new friends
• Paying it forward
• The altruistic impulse
• The prurient impulse
• The creative impulse
• The validation impulse
• The affinity impulse
Not only is it important that you know your customers’ technographic profile, you have to have clear objectives before you start a program. The authors list five basic objectives for any groundswell program:
1. Listening
2. Talking
3. Energizing
4. Supporting
5. Embracing
The authors provide ample evidence and examples of how to employ web 2.0 marketing. And, as a result, I highly recommend this book.
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Harvard Business Press, 2008, 269p
Groundswell
Social Technographics Explained
View more presentations from jbernoff.
The Social Technographics® Of Business Buyers
View more presentations from Oliver Young.
Monday, February 9, 2009
What Technology Has Taught Us
Innovation Watch, International Herald Tribune
Frisky thumbs aren't the only legacy of the latest round of design innovations. The type of products and technologies we use not only affects the development of our physical skills, but mental skills too. Mostly it does so surreptitiously, because we make the necessary changes instinctively.
More
Frisky thumbs aren't the only legacy of the latest round of design innovations. The type of products and technologies we use not only affects the development of our physical skills, but mental skills too. Mostly it does so surreptitiously, because we make the necessary changes instinctively.
More
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Technological Substitution in Publishing
Information technologies (hardware and software) are playing a key role in innovations in industry after industry. They diffuse through an industry by improving procedures, processes and products. The diffusion usually begins with incremental changes aimed at improving costs, or more broadly, efficiency. This is like a virus infecting a living cell, the informed or informatized (we don’t have good language to describe the result) is transformed into something new. Informed segments of the economy then multiply their effects on the industry radically changing it or destroying it.
The publication industry is one of the industries being so affected. Information technologies have found their way into the processes of printing books, their distribution, the way they are sold, and even the way we communicate about the books. Now information technology is altering the very nature of publications, especially in the textbooks and supplemental materials used in K-12 education. And, now the information technologies developed to aid social change and societal development have begun to impact the industry, threatening to destroy it.
This article summarizes the meta research done on the industry searching for data that indicates the nature and rate of substitution of information technologies into print. There are two overall conclusions from this study. First, that there are indications of the substitution going on in a number of areas. And, second, that we lack a coherent set of data on the industry that would enable us to make firm predictions.
Read report
The publication industry is one of the industries being so affected. Information technologies have found their way into the processes of printing books, their distribution, the way they are sold, and even the way we communicate about the books. Now information technology is altering the very nature of publications, especially in the textbooks and supplemental materials used in K-12 education. And, now the information technologies developed to aid social change and societal development have begun to impact the industry, threatening to destroy it.
This article summarizes the meta research done on the industry searching for data that indicates the nature and rate of substitution of information technologies into print. There are two overall conclusions from this study. First, that there are indications of the substitution going on in a number of areas. And, second, that we lack a coherent set of data on the industry that would enable us to make firm predictions.
Read report
Technological Substitution In Market/Marketing Research
Substitution analysis is a well accepted method of technological forecasting in use for 36 years. In these analyses, the Fisher-Pry model was used. The Fisher-Pry model predicts characteristics loosely analogous to those of biological system growth. It results in an S-curve (more formally, sigmoidal curve) familiar to many because the curve is in the shape of an S. These natural growth processes share the properties of relatively slow early change, followed by steep growth, then a turnover as size asymptotically approaches a limit. The relationship between the fraction of total market taken by the new technology, f, is often given as:
f = 1 /(1 + c exp(-bt))
where t is time, and c and b are empirically determined coefficients.
Read report
f = 1 /(1 + c exp(-bt))
where t is time, and c and b are empirically determined coefficients.
Read report
Technology Fountainheads: The Management Challenge of R&D Consortia
This book is a study of six R&D consortia in the US – Sematech, Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), Microelectronics and Computer technology Corporation (MCC), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Gas Research Institute (GRI) and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore).
