If you are in Sao Paulo Nov 5, please be sure to join me for this event. The video below outlines some of the topics I am planning to talk about. See you there!
Entries categorized "Open Source"
October 26, 2012
October 24, 2011
Announcing my new Kindle book "The Future of Content"
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:
Increases brain power for content creators, October 25, 2011This review is from: The Future of Content (Kindle Edition)
"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.
August 02, 2011
New futurist conversation with Ross Dawson: Open vs Closed Systems (video)
Here is another episode from a series of videos I made with my friend and fellow futurist Ross Dawson, in Sydney, last month. Read his entire post here, and check out Ross's video channel here. And be sure to visit GerdTube:)
Via Ross's post: "Here are a few of the points we make in the video:
* Many executives want to know whether and why they need to open up their business models and customer interactions
* Open systems are faster, more viral, have more innovation, and are more fun to work in
* Apple is the only prominent example of a closed system that is working well
* There is a long and gradual trend to open systems, but progress is rarely linear and it hasn’t shifted as fast as we may have expected
* Platforms and open source have been significant wins for open systems
* There is a battle between ecosystems – you want to be open within the space but compete with other ecosystems
* Android within the platform is open – arguably too open – yet it competes with other mobile platforms it in fact so has boundaries
* Being too open can make things slower to progress, for example with quality assurance issues
* The development of a highly interconnected world creates more need for open systems
* APIs have provided a huge boost to the Internet economy
* Google’s early move to expose APIs to many of its products provided the impetus for this to become standard practice across the net
* A key issue is the pace at which commercial organizations should open out their models
* Facebook has become more open over time due to customer pressure, however now that Google+ has provided a ready way to export personal profiles that changes the competitive landscape in social networks
July 05, 2011
March 22, 2011
Tim Berners-Lee on Open Data (Ted.com video) - great examples here
This is a must-watch video if you want some good examples on how open data systems have real impact on business, society and politics.
February 09, 2011
New video: my talk at MidemNet Academy 2011 on Innovation: music industry learnings from other industries
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).
May 23, 2010
Complete video and audio from my appearance on Roda Viva / TV Cultura (Brazil), April 2010
This is the complete, 75-minute video of my appearance on Brazil's most popular talk show on Public TV, called Roda Viva (on the TV Cultura channel). I was delighted to be invited to the show, and really enjoyed being 'grilled' by the super-smart journalists and Brazilian media experts in the studio. We could have talked forever! The show was originally broadcast on April 26 (on Brazilian TV as well as online, see the Twitter buzz here) but unfortunately the webcast did not work very well so this is the first time I have seen the video, myself, and thanks to Roda Viva / TV Cultura I am delighted to be able to share this recording with you, as well.
More information about the show is here. Duda Groisman made some great photos during the recording of this show, embedded below. Related activities on this trip include: my presentation for NBS Brazil "The Future of Communications and Business", and my presentation at Fundacao Dom Cabral (one of Brazil's best business schools) on "The Open Network Economy". Please note: the video is half Portuguese (the questions) and half English (my replies)
May 14, 2010
The Future of Business: Slideshow on the changing Frameworks of the Open Economy (FDC Brazil)
I just did this presentation at the Fundacao Dom Cabral's CEO training series - take a look. I will have another post on this later but the big news is that I have just been appointed Visiting Professor at FDC, yesterday (FDC is the 6th highest rated business school in the world). Cool!
The Future of Business: the changing framework of the Open Economy (FDC Brazil)
View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.
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February 25, 2010
Shifting to the Open Network Economy: my presentation at the Fundacao Dom Cabral CEO event in Sao Paulo
It was a great pleasure to be invited to contribute to the Sao Paulo / Brazil-based Fundacao Dom Cabral's innovative CEO leadership program, led by my colleague and Swiss-Brazilian collaborator and leadership guru Didier Marlier, as a visiting professor. Below is a fairly large and long (95 pages - do not print!!) slideshow with most of the important stuff I presented; needless to say this was not the usual 45-60 minute session but took pretty much the entire afternoon. I was extremely impressed with the organization and their hosts (FDC / Dalton Sandenberg) as well as with the fast and agile minds of the CEOs that attended - we had some very inspiring conversations. And Caipirinias, too;). Update: Low-res download of PDF here: PDF 11.5 MB Open Network Economy Gerd Leonhard FDC SP Low-res
Enjoy. Share. Retweet. And get my free iPhone app before it turns 'freemium'.
Shifting to the Open Network Economy (FDC CEO Event in Sao Paolo)
View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.
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February 04, 2010
We are shifting to an Open Operating System (and not just in media)
I just re-discovered a video of an interview with me (see below), during Picnic 2009; posted by the European Journalism Centre. There are a few important points from the video that I want to share with you:
- The new winners (with the possible exception of Apple;) are all pursuing open platforms; i.e. products and services that can easily yet deeply connect with others (I sometimes call this 'the cult[ure] of API'), companies that are ready to collaborate, co-create new business opportunities and share revenues (see Google, Skype, Twitter, SixApart, Wordpress, NPR, The Guardian, Salesforce.com, Amazon etc)
- The switch from 'The Network' to 'The Networked' and from Broadcasting to Conversation is a shift across entire societies and cultures, not just in business or technology; this is further amplified by the simultaneous move towards radical globalization and increased localization
- In an Open OS i.e. an interconnected Ecosystem (good examples include Google *for now, and the blogosphere) you don't compete with mere force or market-power, you compete on merit and trust. This is why I believe that once the system is more liquid and there are less hurdles to 'conversion fro
m free', good artists / creators / producers / curators will indeed prosper more than ever before (call me an eternal optimist)
- Pretty much every creator already knows it's not (just) about selling copies of his/her work, rather, in a connected and interdependent ecosystem it is about selling the brand, the perception, the experience. This is why the content industry's tradition of over-emphasizing copyright as the sole guarantor of future revenues won't work (at least not if you want to actually increase revenues rather than just maintain an illusion of control)
- In an Open Content Ecosystem it won't really matter who copies what, but how much attention you get before and during the process, and how good you are in converting it into action and / or real monetary value (and this is as true for brands as it is for content creators)
- In a digitally networked society, the value isn't so much in the content, itself, as it is in the context (see my previous post on the same topic)
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January 04, 2010
Via the official Google blog: the meaning of Open (a definitive must-read)
There are a ton of really great kernels of wisdom and learnings in this open letter by Google's Jonathan Rosenberg. Be sure to read the whole thing; but here is the most essential part:
"Closed systems are well-defined and profitable, but only for those who control them. Open systems are chaotic and profitable, but only for those who understand them well and move faster than everyone else. Closed systems grow quickly while open systems evolve more slowly, so placing your bets on open requires the optimism, will, and means to think long term. Fortunately, at Google we have all three of these"
Coincidentally, in 2008, one of my my most popular speaking topics was "Open is King". Check out these resources, below.
Open is King (video), presentation at the Experience Economy Lab in Amsterdam (January 25, 2008, get the pdf / slides here)
Gerd Leonhard Futurist At Jakarta Broadband Summit "Open is King - The Future of Media
View more documents from Gerd Leonhard.
Futurist Gerd Leonhard on Open is King - The Future of Music, Canadian Music Week 2008
View more documents from Gerd Leonhard.
And here's a German video (Telekom Trendforum 2008)
Link: 
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August 06, 2009
Open is King (interesting video by Adobe)
This is an interesting video about how Adobe is moving towards openness, with a dozen key Adobe technologies already released as open source (such as the open source FLEX SDK) and the key flash compiler (Tamarin) recently given to the Mozilla foundation. Interesting - so will open really be King, going forward, like I have been stipulating for the past 3 years...?
As to Adobe, it does seem that the public perception in the wider marketplace is that Adobe is not quite open enough, yet (read the comments on the Youtube page), and I do wonder about that, as well, but shall reserve my final opinion until I have had more time to accurately research this topic. In any case, the Adobe guy in the video does a pretty good job explaining Adobe's approach, defining open as: Open Source, Standards and Community. Quote: "The flash platform is about as open as it can possible be" I will look into this a bit further; in the meantime do check out the video below.
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Gerd Leonhard
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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