Just found this via Ricoh Europe, in collaboration with The Economist (free PDF download, but requires email registration). This is a definitive MUST READ. Serious intel and stats here, and totally spot-on foresights.
Just found this via Ricoh Europe, in collaboration with The Economist (free PDF download, but requires email registration). This is a definitive MUST READ. Serious intel and stats here, and totally spot-on foresights.
Here's a brand-new video from DigitalLondon 2012; good interview with many key topics covered such as sustainability, making money in a networked society, control versus trust, access versus ownership, future of content, climate change and global warming, how to become a networked company, why interdependence is the future, and much more.
Update: TechWorld has an interesting review of my talk, here. The best snippets:
Speaking at the Digital London conference this week, Gerd Leonhard, futurist and CEO of The Futures Agency, said that over the next decade, society needs to make the shift “from Ego to Eco”. “Global warming constitutes the biggest market failure in the history of capitalism,” said Leonhard. “The world is over-heated, over-spending and over-crowded, and a continued focus on growth alone may well kill us.”
He said that we are now moving from the “age of the network” to the “age of the networked”, where the concerns of the masses overtake the concerns of the one percent at the top of the economic pyramid. Leonhard identifies this as a major trend in business, energy and in politics. “Our entire system of economics and energy used to be based on systems that you had to invest in to build – and those were based on a closed system,” he said. “Now, because of the internet, systems are opening up and we can be decentralised. It's no longer important that you own the power plant, because if you have a distributed network of three million wind turbines you can do the same thing.”
Absolutely agreed. This is a huge powershift. Get ready to be disrupted. Read more here.
"London, 16 February 2012 - New figures from a study sponsored by Ricoh show that by 2020 the impact of new technology in the workplace will force businesses into a new era of decentralisation. The research , conducted by the Economist Intelligence unit, shows that 63 per cent of business leaders predict a shift towards a more decentralised business model and that responsibility for business decision making will move from centralised management boards towards individual employees. “We believe that businesses will be more process orientated, ensuring that critical information is more centralised and data can be received, stored and retrieved by employees. This will mean decision making can be less hierarchical and allow employees, who are collaborating directly with customers, to make important business decisions, without delay,” says David Mills, Executive Vice President, Operations, Ricoh Europe.
Supporting closer customer collaboration is essential as by 2020, business leaders believe that customers will be the main source of new product or service ideas. Furthermore, 86 per cent of business leaders agree that customers will become an integral part of internal decision-making and that project teams will typically include people from outside the organisation such as customers and business partners... In the future, there will also be a need to consider how experts outside the organisation can input and retrieve information to act on behalf of the business. 85.7 per cent of business leaders agree that project teams will typically include members from outside the organisation (for example, customers, partners, communities)... Mills says, “In the new era of decentralisation it will be essential for businesses to do more to adapt to the digital world, especially as critical information will need to be accessed by employees, many of whom will be working virtually or outside the business..."
This nice video just went up on my Youtube channel: my entire keynote speech (67 minutes) from the Future with High Speed Broadband Conference in Auckland, New Zealand on February 23, 2012. Topics: Transformational Technologies and Creating new demand for ICT services - The Future of Broadband and ICT -, in detail: the coming telemedia convergence, the future of content in a hyper-connected society, social networks are cable TV without the cable, why open standards are crucial, why and how data is the new oil, how Control is being replaced by engagement and involvement, why sustainability becomes even more important, the shift from egosystems versus ecosystems, the new drivers of Innovation. The slides are embedded below, as well.
I just finished my presentation at the Future of Broadband conference here in Auckland, New Zealand, and sure enough, someone from TechToday(NZ) has already reviewed and summarized some of it, see below. I will make the video available as soon as I have it, on my Youtube channel. The slides I used (most of them, at least) are below, as well. Enjoy and share:)
Jeremy Rifkin talks about this important observation in his new book "The Third Industrial Revolution" and in this New Statesmen piece excerpted below. The meme of 'lateral power' is a key topic in my new, upcoming book ("From Ego to Eco" - still very much in-progress) and is an important piece of t he puzzle, going forward. How can we truly change and address the issues that are crucial to our future success... or rather, survival:) ?
One answer will certainly include the switch to more lateral and side-by-side power as has been exemplified with the Internet: peer to peer, decentral, networked, real-time. More on this very soon. Comments would be very much appreciated.
"We take internet technology and transform the power grid of the world into an
energy internet. So when millions of us are producing our own green energy on site, storing it in hydrogen, our energy internet will allow us to sell and share any extra. We become our own energy producers. We then collaborate and share that energy in the same way as we share information on social media spaces on the internet.
Do you see this vision becoming a reality?
Young people now favour lateral and side-by-side power. That’s the new politics, and it’s favourable to a third industrial revolution. [They] grew up empowered on the internet to create its own information and share it freely. They now need to create their own green energy that they share in vast continental spaces..."
This is a short but rather poignant video featuring some recorded statements from me, overdupped with some animations by the brilliant freedom labs people in Amsterdam, pointing out how we are in the midst of our worldview painfully switching from EGO to ECO, citing examples and trends from the media business.
more via www.greenfuturist.com
Below, some very interesting thoughts on shared values. Food for thought.
Creating Shared Value - Harvard Business Review
"Business and society have been pitted against each other for too long. That is in part because economists have legitimized the idea that to provide societal benefits, companies must temper their economic success. In neoclassical thinking, a requirement for social improvement—such as safety or hiring the disabled—imposes a constraint on the corporation. Adding a constraint to a firm that is already maximizing profits, says the theory, will inevitably raise costs and reduce those profits. A related concept, with the same conclusion, is the notion of externalities. Externalities arise when firms create social costs that they do not have to bear, such as pollution. Thus, society must impose taxes, regulations, and penalties so that firms “internalize” these externalities—a belief influencing many government policy decisions.
A few days ago, I did a fairly lengthy and deep skype interview with Toronto-based Marie Germain from Branding 2.0 (see her Twitter channel here), touching on many issues including the future of commerce, selling, marketing and branding, so-called social media (I much prefer the term Social OS), current issues in technology and the Internet (such as SOPA - the deeply disturbing but nevertheless impending U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act), and media / content trends.
There are some quite juicy snippets in this interview, such as:
"In an truly digital society we probably don't need marketing as we know it"
"We are moving from a society, and an economy, based on EGOsystems to a society that is based on ECOsystems (i.e. INTERDEPENDENCE)"
"The old days of commerce were based on handcuffing consumers, now it's all about attraction, engagement and conversations (being a magnet rather than using handcuffs)"
This video uses an interesting format in that it is based on an audio track that was recorded on the phone, and superimposes some related images over it. Interesting. If you just want the audio track, here it is:
Gerd Leonhard TribeRadio Interview Jan 2012: Branding, SOPA et al
From the TribeRadio Youtube post: "World-renown futurist, Gerd Leonhard, in this interview speaks of the very serious challenges businesses and brands face; he offers solutions. On a more sombre note he exposes the ploys of controllers on internet freedom, SOPA to be clear. The Wall Street Journal acknowledges Gerd as one of the leading media futurists in the world. Powerful! Incisive! Gerd is simply delicious to the ears. Keynote Speaker, Founder of The Futures Agency, Advisor to top corporations and governments, author of five books, "The Future of Music", "Music 2.0", "The End of Control", "Friction is Fiction" and "The Future of Content". Gerd's background is in music; however, today he is a top game-changer, inspiring entrepreneurship and guiding us into a prodigious digital world. To reach the Host of Tribe Radio, Marie Germain: at her blog, http://Branding20.wordpress.com or her biz site, http://MarieGermain.com..."
Be sure to check out the other audio / video interviews on here channel as well, including Jeffrey Hayzlett ('Running the Gauntlet' book, former CMO of Kodak).
I just found this via Marie Germain and Branding 2.0: video of interview with Seth Godin on George Stroumboulopoulos “Strombo”, Canada’s leading late-night talk show. Some really great soundbites here - Seth is one of the people who always, without fail, inspire me.
Check out this video interview with Seth on BehindthebrandTV - it's a very good fit with the topics above, as well.
This year I am embarking on a new, additional mission. You may have already noticed in my Twitter feed and via my Facebook updates that I am expanding my work into various 'green' topics such as sustainability (in particular what has been termed 'sustainable capitalism), climate change and global warming, and renewable energy. While investigating these new topics I am also hard at work on my new book "From Ego to Eco" which will cover some of these issues (in addition to media, culture, politics and what I call 'the networked society) as well.
My new site / blog at GreenFuturist.com was launched a few months ago and is shaping up pretty well, already; I am using it primarily to share updates and interesting snippets culled from my research and 100s of RSS feeds that I scan for the latest developments. Please take a look, read the announcement (also below), comment, follow me on Tumblr, or subscribe to the GreenFuturist RSS feed. You may also want to visit (and like?) my new Facebook 'Green Futurist' page, or check out my new @AGreenFuturist Twitter channel.
I also recommend you follow my new public Kindle notes on Amazon - this is starting to be a good resource and I am sharing notes on 30+ books there.
My work in media, content, communications and the Future of Business will continue, of course; both with my esteemed colleagues at The Futures Agency as well as by myself. Stay tuned via TFA's Facebook page.