“The six consortia…were borne out of sense of industry crisis and/or deeply sensed need to advance the cause of industry R&D. In each instance, industry and/or government leaders articulated the need, advocated collective endeavor, and called for action.”
Why was Sematech successful?:
1. A viable, sustainable nationally important mission
2. Worked at precompetitive level
3. Outstanding leadership
4. Secured government funding
5. Industry led with 80% participation
Classification of R&D consortia;
1. Open membership
2. Exclusive membership
3. closed membership
Functions of R&D consortia:
• Development & dissemination of new industrial process technologies
• Technical education & training
• Environmental research (safety 7 health)
• Supply-industry infrastructure development
• Academic research & graduate education support
• End-product development & commercialization
• Industry standard-setting
• Industry disaster & crisis response
Strategy: “Vision is the basis for a call to action. The validity of a vision may depend upon the stature of those sounding the call, and on the premise that certain objectives can be met more effectively in a collective endeavor rather than the undertaking of a single firm.
If the vision is the basis of collective action, mission is an articulation of purpose. To be sustainable, a mission must promise the fulfillment of some broadly perceived need at the industry or sector level. It should attract the support of relevant constituencies – those whose backing can contribute to the consortium’s success, or whose lack of support could jeopardize its success from the onset.”
“A viable mission has several characteristics. First, it must not deal in domains of corporate core competencies or threaten consortium members’ competitive advantage. Second, it must offer firm-specific economic value. To the extent that a consortium reflects public purpose and the national interest, it will have validity and legitimacy. As a primary mission, however, collective or public purpose may attract support only in the short run. In the long run, return on R&D investments, becomes more the compelling objective – and at least for the United States, that measure tends to give priority to short-term results.”
Basic elements of consortium strategy:
1. its membership constituency, as well as other founders (that is, the markets it will serve
2. It’s R&D sourcing modes (basically the choice between an internal staff and external contracting)
3. Its product line, or range of services it will provide
4. Its pricing modes (that is, the forms in which its revenues are derived – e.g., one time shareholder fees, annual membership dues, cost per project charges)
5. Its R&D delivery systems (the channels used in the diffusion of new technology to member companies, their suppliers and their markets)
Theory of Consortia
“”The relevant theory, developed largely by Olson and Hardin, may be summarized as follows. A collective good is likely to be provided if the economic gain is great enough for one party or group that it alone would be willing to pay the full cost. Others may join the group if the net benefits to them contributing to the collective effort are positive, or if some attractive by-products are available through membership. Non economic benefits – for example the psychic rewards of belonging – may be relevant in small groups, but may decrease in importance for larger groups.”
“Current theory also holds that large groups will be less effective than small ones, on the grounds that:
‘The larger the group, the smaller the share of the total benefit going to any individual and the less likelihood that any small subset of the group, mush less any single individual, will gain enough from getting collective good to bear the burden of providing even a small amount of it.’”
I’m not sure that I agree with this. It seems like the premise is based upon additive rather than synergistic value. It would seem to be true if there was a decreased value for adding members. But, I don’t believe it’s true in general.
Benefits of Collaboration
“In theory, the economic rationale for the formation of a collaborative group is the anticipation of gain by some member or core group – a greater gain than if the member or core group were to undertake the same mission independently.”
• Cost sharing opportunities
• Sharing complementary knowledge
• Transitioning opportunities for firms moving into new fields of technology or diversifying into new businesses
• Risk reduction opportunities
• Monitor technological advances
• Risk of not collaborating
• Non economic motivations (especially for the core group)
• Potential for economic gain
• Improving the health of the industry
• Networking opportunities
• Sense of mutual dependence (smaller firms)
• Potential for selective and proprietary product offerings
Technology Fountainheads: The Management Challenge of R&D Consortia, E. Raymond Corey, Harvard Business School Press, 1997
“The six consortia…were borne out of sense of industry crisis and/or deeply sensed need to advance the cause of industry R&D. In each instance, industry and/or government leaders articulated the need, advocated collective endeavor, and called for action.”
