President of Google’s EMEA operations talks about changes which are happening and their pace. Predictions are hard to make, but important decisions needs to be done now. Broadband access went from a nice to have, to a must have. People use Internet mostly for search, chat and entertainment. Community sites become very popular which rises interesting question: Is the content going to be in the center and communities will form around it, or community will form the center and people will find likewise communities to discuss relevant content? He concludes that the biggest brands in the last ten years were developed on the basis of product performance. People demand quality products. Most of these products were free to a consumer and there was a community side to it. I finish with two questions, which I seek answers to. What is the impact of the internet on traditional (4P) marketing? What are the relevant marketing strategies if the product is free?
Something for the coming weekend and all the people working in creative industries.
Imagine a car which comes with an electric miles energy subscription similar to your mobile subscription from your favorite telecom provider. You pass a pump and just swap depleted battery for a new one. Or charge at home while parking.
Great thing about subscription model is that the more you use it the cheaper it is. You get mobile phone for free and unlimited minutes with certain subscription plans. Imagine taking mobile service subscription model to an automotive industry. Shai Agassi is working on such an exciting project:
Interesting talk about extraction of value from real people and real companies producing goods and services, to rather holdings, financial corporations creating myths around products. Companies which don’t make anything but rather become names on debt.
Douglas Rushkoff raises interesting question about our current economy. As money were created to hold value in the age of scarcity, they don’t work well in present age based on abundance. It is free to distribute stuff across the Internet. That’s why scarcity based lending banking model doesn’t work.
“They were so stupid, they bought shares of their own ponzi schemes”. Douglas Rushkoff talking about banks. If you have so much money created where are you going to put them?
If you like this talk, you will also enjoy Hacking the Economy article.
Barry Schwartz talks about how we stopped being wise. People more and more follow rules, which allow them to stop thinking.
He describes few features of wise person who:
- knows when and how to make exception to every rule
- knows how to improvise
- knows how to use moral skills in the pursuit of the right aims
- is made, not born
I have just remembered Ritzer and his McDonaldization of society theory. I think that it is very important to think critically and not just blindly follow any given rule. It is just sad that many people do not know how to be human these times. I would like to see honesty and kindness in everybody.
I dint’t need to tell it, somebody else did :).
Until now I was just listening to stupid information about recession from the media. Nobody who had clue or give serious proposal came across. Media are just repeating one another, same and same again. Today I came across first realistic view of the recession cause and proposal at the same time. Duncan Bannatyne, Scottish entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den investor has probably more clue than most of others.
He believes that the problem was caused by the banks lending to each other. They borrow from each other and instead of it, they give each other security packages, which are less of the value than what the borrowing was.
He aligned it to supermarkets. If the supermarkets were lending each other fruit and vegetables and one was in trouble, they all would be in trouble at the same time.
The solution would be to stop banks letting each other, instead borrowing money from the central bank. If such self contained bank went bust, the rest could buy pickings. Same way as when a supermarket goes bust.
This woul also decrease money wasting across the system - people that take bonuses from moving same money around the system. Eventually there could be much more money available for the business or individuals in need of credit.
John Maeda is blurring the lines between programming and design. At the end of the talk he mentions one interesting problem as it is not about how to make the world more technological, but how to make it more human again. I very much share his view.
We are having some gas supply issues here in eastern europe. But the good thing is that after these troubles, companies, industries may finally realize that they can not depend on gas. This could force them to look towards alternative energy, and alternative systems for heating. There are many options, from ground heating pumps to thermal energy, which seems to be plenty of available in Slovakia. Trouble is that till now everybody was very content with russian gas and nobody looked ahead. Clever leap towards alternative sources would be a good move. Imagine a world powered completely with renewables. Production halls covered with structure changing glass which would absorb sun heating in the winter and reflect light in the summer. Homes powered with heating pumps or ground thermal source.
Definitely there are many options to go. We should start making first step.
