Category: future

Anniversary reflections

Windows turns 25 and the web turns 20. Where do we go next?

Last weekend Microsoft Windows turned 25 and the World Wide Web turns 20 next month. It’s worthwhile reflecting on how both have changed our industries and where the future is taking us.

When Windows came along, the vast majority of computer users where not connected to networks, in fact Windows’ few networking features were horrible until the arrival of Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in late 1993.

Even then it didn’t support the Internet, requiring an additional TCP/IP “stack”, the collection of software to make a Windows computer work with the net. The most popular TCP/IP stack was Trumpet Winsock, developed by Tasmanian Peter Tattam.

Microsoft’s disdain for the Internet lasted five years until shortly after the release of Windows 95 where Bill Gates realised bundling the private Microsoft Network (MSN) along with competitors such as Compuserve and America On Line was a strategic mistake.

That realisation and the rapid change executed by Bill Gates will go down as one of the biggest strategic turnarounds in corporate history. It certainly saved Microsoft’s neck although the integration of Internet Explorer into Windows created the massive malware problem that exploded in 2002 and persists to this day.

In turn the net has changed the way we connect with our staff, suppliers and customers. Email alone probably increased the speed of business by a factor of five and now smartphones, tablet computers and mobile broadband are each doing the same.

Looking back at that situation, we can ask ourselves where these technologies are going in the future. A recent presentation by Wall Street investment analyst Mary Meeker points to some of the direction we’ll see this heading.

Her presentation is excellent reading with her predictions of when smartphones will overtake desktop computers and some scary postscripts of the fiscal corner the US has painted itself into. The points can be summarised thus;

  • Globality
  • Mobility
  • Social ecosystems
  • Advertising
  • Commerce
  • Media
  • Company leadership
  • Steve Jobs
  • The ferocious pace of tech change

The last point is the most pertinent. At the time of the launch of Windows and the web innovation was largely a top down, management driven process. Today consumers and employees drive change, leaving corporate managers to catch up.

While Mary Meeker aimed the presentation at Internet executives, the lessons in it are clear for all businesses – our industries are going to be connected, mobile, global and far more responsive to the needs and ideas of our customers, staff and suppliers.

The change and disruption we’ve seen in our supply chains, markets and recruitment is going to become even faster that it’s been in the last twenty years.

It’s worthwhile reading Mary Meekers’ report while reflecting on how Windows and the Internet have changed our workplaces. It shows we’re only at the beginning of this era of massive change.

the new gatekeepers

Are four powerful online empires developing?

As the net matures, are we seeing a new phalanx of gatekeepers gathering to complement the old ones?

Four companies striving to control great parts of the Internet economy; Google in the search market, Facebook for social media, Amazon in e-commerce and Apple in mobility.

Of the four, Apple seems to be the furthest along this path as the iTunes store coupled with the market take up of iPad, iPhone and iPod combination are beginning to dominate the mobile device segment of the Internet.

This is illustrated by two stories in recent days; the first is News Corporation’s deal to develop a dedicated iPad “newspaper” and the other Robert Scoble’s description of how Application developers are increasingly focused on the Apple platform.

The telling part of Scoble’s story is where he speculates how the tech media could be being rendered irrelevant by Apple’s control of the iTunes store, he goes on to say;

“Do app developers need the press anymore?

They tell me yes, but not for the reason you might think.

What’s the reason? Well, they suspect that Apple’s team is watching the press for which apps get discussed and hyped up.”

Scoble’s article is interesting in how Apple’s dominance of the distribution chain allows them to bypass other media channels; why go to Facebook or Google, let alone your local newpaper to find out what the hottest new apps are?

Even more fascinating is how Apple’s control of its distribution channels ties in with its dominant hardware platform, this is the online equivalent to one company owning the paper mill, the presses, the trucks and the news stands then forcing every magazine and newspaper publisher to work them.

It’s instructive that despite the real risk that Apple could end dictating all terms to those who rely on iTunes as their publishing platform, newspaper publishers are locking themselves onto this world. This is despite the publishers spending the last two decades shoring up profitability by reducing margins to their news sellers and delivery agents.