I have just confirmed my first public appearance as 'Green Futurist' at the EcoSummit 2012 in Berlin, on March 22nd (first thing in the morning), and look forward to maybe seeing you there (on-location or virtually) if at all possible.
See you soon! Gerd Leonhard
PS: be sure to follow and use this new Twitter hashtags #greenfutures and #mission12
Here is the official announcement of my new Mission 2012.
ANNOUNCING GREEN FUTURIST
I have worked in digital music, media and in the Internet business since 1995. Since 2001 I have worked as an independent Futurist with a focus on media, content, entertainment and publishing, technology, telecom as well as in marketing, branding and communications.
In 2012, I will expand my activities into a new direction which I like to call ”Green Futures”, encompassing issues such as sustainability, climate changeand carbon reduction, alternative and renewable energies, the future of transportation, a new type of capitalism that is not (just) based on profit and growth (as I call it, shifting from EGO to ECO), environmental action, eco-tourism and the future of the tourism, the ‘greening’ of business; and in general, the radical changes that a post-growth society will certainly demand of us, very soon.
Venture capitalist John Doerr said in his seminal and deeply moving 2007 Ted talk on green technologies, quoting KPCP Founder Eugene Kleiner: “there are times when the appropriate response is panic”. Without wanting to push the panic button even more frequently, or harder, than other futurists before me, I must admit that I also feel that we urgently must consider sweeping changes in how we live, work and do business.
I therefore want to use my somewhat tried-and-tested speaking and presentation skills to address perhaps the most important issue there is: how we can we change the way we live, how we operate our businesses, define our policies and direct our governments; and how we will use and replenish our planet’s resources, going forward.
I believe that if we don’t stop borrowi ng from our own future, and if we don’t start paying the real price for what our ever-increasing consumption actually costs (or maybe even curtail our consumption??), we have a very good chance at losing everything we value, today, in the next 20-50 years. We may lose our oceans, our forests, our glaciers, our rivers, our wildlife, our breathable air and our clean water - and this is not a world that I want my children, or grand-children, to live in.
Maybe we can no longer be content with ‘tinkering around the edges’, making only minor dents into this rapidly widening path to destruction. Maybe we need large, sweeping actions that will require significant sacrifices from us. It is these conversations and actions I want to further with my work as Green Futurist.
Gerd Leonhard, January 2012
In this very insightful Authors-at-Google-video Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, aptly summarizes several key topics such as the reasons for the economic crisis, the increasing inequality in America, and the consequences of globalization.
Watch the whole thing and you'll understand what the world - and in particular, America - is up against in 2012. And check out his book "The price of Civilization" - I just got it for my Kindle and will share my public bookmarks soon, here.
If you own a Kindle you can follow my Kindle note-sharing here.
From Youtube: "As he has done in dozens of countries around the world in the midst of economic crises, Sachs turns his unique diagnostic skills to what ails the American economy. He finds that both political parties—and many leading economists—have missed the big picture, offering shortsighted solutions such as stimulus spending or tax cuts to address complex economic problems that require deeper solutions. Sachs argues that we have profoundly underestimated globalization's long-term effects on our country, which create deep and largely unmet challenges with regard to jobs, incomes, poverty, and the environment. America's single biggest economic failure, Sachs argues, is its inability to come to grips with the new global economic realities.
Yet Sachs goes deeper than an economic diagnosis. By taking a broad, holistic approach—looking at domestic politics, geopolitics, social psychology, and the natural environment as well—Sachs reveals the larger fissures underlying our country's current crisis. He shows how Washington has consistently failed to address America's economic needs. He describes a political system that has lost its ethical moorings, in which ever-rising campaign contributions and lobbying outlays overpower the voice of the citizenry. He also looks at the crisis in our culture, in which an overstimulated and consumption-driven populace in a ferocious quest for wealth now suffers shortfalls of social trust, honesty, and compassion. Finally, Sachs offers a plan to turn the crisis around. He argues persuasively that the problem is not America's abiding values, which remain generous and pragmatic, but the ease with which political spin and consumerism run circles around those values. He bids the reader to reclaim the virtues of good citizenship and mindfulness toward the economy and one another. Most important, he bids each of us to accept the price of civilization, so that together we can restore America to its great promise...."
Here is my short letter via the Terrapinn blog announcing my opening keynote speech at the World eReading Summit in London, May 15/16, 2012.
"I am a longtime commentator on how the digital, mobile and social-media revolution has left Publishers reeling and in a state of total change or even disruption. This is a call to action to transform your business to embrace and conquer the digital age. Failure to do so will mean inevitable friction, market confusion and possibly a dysfunctional content ecosystem, when on the other hand you could stand to profit from long term revenue generating opportunities.
It is often said that where attention flows money follows (*Kevin Kelly kk.org), but the question is how, where and when to convert them. Today, digital natives are viewers, users, followers, friends, co-creators, co-producers or crowd-sourced collaborators, all-in-one. Going forward, data is becoming the new oil, and understanding, analysing, predicting and staying ahead of your ‘connected consumers’ is quickly becoming a MUST for your business in 2012 and beyond!
So far, technological content protection measures have not been successful. Instead, future ‘protection’ will need to come from the business models and from social cohesion. Delivering tangible value and inventing new free, freemium, feels-like-free models will be crucially important. Just look at Skype, Spotify, Amazon and the undisputed master of ‘free’ – Google. You need to asses the role ‘free’ will play in your business. How will you monetize your content and which new and innovative revenue generating concepts will transform the commercial prospects of your business? Yes, methods of monetizing content are fragmented, but also much more powerful, immediate and liquid than ever. This industry, this transitional period and the World e-Reading Congress 2012 are all key opportunities to harness your digital footprint and develop strategies that will pay dividends in solid revenue. I look forward to meeting you all at the World e-Reading Congress next May.”
Gerd Leonhard, CEO, The Futures Agency – Opening Keynote Speaker 2012.
This is a self-recorded video of my keynote speech on 'TeleMedia Futures: Making the most of the Content Opportunity' at the recent Total Telecom conference in London, Nov 7 / 8, 2011. Apologies for the somewhat less than perfect recording quality (note that the crackling sound that starts at about 2 mins into the video will seize a minute later:). You can download the PDF of my presentation here: Download TeleMedia and Content Gerd Leonhard Total Telecom Public
More presentations (100+) can be viewed and downloaded via Slideshare
Today is a very big day for me. My new Kindle book "The Future of Content" just went online at Amazon, and is already gaining a lot of traction. You can view a very short video greeting about the book on my GerdTube channel (Youtube:)
Of course I would be very happy if you would consider buying the book for yourself (only $3.90, Kindle-only) but beyond that it would be really great if you could help me spread the word via rating and / or 'liking' the book on the Amazon.com page, tweeting about it or just forwarding this mail to some friends that may be interested.
As you probably know, I have published my last 3 books as free pdfs (which are quite popular) but really wanted to try something new with this book; after all reading on the Kindle is a much better experience than reading a PDF, and thus is, to quote Kevin Kelly, one of those "New Generatives" :)
"The future of content" will also be available in dead-tree-versions aka print, via my Lulu store, soon - please stay tuned. Happy reading!
Gerd Leonhard
(Media Futurist and CEO of The Futures Agency),
Basel / Switzerland
http://twitter.com/#!/gleonhard
My public Amazon / Kindle profile
(sharing all my book highlights there)
Update October 25 2011: this nice review may be helpful:
"I challenge you to expand your brain and read this book. What Gerd Leonhard is always doing is informing the global brain (or the collective brain) in ways that help us all get where we're trying to go. He builds the buildings in front of us.
This collection points toward several compelling answers for content creators. As a writer who is already swimming in the changing currents of "content," I found it intensely informative. Leonhard shores up my courage to continue embracing a digital world without DRM, and ebook prices "for the masses." He makes the all-important concept of curation crystal clear. If you are providing any kind of content in print or on the web, it's relevant. If you want to stay on the front edge of content creation and publishing, it's basic. I'm making this book mandatory reading for my epublishing circles"
Amazon Kindle German Store
Amazon Kindle French Store
Amazon Kindle UK Store
ABOUT "THE FUTURE OF CONTENT"
Futurist Gerd Leonhard has been writing about the future of content i.e. music, film, TV, books, newspapers, games etc, since 1998. He has published 4 books on this topic, 2 of them on music (The Future of Music, with David Kusek, and Music 2.0). For the past 10 years Leonhard has been deeply involved with many clients in various sectors of the content industry, in something like 17 countries, and it’s been a great experience, he says. “I have learned a lot, I have listened a lot, I have talked even more (most likely:) and I think I have grown to really understand the issues that face the content industries - and the creators, themselves - in the switch from physical to digital media.”
This Kindle book is a highly curated collection of the most important essays and blog posts Leonhard has written on this topic, and even though some of it was written as far back as 2007 - “I believe it still holds water years later. I have tried to only include the pieces that have real teeth. Please note that the original date of each piece is shown here in order to allow for contextual orientation.” Leonhard’s intent to publish this via the amazing Amazon Kindle platform, exclusively, and at a very low price, is to make these ideas and concepts as widely available as possible while still trying to be an example of what digital, paperless distribution can look like, going forward.
Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist
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