Kevin Kelly is a major influence on my work, and this video from Wired's Network conference is one of his best. Dive in and you'll see why. All of his books are worth reading, as well.
Kevin Kelly is a major influence on my work, and this video from Wired's Network conference is one of his best. Dive in and you'll see why. All of his books are worth reading, as well.
Join me for this event next week - should be fun (and it’s free :)smarterplanet:
Join our next live, interactive virtual panel discussion on the IBM Global Business Services Video Channel on Livestream. SIGN UP HERE
Date: Thursday, September 8, 1230pm ESTTopic: Mobile commerce is poised to take a great leap forward over the next ten years. How will it change the digital landscape in the process?Panelists:Alon Kronenberg, Practice Lead, Mobile Applications Practice, IBM Global Business Services (Host)James Wester, Editor of Mobile Payments Today (@jameswester)Molly Garris - Director, Digital Strategy at Arc Worldwide (@girliefromthed)Gerd Leonhard - CEO and Founder, The Futures Agency (@gleonhard)Set a reminder to join IBM and our virtual panel of thought leaders to examine how mCommerce may reshape our lives over the next ten years.See all our past vPanel webcasts (as a bit.ly bundle), and subscribe to the vPanel Series.
via www.futureof.biz
This video is part of a new series of 5-7 minute videos I recorded here in Basel, Switzerland in July. This episode shows about how I use social networks and mobile-optimized platforms / apps to spread the word about what I do. I also provide a few examples of the most efficient and viral online branding concepts that I have tried during the past decade. You can download this video if you go to my GerdTube.net video channel (on Blip.tv) or just subscribe to my video podcasts in iTunes.
Via Ross Dawson's blog. GerdTube link.
Some of the topics we discuss include:
“Twitter News Network” or TNN (as used by Brian Solis, first, I believe) describes how Twitter is now a news distribution media, dramatically increasing the speed of news, with most news hitting Twitter within 40 seconds.
TNN will be bigger than CNN, including video and audio on Twitter, produced by the masses with rich filtering
One of the key differences between TNN and CNN is the filtering – there is none on Twitter whereas CNN has editors and verification.
In the decade of the reputation economy we will have more ways to assess news validity, though we will also need more finely tuned senses on what is or might be correct.
Image via CrunchBase
Twitter is an ocean whereas mainstream news is a dripfeed so it is more manageable. It is the role of the ecosystem around Twitter to filter the news firehose. Flipboard, paper.li, Twittertim.es, Geneio and so on are seeking to filter Twitter and social media.
One of Twitter’s revenue models is charging companies significant amounts for access to the full Twitter firehose, but the ‘Spritzer’ feed of 2% of the firehose is available for free.
In a world of information overload, Twitter is one of the most useful information sources if you know how to use it well.
For the most current insights and trends in the living networks, follow @rossdawson and @gleonhard on Twitter!
This is a good one - loads of information in here, and pretty well recorded. More details and PDF with all slides, here. Enjoy and spread the word. Subscribe to my video RSS feed, here, if you want (download all videos directly to iTunes, watch on your iPod etc).
On March 1, 2010, I am starting with what I think is becoming an increasingly viable opportunity on the Net: online seminars, conferences, workshops, meetings and training sessions. I have done a few similar things (for various clients) in the past, using all kinds of platforms, and I believe the time is right to take the next steps, on my own turf, and... yes, indeed, even charge a few $ for it. You've had the Free / Feels Like Free, you've seen the Freemiums... so: I am wondering if you are ready for this idea.
If you have met me in 'meatspace' or are otherwise 'connected with me', or have been a reader of this blog for a while, you'll know that I have been publishing free slideshows, blog posts (and full-length feeds), PDFs, videos and essays for over 7 years.