Despite these risks, News Corporation isn’t holding back after Rupert Murdoch described the iPad as “a fantastic invention”, across the empire various outlets are promoting their iPad applications, including the New York Post, London Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

It will be very interesting to see how this alliance between an old and a new media empire will turn out.

Meanwhile the new empires are jostling each other where they meet, Google’s latest spat with Facebook over data is just one of many skirmishes and we can expect to see many more as the big four explore the boundaries of their businesses.

The real question for us is how do we see ourselves working with these empires. Will we reject them, or will we accept that doing business with Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon is the easiest way of getting on with our online lives?

If it’s the latter then we’ll have seen the old gatekeepers of the media, retail and communications simply replaced by new, bigger toll collectors.

Learning from the past

Armistice Day reminds us of why we need to learn and adapt

Today being Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the First World War’s end, it’s fitting to not just to remember those who fell in that costly war but also learn the lessons from the mistakes that ended up wasting so many lives.

Undoubtedly the biggest tragedy of the war was the sheer cost in soldiers’ lives which was due to the commanding generals’ refusal to accept the era of the cavalryman was over as the machine gun, supported by heavy artillery and the airplane, became the main battlefield weapon.

This wilful blindness to technology is even more galling when one considers the machine gun was an invention of the US civil war fifty years earlier and had been extensively used by the European powers in conquering and subduing native populations in their colonies.

Those commanders such as Haig, Gough, Ludendorff and Kaiser Whilhelm — the “donkeys leading lions” — ignored the technological changes that had changed their industry.

Worse, they wouldn’t listen; Haig rarely visited the front or spoke to his junior officers and men and the Kaiser was forced to abdicate and live out his days in exile because he ignored the discontent in his own country.

In times of great change, we need to listen, learn and adapt. As we saw in the 1914-18 war, the costs of not doing so can be great.

The new Pantopticon

Are we entering a new age of conformity?

There’s a rule in broadcasting that any microphone should be treated as loaded. Regardless of whether you think it’s on or not, you shouldn’t say anything untoward near a microphone that you wouldn’t want to go to air.

It’s a lesson many politicians have learned, sometimes to their great embarrassment and sometimes with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Today, in an age where almost everyone has a recording device in their pocket, we all have to be careful. The travails of an Australian Rugby League player, photographed by a friend doing something obscene while drunk on an end of season party, illustrates just how pervasive this surveillance can be.

In one respect this is good, as we saw with the Qantas A380 mishap in Singapore, a connected public allows the truth to get out despite the hysterical headlines of the media and the spin obsessed control of modern governments or big business. The fact almost everyone has a camera makes officials more accountable for their actions.

But there is a darker side, this constant monitoring can also be tool for conformity. Should you decide to dissent from the corporate, government or society norm, there is now plenty of material to discredit you – be it a drunken stunt with a dog, a silly Facebook post when you were 17 or a photo of you picking your nose while waiting at a traffic light.

There’s no shortage of ‘concerned citizens’ who will photograph or record us carrying out actions they believe don’t conform with their ideas what is normal and acceptable.

Our definition of ‘normal and acceptable’ is becoming more narrowed as well, as a myriad of communications channels allows us to watch only what fits into our view of the world and the rise of social media that lets us filter out those voices we don’t like.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the connected society develops over the next few year, will we become more insular and conformist or will we use these tools to broaden our horizons?

Thoughts on Media140

How is real time and social media changing politics?

This post was part of the Media 140 Australian Politics of which I was kindly invited as a guest blogger. The focus on the afternoon panel is because this was the specific session I was asked to cover by the organiser, Julie Posetti.

After an election what panelist and political cartoonist First Dog on the Moon
described as “three months of despair” a review from a panel of cartoonists,
photographers and other outliers of the Australian political journalism was always
going to be well received.

First Dog’s comments showed the general despair by the electorate at large towards
a bland performance by both major political parties, particularly in their use of new
media tools.

The rest of the afternoon panel on “alternative views on political news” shared First
Dog’s general attitude, but luckily they made up for that despair with an entertaining
and funny take on the election and pricking some of the pomposity that can surround
the social media communities.

Malcolm Farnsworth (@mfarnsworth) put this best when he described much of
Twitter as “ego, brown nosery and wankery”. Surprisingly this was taken well by the
room.

