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Early switchers at earth2tech.com
Fears and hopes
Guess you know Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (youtube). When the wall came down in Berlin some 19 years ago it happened that this easy swinging a cappella sound was the somehow perfect soundtrack for the ambiguity in the mood of the reunified Germans. Ambiguity of fears and hopes – and what followed really was political “change management XXL” – with the inevitable pains of transformation.
Now, this is end of October 2008 and I feel a certain resemblance to the situation of 1989. In these days a lot of commentators suppose that the financial crisis is just the beginning of a longer lasting downturn of the global economy.
One last look back
Futurists and scenario planning people are prepared for the discontinuities of complex systems. This time the wild card was to expect. Warnings date back to 2006 (nypost.com) and even 2004 (abajournal.com). By the way recession cycles of market economy are observed since its beginnings. And Talebs book about the improbable “black swan” has been written in 2007. But who wants to hear bad news? We have to. That’s why we are implementing early warning systems and pay experts, even futurists.
Looking forward – Opportunities in times of transformation
This is the time of cutbacks and layoffs, but that is only the one side. At O’Reilly’s Web2Expo Europe some days ago I heard Robin Daniels (Salesforce.com / Cloud Computing: Freedom to Focus on Innovation”). One of the messages was: “Don’t optimize, but innovate!”. So don’t worry to much, Read the rest of this entry »
Startups? The party is over (tag it just “pink slip”)
We will see mass extinction of some tiny web services – so if you have some assets there, like some thousand relevant bookmarks, pictures or documents on some free service, now is the time to save it on your harddrive. Maybe tomorrow the server is down, maybe not. I have seen this all, when the first dotcom-bubble burst, and it will be just the same procedure. The big web 2.0 services (and Googzilla’s free services) will survive, but maybe will not be free anymore … Next post will be about the good news, the chances of this cleaning up, I’ll try! Interested in the tech sector, advantages of the crisis? For now read 10 Ways the Financial Meltdown Impacts Tech – Seeking Alpha
Via our (still beloved?) TechCrunch a lengthy presentation: Sequoia Capital’s 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom
Social media are mainstream (in some countries more than in other)
The concept of web 2.0 was under attack since the beginning and today in 2008 it sounds a bit old fashioned, at least for people like me using it since years. But actually we see again little bits of web innovation dynamics, recognize new phenomena in these days.
Consider e.g. the spreading of microblogging services like twitter – it is no accident that yammer.com was prize winner of TechCrunch50, just a “twitter for business”. And at DEMOfall 08 the winner was Plastic Logic’s ebook reader – will it be disruptive? Then there is the reality of new platforms – an emerging mobile
my.barackobama.com knows the tools of the social, viral, swarming web
It was not an easy task for Barack Obama’s team to find the right “historical place” for his appearance in Berlin. I am a foresight consultant (in Berlin) with a focus on technology, esp. ICT – but as a futurist I have to keep my scope broad up to 360 degrees – causal hyperconnectedness of things, you know …
Today I ponder about the interference of technology and politics. There has been written a lot about how the internet esp. the social media of web 2.0 changed the way of doing politics. But often the analytical categories don’t match the dynamic reality of the web.
I want to introduce the “swarm” as a serious category for a better understanding of things happening when some millions of connected users are losely coupled, interact and follow tags, interests, people, events, brands and … politicians.
SIGNAL: A political blogger is conceiving a new phenomena in the context of online campaigning
The democrats.org blogger “JMesserly” wrote on Mar 27th, 2008:
Notice is being taken of the connection between new phenomena: Swarm politics, Blog swarms, Fear in the ranks of traditional party and PAC professionals towards armies of volunteers that are indifferent and even hostile towards their efforts at command and control.
Folks may find this article interesting in the context of the newly dominant role of internet communications which is enabling a revolution in the way politics and collective activities like Wikipedia or Kiva can and are working today. [...] We must consider how the dynamics of swarm theory can be leveraged on the internet and in the marketplace to rapidly and decisively attack social problems. [my emphasis]
I found this post when I was googling in preparation of a presentation about swarm Read the rest of this entry »