Now I would like to investigate if maybe the next level above and beyond all that free content (and maybe to complement my 50+ paid speaking gigs and on-location think-tanks per year) could be to charge a small amount of money to make myself and some select colleagues available to a limited number of people that won't have to travel 1000s of miles to 'be there', using a fully interactive, online platform that allows for screen-sharing, chat, video and audio. After a lot of research I decided to try the DimDim web conferencing platform because of its ease of use and great features; in addition, I was dismayed by the fact that you apparently can't even sign up for Cisco's Webex service, online if you live outside the U.S.; to top that off, so far no-one has even bothered to get back to me via their contact form. Another time, then.
For this first session (and hopefully regularly) I am delighted to be joined by Alan Moore, Author (Communities Dominate Brands, with Tomi Ahonen), Blogger and fellow Keynote Speaker, for our very first no-entirely-free online seminar on March 1, 2010, at 1pm EST (NY) / 10 am PST (California), 6pm GMT (London), 7pm CET (Berlin) etc (you can figure out the timezones from here;).
"Alan Moore is the founder of the Engagement Communication Consultancy SMLXL. He is the author of several books including, Communities Dominate
Brands: Business and Marketing Challenges for the 21st Century. He is recognized as a great distiller of complex arguments
into their most salient points, who can take concepts from many sources
and find the previously hidden relationship between them. He is currently working on his next project: No Straight Lines: An advanced living course for the networked society. As a well known writer, thinker and public speaker Alan has addressed, radio, television, and conference audiences globally. Reviews of his books and his articles have been published in many respected magazines, journals and newspapers..."
I have worked with Alan several times and he just totally rocks; it will be a real treat to have him co-present on this seminar. Alan and me will both present for about 30 minutes followed by a discussion with the participants (which, for now, are capped at 100).
We will charge $50 USD per person for this 90-minute event. If this experiment works out we will be offering more online seminars, together, individually, and with other great presenters from our various networks, as well. So go ahead... make our day!
Thriving commercially in social media and the networked society: An interactive seminar with Gerd Leonhard and Alan Moore (sign up page on Eventbrite)
The terms social media and social networking are terms we frequently fling around, and think about every single day, accompanied by the word “digital”. The digitalness of our world has been picked over in minute detail. One cannot deny that it is, networked digital communication tools that has brought significant social, cultural and commercial disruptive change to all our lives.
We are in a period of transition, our world of business, media, and communications is evolving from the straight-lines of an industrial era to the more complex and networked world that mimics nature. Any transitory process brings with it complications. In this instance, for many people and organizations they feel they are outsiders, struggling to make sense of a seemingly anarchic world. They become concussed observers to this new world that surrounds them. The problem is that this interactive networked world isn’t about vertical silos, traditional notions of product and service creation, mass-production and mass media and marketing. It is about the massive flows of people, who are connecting, collaborating, organizing and creating in a manner that has nothing to do with a linear approach too much at all.
For over 150 years our economies, culture and society have been shaped by a straight-line logic producing considerable economic success. However, in the dawn of the Networked-Society, a straight-line logic of stuff done and creating wealth becomes a barrier to progress. Why? Because, the change wrought by the networked- society is structural – challenging how markets and organizations have co-evolved over the last 150 years.
So, as we de-couple from the ‘Straight Lines’ of our industrialised world – which framed all aspects of our lives – we do need a new logic to understand this new one. It must be a logic which provides a framework for how we relate to each other, how we communicate, how we create more effective and flexible organisations and how we create wealth. Because we are still faced with the same challenges: how do we find our customers, how do we make our customers sticky, how can we increase trade with our customers and serve those customers whilst at the same time, reducing the cost to serve?
Regardless of whether you are in retailing, the automotive industry, FMCG, music etc., this seminar can help you understand how to commercially thrive in the networked society. This interactive seminar is based upon our combined and extensive experience of working with many companies in helping them make the transition from a linear mass media model to a networked one. We will provide via case histories, practical guidance of how to thrive commercially in the networked society.