His point is valid though, we need to keep in mind that one of the attractions of social
media is we can choose our own friends, particularly in Twitter where we can restrict
our social circle to those we like and agree with.

A few of the questions from the floor recognised this as did Julian Morrow
(@moreoj) with a shameless plug for The Chaser’s iPhone App. In an earlier session
Claire Wardell had shown how new media isn’t just Twitter and tools like apps and
clever websites can drive the political discourse just as well as a witty tweet.

Julian also showed how The Chaser crew were ahead of the curve with taking a
failed newspaper empire online in the late 1990s. Although his line about Twitter giving “the monkeys the typewriters” also betrayed a Rupert Murdoch style bitterness towards
new media.

To further move the issue from social media, Peter Bowers (@mpbowers) raised
the issues of photographers’ rights and payments, citing the Hudson River plane
crash as a good example where an agency snapper would have received some
large rights payments for the early photos of the aircraft floating down the river.

Peter moved into another aspect of social media and the perils for photographers
when talking about Parliamentarians taking photos from the floor of the house. In
the Australian Parliament, there are strict rules about the use of images and he had
once been bought before the Privileges Committee for breaching the rules with the
possibility of gaol time for contempt of Parliament.

What this illustrated in Peter’s opinion was how laws haven’t kept up to date with
technology. We could also say it’s another example of how people don’t understand
the real time consequences of seemingly trivial online actions.

As one of the final sessions for the day, the session was good opportunity to liven up the room with some funny, out of the box and thinking that shot down the thought that the day would be a Twitter love-in.

Overall, Media140 was a success in examining how the new online tools are changing
politics and the reporting of it. Having Claire Wardell’s UK perspective and Jeffrey

Bleich’s view from the Obama campaign showed just how far Australia has to go with
these tools.

Probably the biggest message was from the journalist participants – it’s clear many are
uncomfortable with the public being able to work around the gatekeepers and some
are downright scared of the abuse they think they receive from the community.

“It’s all about getting paid” one journalist said. You can’t help but think that was the
same thing bleated by the loom weavers of 200 years ago.

What we saw from the OzPolitics Media140 is a community and society in great
change: The political parties, media and the electorate are working through how these
tools are going to change the way we vote and how our governments work.

The power of delegation

Why organisations need to learn Steve Jobs’ lessons

Randall Stross of The New York Times looked at Steve Jobs’ years in the wilderness running NeXT Computers and concluded the lessons he learned were essential to making Apple the success it is today.

While leading NeXT Jobs obsessed about detail, famously leaving his key customers waiting while he discussed the layout of sprinklers in the landscaped gardens.

On returning to Apple, Stross points out Apple’s management team has been remarkably stable and this stability, borne out of Jobs trusting his key staff to make the right decisions, is one of the reasons for the company’s success.

As we move into an era where information becomes a commodity and the old style of manager guarding their sources of knowledge becomes irrelevant, the trust based organisation is going to replace the command and control models of the past.

This is going to challenge to a lot of managers in private and public organisations. It will be interesting to see how enterprises, government agencies and political parties around the world manage those challenges.

The style of leader raising today is very different from those of the past.

An appropriate broadband policy

What should Australia’s Internet policy be?

On Radio National’s Life Matters Paul joins Richard Aedy, Jane Bennett and Peter Cox to discuss what the appropriate broadband policy should be for Australia.

Our previous discussions on this are covered in our Freeways of the Future article and presentation.

Some of the topics we’ll be looking at include;

  • if we choose to go with the est $43b broadband fibre to the door policy – does this mean they’ll be coming along digging up the street to lay cables into every yard?
  • if we don’t do this but choose to rely on wireless connection from hubs – what does that mean for reliability of internet connection?
  • how do any of the options compare to the current speeds Australian cities, and rural and remote regions have?
  • are we over-building if we proceed to take fibre to every household in the country?
  • are we simply ensuring that we will be ready for expansion of services on the internet?

The show is live at 9.00am Australian Eastern time and will podcast on the Life Matters site shortly afterward.

The innovation smugglers

Those dissenters sneaking new tools into your business are the future. Your organisation needs to embrace them.

“Sales staff have bought a pile of iPad’s!” wailed a senior executive last week “they didn’t get authorisation through IT, there are all sorts of security and business risks!”

This echoed the comments I’d heard a few weeks earlier while doing a workshop on cloud computing, that people were running software as a service applications alongside their businesses’ software without telling their management what they were doing.

All of this is reminiscent of the spread of personal computers in the late 1980s where IT departments, such as they then were, banned the use of IBM compatible or Macintosh computers because they were outside the control of the organisation.

The prevailing view was that computer systems were the domain of a select few, running the payroll and doing complex calculations in batches at two in the morning. There was no reason why the average worker should need this sort of technology.

Eventually, managements realised those subversive personal computers running programs like Wordstar and VisiCalc improved productivity and made businesses more flexible. Within five years few businesses didn’t have computers on the desks of every office worker.

We’re at the same stage now with cloud computing, social media and portable devices as many of today’s managers see them as at best toys and a threat to their organisation’s integrity. Quietly though, groups within are using theses tools to improve their teams’ effectiveness while not letting IT or senior management know how they are doing it.

These dissenters are an organisation’s innovators and in a perfect world they would be embraced by managers, directors and shareholders alike as the future of the company.

Many large organisations though don’t see it this way, as their view of the workplace is that innovation and new ideas have to be signed off by seven layers of management after being cleared by legal, HR and the facilities department.

This is where the opportunity lies for the smaller, smarter companies. These tools make organisations faster and more responsive to threats and opportunities which is perfect for the nimble and flexible enterprises.

If you have staff who are smuggling in these tools and devices into your business, consider sitting down with them and getting them to show you how these products improve their work. You may be surprised and it may save you some time in writing stern memos which will be ignored anyway.

The beauty of these tools is you don’t need to throw out your existing equipment and methods as often these new innovations sit happily alongside the legacy stuff. Cloud services are good example of this where services such as Salesforce and Google Apps work with and often plug into the older, established tools.

Because they play nice with existing business tools it’s easy to introduce or evaluate new systems by encouraging the innovators to set up groups or pilot projects within the organisation, which is probably what they are doing anyway without telling you.

In a competitive world, your dissenters are one of your greatest assets, by questioning how and why we use the tools we do, these folk are figuring out how businesses will run in the connected economy.

The question is, do you want your business to be succeed in this new economy?

The good news story

We have some great tales to tell. It’s time to do it.

Last night, 700 children gathered at the Sydney Opera House for The Festival of Choral Music. Over the four days the event is run, over 2,000 kids will have performed in the choirs, bands and ensembles.

Why aren’t we telling these stories of talent, potential, happiness and beauty? Why are we bogged down in the negative, backward looking view of the world we see in much of our commentary of the world?

Maybe it’s time for a rethink about the stories we tell.

Head in the clouds: ABC Nightlife

What does cloud computing mean to businesses and households

What is cloud computing and why does it matter to most homes and businesses?

Join Tony Delroy and Paul Wallbank to discuss cloud computing and what it means to the ordinary business and household on ABC Local Radio across Australia from 10pm on August 19.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

If you’d like to join the conversation with your questions or comments phone 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702 or twitter @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag

Failing Fast: Google Wave’s real business lesson

The fail fast philosophy is changing how businesses in all industries are operating.

A key philosophy underlying much of Silicon Valley’s successful companies is the “fail fast” concept where a business releases a rough version of a new idea and asks the world what it thinks. Should people like the idea, it gets developed and if they don’t, it gets dropped and everybody moves on to the next brainwave.

The “fail fast” philosophy was behind Google Wave’s dropping last week, as CEO Eric Schmidt said at the Techonomy Conference on the day it was announced; “….we release it and see what happens. It works, you announce product, you ship it…”

Until recently, “failing fast” was restricted to hot shot Internet businesses but as the cost of product development falls due to better collaboration tools, testing methods and global outsourcing, it’s become easier for all businesses to experiment without risking an organisation’s future.

This is very different from the old style of doing business, a good example of how things used to work was Boeing’s development of the 747 Jumbo Jet which was a $2 billion dollar bet, $14bn in 2010 dollars, on a big lumbering subsonic jet in the mid 1960s when the future of aviation seemed to be with sleek supersonic aircraft like the Concorde.

While Boeing’s bet paid off, it took 15 years and nearly sent the company broke.

Most of today’s businesses aren’t locked into 14 billion dollar and 15 year investment cycles as we can test products with simulation tools, computer aided design programs, fast prototyping and oursourcing services like o-desk for labour and alibaba.com for manufacturing without risking the farm.

For most businesses, it’s not even a matter of spending time and money actually developing ideas, usually it’s something as simple as testing a new idea by buying a domain name and setting up a low cost website on a cheap hosting service for under $200. If the idea flies then you start looking at spending real money on making the product ready for the broader market.

Failing fast presents a great challenge to the traditional organisation where the slightest failure is a stigma. In the new economy, a risk adverse culture is going to be punished by competitors who accept that not every idea is right for its time and learn lessons rather than punish those associated with the unsuccessful project.

While this is bad news for large organisations run by risk adverse managers it is one of the great opportunities for nimble and smart companies. If your business is prepared to take small risks, learn from the misses and celebrate the wins then your business could well be on the way to being the next Google.

The freeways of the future

How the Internet is changing Maggie’s life

“I don’t see why the Internet is important to me” said Maggie, the first caller to our “is the Internet the ultimate consumer’s revenge “ radio program.

Maggie’s question is a very good one at a time when governments, businesses and households are investing heavily in Internet technology. Just a few hours before the radio show I’d been invited by television program A Current Affair, to discuss if Australia’s 43 billion dollar investment in a National Broadband Network is worthwhile.

For Maggie and ACA’s viewers, the answer is “yes, it is very important” — the Internet today is what the motor car was to the early 20th Century and railways were to the 19th Century. Communities that aren’t connected will miss the benefits of the 21st Century economy.

To illustrate how important it will be, let’s have a look at Maggie’s life. We’ll assume she’s an older person living in a regional Australian town or one of the fast growing fringe suburbs of a big city.

Probably the most immediate change the Internet delivers for Maggie is how it is giving her a stronger voice as a consumer and citizen. This is what we discussed on the ABC program, how Internet tools like social media are giving customers and voters their voices back.

With reliable broadband Maggie can be researching products and voicing her dissatisfaction with government and private organisations to the world in a way that would have been impossible a few years ago.

Those Internet tools also growing communities around her as like minded people across the world and in her own district are connecting online then meeting in real life at events like Coffee Mornings.

Not only does the Internet connect communities, it connects families — one lady recently described to me how she speaks more to her daughter living in Brazil through Skype than she did when they lived nearby. The net brings friends and families back together and helps overcome social isolation.

Exclusion in education has always been a pressing issue, once upon a time you had to be in Cambridge or Oxford to access the world’s great minds. With a fast reliable Internet connection, the kids in Maggie’s neighbourhood can listen to a Harvard or MIT professor’s lecture without leaving their hometown.

Bringing knowledge to local communities will also help Maggie should she have to have to go to the local hospital, the local doctors will be able to consult specialists without Maggie having to travel long distances to get specialist advice.

Importantly for Maggie and her local hospital, the access to online training resources mean the local staff will be up to date with their professional development and across new trends, ensuring Maggie’s standard of care will be equal to the big city teaching hospitals.

Solving staff training issues also delivers benefits for the local business community. It means the Maggie’s son Tim, the owner of a local plumbing business, doesn’t have to pay for expensive training courses or to travel into town to attend business conferences.

The net also means Tim can access the world’s best business minds without leaving his office. Which gives him benefit of running his business more efficiently and profitably.

For Tim’s kids, it also means they aren’t excluded from the entertainment world. They can stream and download the latest things happening and share equally on social networking sites. They may be in a small town, but they can play in the big world.

Having these education, business, training and entertainment resources strengthens communities. It means kids and entrepreneurs can live in their home towns and still participate in the global economy. It means Maggie is a valued and important citizen of her country and the world.

Fast accessible Internet is more than important, it’s vital just in the ways roads, railways, canals and the telegraph were in their eras. The investment in these freeways of the future is necessary to grow strong and dynamic communities.