Why was Sematech successful?:
1. A viable, sustainable nationally important mission
2. Worked at precompetitive level
3. Outstanding leadership
4. Secured government funding
5. Industry led with 80% participation
Classification of R&D consortia;
1. Open membership
2. Exclusive membership
3. closed membership
Functions of R&D consortia:
• Development & dissemination of new industrial process technologies
• Technical education & training
• Environmental research (safety 7 health)
• Supply-industry infrastructure development
• Academic research & graduate education support
• End-product development & commercialization
• Industry standard-setting
• Industry disaster & crisis response
Strategy: “Vision is the basis for a call to action. The validity of a vision may depend upon the stature of those sounding the call, and on the premise that certain objectives can be met more effectively in a collective endeavor rather than the undertaking of a single firm.
If the vision is the basis of collective action, mission is an articulation of purpose. To be sustainable, a mission must promise the fulfillment of some broadly perceived need at the industry or sector level. It should attract the support of relevant constituencies – those whose backing can contribute to the consortium’s success, or whose lack of support could jeopardize its success from the onset.”
“A viable mission has several characteristics. First, it must not deal in domains of corporate core competencies or threaten consortium members’ competitive advantage. Second, it must offer firm-specific economic value. To the extent that a consortium reflects public purpose and the national interest, it will have validity and legitimacy. As a primary mission, however, collective or public purpose may attract support only in the short run. In the long run, return on R&D investments, becomes more the compelling objective – and at least for the United States, that measure tends to give priority to short-term results.”
Basic elements of consortium strategy:
1. its membership constituency, as well as other founders (that is, the markets it will serve
2. It’s R&D sourcing modes (basically the choice between an internal staff and external contracting)
3. Its product line, or range of services it will provide
4. Its pricing modes (that is, the forms in which its revenues are derived – e.g., one time shareholder fees, annual membership dues, cost per project charges)
5. Its R&D delivery systems (the channels used in the diffusion of new technology to member companies, their suppliers and their markets)
Theory of Consortia
“”The relevant theory, developed largely by Olson and Hardin, may be summarized as follows. A collective good is likely to be provided if the economic gain is great enough for one party or group that it alone would be willing to pay the full cost. Others may join the group if the net benefits to them contributing to the collective effort are positive, or if some attractive by-products are available through membership. Non economic benefits – for example the psychic rewards of belonging – may be relevant in small groups, but may decrease in importance for larger groups.”
“Current theory also holds that large groups will be less effective than small ones, on the grounds that:
‘The larger the group, the smaller the share of the total benefit going to any individual and the less likelihood that any small subset of the group, mush less any single individual, will gain enough from getting collective good to bear the burden of providing even a small amount of it.’”
I’m not sure that I agree with this. It seems like the premise is based upon additive rather than synergistic value. It would seem to be true if there was a decreased value for adding members. But, I don’t believe it’s true in general.
Benefits of Collaboration
“In theory, the economic rationale for the formation of a collaborative group is the anticipation of gain by some member or core group – a greater gain than if the member or core group were to undertake the same mission independently.”
• Cost sharing opportunities
• Sharing complementary knowledge
• Transitioning opportunities for firms moving into new fields of technology or diversifying into new businesses
• Risk reduction opportunities
• Monitor technological advances
• Risk of not collaborating
• Non economic motivations (especially for the core group)
• Potential for economic gain
• Improving the health of the industry
• Networking opportunities
• Sense of mutual dependence (smaller firms)
• Potential for selective and proprietary product offerings
Technology Fountainheads: The Management Challenge of R&D Consortia, E. Raymond Corey, Harvard Business School Press, 1997
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Forecasting Technological Change
These slides are a five part seminar on technology forecasting.
Technology/Internet Trends
The Future of Technology
This presentation discusses what technology is, in a very genral sense what are the key information technologies for the future, what is technology management and guidelines for thriving.
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