I have been very busy compiling my best essays, blog posts and other writings from the past 3 years, and have finally uploaded the most recent version to Lulu (my favorite print-on-demand book store). The new book is now called 'Friction is Fiction' and is available in 3 versions: 1) 158 pages, 6x9 inches / U.S. trade format, full-color, for $60.40, here (yes, it's quite pricey because of the cost of printing 4-color, on-demand) 2) the same dead-tree version, but in black & white only, for $19.98, here (much cheaper but a lot less cool;) 3) as a PDF, for a token price of $7.50, here.
I would be delighted if you would consider buying whatever works best for you - what better Christmas present could you possibly think of! Please note that this book will be updated every 3 months, to include my latest writings. If you want to share the book page please just send people to www.frictionisfiction.com - thanks.
As to giving away the free PDF, here is the deal: you can contact me anytime (via email, Facebook or Twitter) to request a free copy of the PDF if you just don't want to (or can't) spend the $7.50, and I will send you the download link. In return, what I ask from you is to pay me with attention, i.e. to write a review on Lulu, a blog-post, or a tweet about my book, with a link (all 3 is best;). Deal?
As to the title: I used to simply call this compilation 'The Best of Media Futurist' but while looking through all those posts - and spending a lot more time revising them - I found an important thread that goes through almost all of it and which therefore has become the new title: Friction is Fiction. So what does that mean? It means that if you are currently basing your success on maintaining or even constructing hurdles, difficulties or other bottlenecks somewhere in the system - i.e. if there is something that impedes the flow of information, or a transaction or purchase so that a higher price point or some other form of control over the can be obtained - then you are very likely to face diminishing revenues in the next few years. Building obstacles for users (fka consumers) used to work just fine but... no longer. Building walls is the fastest road to suicide in the digital economy.
The web has been utterly ruthless about finding these glaring points of friction, such as paying for eMail (remember that?), paying a ton of money for long-distance phone calls (remember those pre-skype days?), or consumers not having any access to travel booking systems, flight information or seating. These hurdles are being removed, one-by-one, and those 'people formerly known as consumers' are getting more powerful every single day. Banking on friction to increase your revenues has become like throwing matches into the river and asking it to stop - it's useless.
Friction was, of course, the main money-maker in the media, entertainment and content business, for a long time: certain CDs were only available in certain stores at certain times in certain countries, DVDs with those movies you really wanted were only available in certain countries and within certain 'windows', books had to be printed and shipped, and ring-tones could only be purchased from your operator. Basically, at every turn the consumer encountered have-to's and must's which essentially allowed a substantial level of control by the media and content companies - and thus, higher prices. In many cases, the more friction the higher the price you could ask for.
No longer. Read the book!
Related: my blog-book "The End of Control": download the first 6 chapters here. Also: My Music 2.0 book is available via Lulu, here
I met Michael Reinsch and the other cool guys from Mobalean at Tokyo 2.0 back in August 09. Now, they have put together a pretty nice mobile version of my Lifestream Page (see the regular version above) that makes it very easy to view all my latest updates on your iPhone, Blackberry or Android phones. This includes all the stuff that I share via many different platforms, incl. Twitter, Slideshare, Twitpic, Google Reader etc. We are using the Friendfeed API here, in case you were wondering. Check it out, and please let me know how you like it!
I think you may have noticed by now - I really like Twitter. Twitter and my tweeps have been a huge influence on my work.
One of the most important realizations that has recently transpired via my Twitter pipeline is how much I am gaining from the ever increasing Sharism i.e. by what others are sharing with me. I am indeed very, very lucky to be connected to so many brilliant and like-minded people that are publishing their thoughts freely and openly, using platforms such as Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, Slideshare and of course, their blogs. All of you deserve a big THANK YOU.
The increasing scope of the 'Proudly Found Elsewhere' approach (PFE) has become a very important component of my work; and vice versa I am hoping that my output is also PFE'd by others; the social web's "give and you will receive" approach has indeed worked out great for me.
So I figured it's time to give some more explicit credit to all those great people that have influenced me, and I maybe a good way to do that is to list them on a special, Twitter-API-based site such as Futerati; and maybe send some attention their way, in return. Futerati went online a few days ago, and much like Electric Artists' cool TrackingTwitter site (but a lot more personal) Futerati is presenting 6 constantly updated categories (Futurists, Thought Leaders Authors, Activists, StartUps and Others) with people that I follow, their latest tweets, the current number of followers, and with some brief comments on why I like them. With each featured twitter user, you can click straight through to their tweets or their profiles and easily connect with them, as well.
Please note that Futerati is a constant work in progress and therefore not complete at this time; I will be adding a lot more people as I dig through my 7400 network connections, during the next 4-6 weeks. So, if I should have listed you but have not done so yet please post something on Twitter (use @gleonhard) or use the hashtag #futerati or DM me via Twitter, or email, or comment on this blog. If we haven't 'met' yet but if you still want to be listed please ping me with your details so that I can take a look at you; in any case please note that every single connection I list on Futerati is personally selected by me. Enjoy - and RT!
Thanks to Arjan at FreedomLab in Amsterdam I disvovered the coolest Twitter widget today: Twitterfountain.This widget allows you to animate the latest tweets on any keyword, user or hashtag, and overlay them on top of Flickr images based on any other keyword or tag. You can adjust the settings (size, speed etc) as you see fit. Very cool indeed. Mashup heaven. Note: you may have to give it a few minutes to get cooking (right below!)... Want more?
I recently started a brand-new project with my friend and fellow futurist Glen Hiemstra, entitled Where Is It Going (WiiG). The concept is simple: we are taking questions from anyone, via Twitter, on any future-related topic, and we will record 5-8 minute long videos of Glen and myself attempting to answer as many questions as we can, on a weekly basis. We will also add a few other futurists from our network once we have solved a few technical issues. We have also started discussions with a potential partner that will help us with producing better videos -stay tuned.
This is how you can participate in WhereIsItGoing (WiiG):
Spread the word!
Subscribe to my Lifestream Feed.
Download Mobile Content Future Gerd Leonhard Momo Amsterdam Public 15 MB PDF
Great event in Amsterdam today - Mobile Monday rocks! Event details here. Twitter back-channel here. New: the Video is here!
Some predictions: the next 18 months
• Twitter will reach 50 Million + Users • Facebook will become the default social utility - and the biggest global Content Broadcaster • Google will double it’s Advertising revenues • The RIAA and the IFPI will run out of cash • Telecoms will get flat-rate content licenses • Skype will re-emerge as content player
The Google guys have just published a video with my talk at Authors@Google, in San Francisco, March 2, 2009 (see the details here Pdf: The End of Control Gerd Leonhard at Google SF PDF *22MB). Due to some technical issues my fancy slides (i.e. the stuff on the screen) come across very nicely in this video while I am left a bit 'in the dark' - but if you use the HQ version on the Youtube site you can still get a much better idea of what my face actually looks like (I guess always wearing black is not ideal when the lights are bad;). Anyway, I do think this is one of my best talks, so... watch the entire 55 Mins 22 Secs. As far as the End of Control Book is concerned, I will have an announcement on my plans within the next 10 days...stay tuned.
Here is the official Google Talks description: The End of Control & The Future of Content: The tough
issue of control emerges, again and again, as the key contention point
within TV companies, publishers, record labels, and broadcasters: How
can a commercial venture that is based on so-called intellectual
property thrive and prosper in an environment that seems to
continuously and progressively remove control from the
creators/owners/providers of content, and hands it over to the people
formerly known as consumers (aka the users), effectively making them
more powerful every single day? But the reality is that every
click inadvertently makes another case for the consumers
ever-increasing rise in importance. Within all the conversations I have
had about things like commercial content versus shared content, about
the read-only or the read-write web, and about copyright versus Fair
Use, the crucial question always seems to boil down to WHERE IS THE
CONTROL HERE, i.e., questions such as Who will control this new media
universe and How much control do I need to run a revenue-generating
business?
Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist